Below median and bewildered Forum

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MrAnon

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by MrAnon » Sat Jan 21, 2012 10:49 am

nStiver wrote:
calilaw wrote:I do take issue with your statement about "students who are intelligent," which implies some are not. All of my peers are exceptionally intelligent, yet by virtue of the curve many received C's. It's not about intelligence; it's about selecting whatever methods work for you (and the courses you're taking) and forcing yourself to study when you would rather be doing other things.
Thats what makes law school so damn hard, is everyone is so fucking smart.
No, if they were all that smart they wouldn't have gone to law school. You think the people below median are genius? They are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for job prospects similar to what they had after undergrad. that's smart? Sounds like a fools errand to me. I think what you are trying to say is that everyone in law school did well in undergrad. That's a whole lot different than smart.

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johansantana21

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by johansantana21 » Sat Jan 21, 2012 11:17 am

Law school finals doesn't test intelligence, it just tests who is a better law school final exam taker.

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sunynp

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by sunynp » Sat Jan 21, 2012 11:17 am

MrAnon wrote:
nStiver wrote:
calilaw wrote:I do take issue with your statement about "students who are intelligent," which implies some are not. All of my peers are exceptionally intelligent, yet by virtue of the curve many received C's. It's not about intelligence; it's about selecting whatever methods work for you (and the courses you're taking) and forcing yourself to study when you would rather be doing other things.
Thats what makes law school so damn hard, is everyone is so fucking smart.
No, if they were all that smart they wouldn't have gone to law school. You think the people below median are genius? They are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for job prospects similar to what they had after undergrad. that's smart? Sounds like a fools errand to me. I think what you are trying to say is that everyone in law school did well in undergrad. That's a whole lot different than smart.
So Mr. Anon, do you think that Peg should drop out now, or give it another semester? What if she has a great scholarship?

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by MrAnon » Sat Jan 21, 2012 11:26 am

sunynp wrote:
MrAnon wrote:
nStiver wrote:
calilaw wrote:I do take issue with your statement about "students who are intelligent," which implies some are not. All of my peers are exceptionally intelligent, yet by virtue of the curve many received C's. It's not about intelligence; it's about selecting whatever methods work for you (and the courses you're taking) and forcing yourself to study when you would rather be doing other things.
Thats what makes law school so damn hard, is everyone is so fucking smart.
No, if they were all that smart they wouldn't have gone to law school. You think the people below median are genius? They are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for job prospects similar to what they had after undergrad. that's smart? Sounds like a fools errand to me. I think what you are trying to say is that everyone in law school did well in undergrad. That's a whole lot different than smart.
So Mr. Anon, do you think that Peg should drop out now, or give it another semester? What if she has a great scholarship?
If she savors the idea of being a lawyer then she should stay the course and realize class rankings don't matter for her position. If she doesn't want to be a lawyer anymore then she should quit immediately because she was only in it for the glory of biglaw.

If she decides to stay the course then she should realize class rank is not going to be critical to her future anymore. As someone above said, enjoy life more, find a job during school--this is really important, and act like a normal human being. Finish the degree and then get to work. Chasing class rank at this point especially for OCI will just sap a lot of energy that could be put into other endeavors that will matter more to her future.

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romothesavior

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by romothesavior » Sat Jan 21, 2012 1:08 pm

nStiver wrote:
calilaw wrote:I do take issue with your statement about "students who are intelligent," which implies some are not. All of my peers are exceptionally intelligent, yet by virtue of the curve many received C's. It's not about intelligence; it's about selecting whatever methods work for you (and the courses you're taking) and forcing yourself to study when you would rather be doing other things.
Thats what makes law school so damn hard, is everyone is so fucking smart.
Most are intelligent. Not all are, or at least not in a "law school" way. I have seen some exceptionally underprepared people do above median on exams, which makes me wonder what the bottom quarter people are doing to get smoked by people who studied only a minimal amount. I don't think anyone in law school is stupid, but I thoroughly disagree with the TLS and law school administration mantra that everyone in our classes is brilliant. Listen to what your classmates say in class sometime if you really think that everyone is equally smart. If you can't hear the stupid comments, then you may be the one making them.

If you reread what I wrote, I said "and." Being intelligent is one requisite to doing what I said, the other is being good at exams. The latter is the far harder one to achieve, and I'd say a pretty small set of students have this skill naturally. But again, based on my own subjective experiences and observations, I think an intelligent student who is good at exam taking can study for a week or two for most exams and perform well. Its probably not the recommended approach, but it is possible. The material just isn't that hard to learn from supplements. I have seen some of my good friends who are just as smart as I am, twice as hard working, and know the material far better than I do, end up with worse grades than me. What's the explanation? Actual exam-taking skills is the difference. I think it is the single biggest factor to doing well in law school.

