After Grades - What did we learn? Forum

[kimber1028]

Grade inversely proportion to how much I studied for the final. Theory: I over-studied, only confusing myself. Better not to over-think a problem.

1st final - finished outlining 3 weeks before the final, 2 full weeks of studying, memorized black letter law, took ~10 practice exams: lowest grade
2nd final - made outline and had about 1 week of studying, memorized black letter law, took 4 practice exams: 2nd lowest grade
3rd final - 3 days of studying, finished outline 2 days before final: 2nd highest grade
4th final - finished outline about a week prior to final, 1 day of intense studying, was burned out and tired: highest grade

This semester I will only do a couple practice tests, and stick to one supplement per subject.

Better theory: you studied more for the subjects you found the most difficult.

I studied about 2x-3x as much for some of my exams as for others, and got essentially the same grades on all of them. I attribute this simply to the fact that a couple of my classes came a lot more naturally to me than the others.

+1. Also, your 4th final may have been your best because everyone else was burned out, too. Sometimes the curve is generous. IMHO, it's still worth it to do the practice tests.

[kings84_wr]

I learned not to kill myself about realizing afterwords that I missed a point or two. It seems all the classes that I realized that I forgot something, ended up being my highest grades.

[vanwinkle]

I learned not to kill myself about realizing afterwords that I missed a point or two. It seems all the classes that I realized that I forgot something, ended up being my highest grades.

Thinking about it, this is actually true for me too.

[rbgrocio]

I learned not to kill myself about realizing afterwords that I missed a point or two. It seems all the classes that I realized that I forgot something, ended up being my highest grades.

+1. The class I thought was my best ended up being my worse.

[Nietzsche_Addy]

I learned not to kill myself about realizing afterwords that I missed a point or two. It seems all the classes that I realized that I forgot something, ended up being my highest grades.

+1. The class I thought was my best ended up being my worse.

I was exactly the opposite. The ones I felt good about were As. The one I didn't feel so good about was a C.

[Learning Hand]

Get sleep.

[JPeavy44]

I learned not to kill myself about realizing afterwords that I missed a point or two. It seems all the classes that I realized that I forgot something, ended up being my highest grades.

+1. The class I thought was my best ended up being my worse.

Same with me...it sucks

[forsomething]

This has been an enormously helpful thread. Just want to contribute a little bit on the dos and don’ts, since my grades are literally all over the place –

T14, GPA above median, somewhat slow typing speed


1. The professor wants to see that you have taken her class and understood what she wants you to understand. Go to class and take notes. Make sure her teaching clicks to you, and go to office hours to clarify if it doesn’t. My best grade is from a class that I followed the professor’s flow really well, and my worst grade is from a class that I thought I was able to teach myself out of a hornbook.

2. Supplements are useful, but only when you organize the material around the professor’s syllabus. For the same reason, get a few old outlines from the professor’s class early in the term, and use them as a roadmap.

3. Read the professors’ old exams and start your own outline early in the term. The value of an outline is in its making.

4. Don’t try to guess / estimate / recall the exam once you are done. It does not do any good. Instead, check the paper and meet with the professor after getting your grades, and figure out why you have done well and what went wrong.

[dresden doll]

You shouldn't even go to LS where you can't afford to finish at median, let alone top 15 percent. That's just borderline insanity.

Seriously.

"omfg dude I finished top 15% should I drop out?!"

If this is your mantra you should have never even contemplated attending your current school.

hth.

Credited.

--Alright--I'm a douche/destined for burger-flipping-future/wish I had perfect information before applying. I have nobody to blame but myself!

Dude. No one is calling you a loser; on the contrary, I'd argue you're in a nice position right now with that class rank, even if you aren't at a T14, and that you most definitely need not drop out. But that said, you hardly need 'perfect information' to figure that there's 85 percent chance of not finishing in the top 15 percent, to speak nothing of how much probability is stacked against you the further up in the class hierarchy you go.

To figure that the odds were against you in case you were betting on top 5 percent, you only needed common sense.