This is why I think all this discussion about reading strategy and shit is stupid. OP got bad grades because she wrote bad exam answers. She sounds lime she studied hard and understood the material. She just didn't produce quality on game day, so she needs to work on that by learning what the professors want by talking to them, and taking more practice tests. And she should chill and have more fun this semester, I seriously mean that. Getting up at 6 am on a Saturday in January for school stuff? You sound like a treat to go to school with. I really think chilling the hell out and not being so high strung would help your grades a lot.

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Old Gregg

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by Old Gregg » Sat Jan 21, 2012 4:59 pm

Every second you spend not answering a question (or answering a question that isn't asked) is another second your classmates have to spot yet another issue for a question that is asked. That's where they get the edge. And don't even try for a second to say that you spotted all the issues for a single question that you felt the need to go in another direction. Almost no one ever spots all the issues for a question, not even the highest grade in the class.

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by MrAnon » Sat Jan 21, 2012 5:29 pm

This thread is why law school and class rank are the perfect proxy for biglaw hiring. If biglaw partner asks you to analyze a question and you go off and analyze other questions he did not ask about, and did not do the reading you were asked to do for the assignment, well, then biglaw does not have any use for you.

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AVBucks4239

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by AVBucks4239 » Sat Jan 21, 2012 5:43 pm

Fresh Prince wrote:Every second you spend not answering a question (or answering a question that isn't asked) is another second your classmates have to spot yet another issue for a question that is asked. That's where they get the edge. And don't even try for a second to say that you spotted all the issues for a single question that you felt the need to go in another direction. Almost no one ever spots all the issues for a question, not even the highest grade in the class.
I agree that OP probably spent too much time outlining, but I don't think taking 3-4 minutes to sketch an outline will hurt your grade. I think professors are generally lazy and prefer answers to be as organized as possible. I know I couldn't do this without outlining.

As this thread has shown, different strokes I guess.

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Old Gregg

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by Old Gregg » Sat Jan 21, 2012 6:11 pm

AVBucks4239 wrote:
Fresh Prince wrote:Every second you spend not answering a question (or answering a question that isn't asked) is another second your classmates have to spot yet another issue for a question that is asked. That's where they get the edge. And don't even try for a second to say that you spotted all the issues for a single question that you felt the need to go in another direction. Almost no one ever spots all the issues for a question, not even the highest grade in the class.
I agree that OP probably spent too much time outlining, but I don't think taking 3-4 minutes to sketch an outline will hurt your grade. I think professors are generally lazy and prefer answers to be as organized as possible. I know I couldn't do this without outlining.

As this thread has shown, different strokes I guess.
...I wasn't talking about outlining.

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AVBucks4239

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by AVBucks4239 » Sat Jan 21, 2012 6:18 pm

Fresh Prince wrote:
AVBucks4239 wrote:
Fresh Prince wrote:Every second you spend not answering a question (or answering a question that isn't asked) is another second your classmates have to spot yet another issue for a question that is asked. That's where they get the edge. And don't even try for a second to say that you spotted all the issues for a single question that you felt the need to go in another direction. Almost no one ever spots all the issues for a question, not even the highest grade in the class.
I agree that OP probably spent too much time outlining, but I don't think taking 3-4 minutes to sketch an outline will hurt your grade. I think professors are generally lazy and prefer answers to be as organized as possible. I know I couldn't do this without outlining.

As this thread has shown, different strokes I guess.
...I wasn't talking about outlining.
Ah. I took "every second you spend not answering a question" to include all the time that a person isn't typing.

But yes, you are definitely right in regards to answering the question being asked.

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by crossem » Sat Jan 21, 2012 9:26 pm

I'm bewildered. Beta Blockers?!?!

Do you take them every day? In PTs? Have you taken them before?

Yes, they reduce your nerves. But unless you have crippling test anxiety, don't you think those nerves will help? I haven't got my grades back yet, but in my exams I was surprised how much I could recall form my outlines compared to my PTs.

But maybe I am overreacting. Does everyone take these things?

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I.P. Daly

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by I.P. Daly » Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:48 am

crossem wrote:I'm bewildered. Beta Blockers?!?!

But maybe I am overreacting. Does everyone take these things?
No.

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Bildungsroman

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by Bildungsroman » Sun Jan 22, 2012 1:06 am

I.P. Daly wrote:
crossem wrote:I'm bewildered. Beta Blockers?!?!

But maybe I am overreacting. Does everyone take these things?
No.
Seriously. The whole OP was like a study in neurotic gimmicky behavior (beta-blockers, a "secret" supplement, reading the professor's articles to "learn their biases," half-assing casebook readings in favor of "learning the BLL") that I didn't think actual law students ever did.

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Advice Dog

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by Advice Dog » Sun Jan 22, 2012 1:18 am

Law school grading is pretty random because it's incredibly difficult to make meaningful distinctions between 100 exams that all say essentially the same thing in slightly different ways. Plus, many professors are lazy. It's another reason why law school is a joke. First semester of 1L, my GPA was just under median. Second semester GPA was somewhere like top 5%. Didn't change a thing about the way I studied, except perhaps did less of it.

lol law school.

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3|ink

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by 3|ink » Sun Jan 22, 2012 6:32 am

Based on my extremely limited experience, I think supplements are a terrible idea. Professors want to see "their" answers. That's pretty much how my torts final was. He wanted to see us apply the logic from the cases he selected. Knowing the rules was half the battle, at best.

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Old Gregg

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by Old Gregg » Sun Jan 22, 2012 9:41 am

Bildungsroman wrote:
I.P. Daly wrote:
crossem wrote:I'm bewildered. Beta Blockers?!?!

But maybe I am overreacting. Does everyone take these things?
No.
Seriously. The whole OP was like a study in neurotic gimmicky behavior (beta-blockers, a "secret" supplement, reading the professor's articles to "learn their biases," half-assing casebook readings in favor of "learning the BLL") that I didn't think actual law students ever did.
I pulled As and the most I did was outline early, use the best supplements, and do a ton of practice tests early. I know plenty of law students who pulled As doing far less (one just read the Emanuels three times and brought it with him to the exam).

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cinephile

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by cinephile » Sun Jan 22, 2012 10:32 am

3|ink wrote:Based on my extremely limited experience, I think supplements are a terrible idea. Professors want to see "their" answers. That's pretty much how my torts final was. He wanted to see us apply the logic from the cases he selected. Knowing the rules was half the battle, at best.
I don't know. The exam I did the worst on is the one where our professor disagreed with the casebook. I tried to repeat his ideas, but that was not what he wanted. I should've used supplements there and learned the BLL since we didn't discuss it in class.

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TatteredDignity

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by TatteredDignity » Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:06 pm

Advice Dog wrote:Law school grading is pretty random because it's incredibly difficult to make meaningful distinctions between 100 exams that all say essentially the same thing in slightly different ways. Plus, many professors are lazy. It's another reason why law school is a joke. First semester of 1L, my GPA was just under median. Second semester GPA was somewhere like top 5%. Didn't change a thing about the way I studied, except perhaps did less of it.

lol law school.
I don't want to derail this thread into this same old argument again. Just know that your depiction of grading as "random" is wrong. It probably makes some sense for the exams clusterd tightly between the top quarter and the bottom quarter. However, there is a clear difference in quality between the best exams, mediocre exams, and the bad ones. This accounts for students who consistently snag the best grades (the ones who just "get it"), which wouldn't be possible if it were truly random.

/derail

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Advice Dog

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by Advice Dog » Sun Jan 22, 2012 1:40 pm

0LNewbie wrote:
Advice Dog wrote:Law school grading is pretty random because it's incredibly difficult to make meaningful distinctions between 100 exams that all say essentially the same thing in slightly different ways. Plus, many professors are lazy. It's another reason why law school is a joke. First semester of 1L, my GPA was just under median. Second semester GPA was somewhere like top 5%. Didn't change a thing about the way I studied, except perhaps did less of it.

lol law school.
I don't want to derail this thread into this same old argument again. Just know that your depiction of grading as "random" is wrong. It probably makes some sense for the exams clusterd tightly between the top quarter and the bottom quarter. However, there is a clear difference in quality between the best exams, mediocre exams, and the bad ones. This accounts for students who consistently snag the best grades (the ones who just "get it"), which wouldn't be possible if it were truly random.

/derail
At a good school full of smart people who all know what's going on, a relatively "easy" test is going to generate a large pool of substantially similar looking exams. Sure, you can parse the A's from the C's (or whatever the bottom of the curve is at the school), but you're going to have a ton of similar "good" exams that have to lumped into the A-, B+, B categories.

Most of my professors did not use a rubric. Most did not use short answers. Lengthy issue spotters and policy questions invite frivolous and inconsistent distinctions by lazy professors after weeding out the really good and really bad exams.