[Big Shrimpin]

/

[98234872348]

Sorry, I should have qualified perfect information. I'm an engineer so I understand percentages. I did a fair amount of research on the particular type of job I had hoped to do (patent law), however, I didn't really discover the TLS wisdom until much too late. You can only learn so much from adcomms and people in practice. Therefore, if I had known that it would be impossible to at least get an interview for a patent law job if not in the top 5-10% from a T2 I would've retaken the LSAT. At any rate, its back to the books and figuring out what went wrong on one final so that I never make that mistake again.

Again, sorry for the confusion--I guess I was just looking for some encouragement/advice lol.

Figure out what you did wrong; you obviously had the formula for success in your other classes, you just need to ensure you don't repeat whatever mistake you made in that single class. You're in a good position; the second semester is the one you want to hit the hardest, since many people will get complacent and put far less effort in, or, contrarily, many will be so devastated by their first semester grades that they will essentially give up attempting to achieve straight As. Talk to your professor, discover what went wrong, and you should be situated to succeed in your second semester. The rank you desire is not out of reach; you just need to excel this semester to achieve it. Just focus, work harder and smarter than last semester, and you should do very well.

[samiseaborn]

Can any of you amazing A/A+ achievers speak to preparing for classes without any practice exams or newbie profs? Last semester we had a database of exams and no answers, this semester none of my profs even have exams to practice with/have never taught these course before. I've decided exam writing is where I must have gone wrong on finals (prof listed all the issues he graded on for one class, so I know I didn't miss issues), but without sample exams, I'm not sure how to practice doing it the way they're looking for to get over the B+/A- hump. Any advice is appreciated.

[vanwinkle]

Can any of you amazing A/A+ achievers speak to preparing for classes without any practice exams or newbie profs? Last semester we had a database of exams and no answers, this semester none of my profs even have exams to practice with/have never taught these course before. I've decided exam writing is where I must have gone wrong on finals (prof listed all the issues he graded on for one class, so I know I didn't miss issues), but without sample exams, I'm not sure how to practice doing it the way they're looking for to get over the B+/A- hump. Any advice is appreciated.

If you didn't miss issues, then you're missing something on application. The goal is to apply law to facts, and that means a couple things:

1) Make sure you state how the law would treat both sides. Every case has two points of view, two parties in conflict, and you want to make sure you're adequately covering both positions. This is where the book "Getting to Maybe" gets its title from; you want to make sure you're explaining why maybe a court would come out one way and maybe it might go the other. Go through both adequately; spotting the issue isn't enough, you have to cover how both sides would try to apply the law to the facts of the case to resolve that one issue.

2) Give policy reasons that a court might come out one way or another. There's two sides, but there's only going to be one ruling at the end. Which way you come out isn't that important, what's important is being able to correctly state what policies you discussed in class that a court might use to pick one side over the other. As long as you properly apply the policies the professor brought up in class you'll be earning additional points. Most exams are written so that you could actually argue they could come out either way, so what matters isn't how you come out but why.

3) Make sure you know the BLL enough to spot not just the overall issues but all the proper details. Likewise, make sure you mention all the proper details. This doesn't mean going crazy and studying the most minute details of everything, but at least the stuff the professor spends a full day or especially multiple days on. Being able to spot that an issue resolves around 2-207(2) and whether additional terms come into play is one thing. Spotting that 2-207(2) discusses additional terms "between merchants" and mentioning whether both parties are merchants or not is additional points. Even if it seems obvious that both are merchants, it's important to point it out because it would change the outcome if they weren't. You can't just go "oh, they're both merchants, this part is obvious" and not explain that part, you're thinking about it but not showing that thought process to the professor and losing the additional points you'd get for considering it.

Without knowing your problem specifically I can't give any better advice, but I'd bet that's a big chunk of it. Even if you're analyzing things properly, are you describing your full analysis, or just jumping straight to the conclusion?

All of this should be taken with a grain of salt, because I fell below median in one class and cannot understand why. I do intend to speak to the professor and find out WTF happened, though, I just haven't been able to find him yet.

[Esc]

Can any of you amazing A/A+ achievers speak to preparing for classes without any practice exams or newbie profs? Last semester we had a database of exams and no answers, this semester none of my profs even have exams to practice with/have never taught these course before. I've decided exam writing is where I must have gone wrong on finals (prof listed all the issues he graded on for one class, so I know I didn't miss issues), but without sample exams, I'm not sure how to practice doing it the way they're looking for to get over the B+/A- hump. Any advice is appreciated.