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by vamedic03 » Sun Jan 22, 2012 2:05 pm

Advice Dog wrote:
0LNewbie wrote:
Advice Dog wrote:Law school grading is pretty random because it's incredibly difficult to make meaningful distinctions between 100 exams that all say essentially the same thing in slightly different ways. Plus, many professors are lazy. It's another reason why law school is a joke. First semester of 1L, my GPA was just under median. Second semester GPA was somewhere like top 5%. Didn't change a thing about the way I studied, except perhaps did less of it.

lol law school.
I don't want to derail this thread into this same old argument again. Just know that your depiction of grading as "random" is wrong. It probably makes some sense for the exams clusterd tightly between the top quarter and the bottom quarter. However, there is a clear difference in quality between the best exams, mediocre exams, and the bad ones. This accounts for students who consistently snag the best grades (the ones who just "get it"), which wouldn't be possible if it were truly random.

/derail
At a good school full of smart people who all know what's going on, a relatively "easy" test is going to generate a large pool of substantially similar looking exams. Sure, you can parse the A's from the C's (or whatever the bottom of the curve is at the school), but you're going to have a ton of similar "good" exams that have to lumped into the A-, B+, B categories.

Most of my professors did not use a rubric. Most did not use short answers. Lengthy issue spotters and policy questions invite frivolous and inconsistent distinctions by lazy professors after weeding out the really good and really bad exams.
Bitter? I wouldn't immediately call a professor lazy because they use lengthy issue spotters. Nor would I assume that they are arbitrary because they do not use a rubric.

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by BeenDidThat » Sun Jan 22, 2012 2:20 pm

vamedic03 wrote:
Advice Dog wrote:
0LNewbie wrote:
Advice Dog wrote:Law school grading is pretty random because it's incredibly difficult to make meaningful distinctions between 100 exams that all say essentially the same thing in slightly different ways. Plus, many professors are lazy. It's another reason why law school is a joke. First semester of 1L, my GPA was just under median. Second semester GPA was somewhere like top 5%. Didn't change a thing about the way I studied, except perhaps did less of it.

lol law school.
I don't want to derail this thread into this same old argument again. Just know that your depiction of grading as "random" is wrong. It probably makes some sense for the exams clusterd tightly between the top quarter and the bottom quarter. However, there is a clear difference in quality between the best exams, mediocre exams, and the bad ones. This accounts for students who consistently snag the best grades (the ones who just "get it"), which wouldn't be possible if it were truly random.

/derail
At a good school full of smart people who all know what's going on, a relatively "easy" test is going to generate a large pool of substantially similar looking exams. Sure, you can parse the A's from the C's (or whatever the bottom of the curve is at the school), but you're going to have a ton of similar "good" exams that have to lumped into the A-, B+, B categories.

Most of my professors did not use a rubric. Most did not use short answers. Lengthy issue spotters and policy questions invite frivolous and inconsistent distinctions by lazy professors after weeding out the really good and really bad exams.
Bitter? I wouldn't immediately call a professor lazy because they use lengthy issue spotters. Nor would I assume that they are arbitrary because they do not use a rubric.
Word. If anything, the lazy professors go all MC on their tests. At least, that's the case where I am.

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paulinaporizkova

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by paulinaporizkova » Sun Jan 22, 2012 2:31 pm

I.P. Daly wrote:
crossem wrote:I'm bewildered. Beta Blockers?!?!

But maybe I am overreacting. Does everyone take these things?
No.
No.

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NYC Law

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by NYC Law » Sun Jan 22, 2012 2:33 pm

paulinaporizkova wrote:
I.P. Daly wrote:
crossem wrote:I'm bewildered. Beta Blockers?!?!

But maybe I am overreacting. Does everyone take these things?
No.
No.
Not entirely sure what a beta blocker is.

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Bildungsroman

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by Bildungsroman » Sun Jan 22, 2012 3:00 pm

NYC Law wrote:
paulinaporizkova wrote:
I.P. Daly wrote:
crossem wrote:I'm bewildered. Beta Blockers?!?!

But maybe I am overreacting. Does everyone take these things?
No.
No.
Not entirely sure what a beta blocker is.
I have no idea. I'm ALPHA enough that any beta is already fully blocked.

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Re: Below median and bewildered

Post by sillyboots » Sun Jan 22, 2012 3:38 pm

beta blockers are a class of drugs that are sometimes taken on the underground to reduce performance anxiety. Basically, they stop your fight-or-flight response, AFAIK.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

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