None of my profs had old exams, and one was teaching for her first time ever. Your best option is to ask them flat out how to prepare. If they aren't complete douches, they'll refer you to other professors' exams that they find particularly relevant or at the very least point you to certain subject areas. You won't be the only one in your class who asks. And of course, make sure you pay extra attention to what topics they seem to find very important in lecture.

[samiseaborn]

Without knowing your problem specifically I can't give any better advice, but I'd bet that's a big chunk of it. Even if you're analyzing things properly, are you describing your full analysis, or just jumping straight to the conclusion?

Thanks for the help, I'm still trying to narrow down the problem myself, because I got an A- on the exam didn't require issue spotting, so I figured that was my problem on the other exams, but that review session with one prof seems to indicate that wasn't it. Without seeing my exams I'm flying kind of blind, profs won't let us unless you got a C+ or less. I'll definitely be keeping your and Esc's advice in mind.

[prezidentv8]

Can any of you amazing A/A+ achievers speak to preparing for classes without any practice exams or newbie profs? Last semester we had a database of exams and no answers, this semester none of my profs even have exams to practice with/have never taught these course before. I've decided exam writing is where I must have gone wrong on finals (prof listed all the issues he graded on for one class, so I know I didn't miss issues), but without sample exams, I'm not sure how to practice doing it the way they're looking for to get over the B+/A- hump. Any advice is appreciated.

If you didn't miss issues, then you're missing something on application. The goal is to apply law to facts, and that means a couple things:

1) Make sure you state how the law would treat both sides. Every case has two points of view, two parties in conflict, and you want to make sure you're adequately covering both positions. This is where the book "Getting to Maybe" gets its title from; you want to make sure you're explaining why maybe a court would come out one way and maybe it might go the other. Go through both adequately; spotting the issue isn't enough, you have to cover how both sides would try to apply the law to the facts of the case to resolve that one issue.

2) Give policy reasons that a court might come out one way or another. There's two sides, but there's only going to be one ruling at the end. Which way you come out isn't that important, what's important is being able to correctly state what policies you discussed in class that a court might use to pick one side over the other. As long as you properly apply the policies the professor brought up in class you'll be earning additional points. Most exams are written so that you could actually argue they could come out either way, so what matters isn't how you come out but why.

3) Make sure you know the BLL enough to spot not just the overall issues but all the proper details. Likewise, make sure you mention all the proper details. This doesn't mean going crazy and studying the most minute details of everything, but at least the stuff the professor spends a full day or especially multiple days on. Being able to spot that an issue resolves around 2-207(2) and whether additional terms come into play is one thing. Spotting that 2-207(2) discusses additional terms "between merchants" and mentioning whether both parties are merchants or not is additional points. Even if it seems obvious that both are merchants, it's important to point it out because it would change the outcome if they weren't. You can't just go "oh, they're both merchants, this part is obvious" and not explain that part, you're thinking about it but not showing that thought process to the professor and losing the additional points you'd get for considering it.

Without knowing your problem specifically I can't give any better advice, but I'd bet that's a big chunk of it. Even if you're analyzing things properly, are you describing your full analysis, or just jumping straight to the conclusion?

All of this should be taken with a grain of salt, because I fell below median in one class and cannot understand why. I do intend to speak to the professor and find out WTF happened, though, I just haven't been able to find him yet.

I think this is good advice, although I would add that some variability between professors changes the game. Word limits ftl on the Getting to Maybe stuff, as the issue then becomes prioritizing. And then my big issue - over half of my questions were policy-based (and based on a response in another thread, not clearly articulated), which seem to be an entirely different beast. And then, of course, there's the whole time limit thing that is an issue for just about everybody.

[vanwinkle]

Without seeing my exams I'm flying kind of blind, profs won't let us unless you got a C+ or less.

Wow, that is such bullshit.

[prezidentv8]

Just looked over my property exam and confirmed my previously expressed sentiment that any further studying on my part would have been useless. My one hope is that I can somehow find a way to cram more substance into fewer words next time, although my exam was pretty frickin tightly written. Also, I need to not forgot to mention color of title.

[prezidentv8]

Without seeing my exams I'm flying kind of blind, profs won't let us unless you got a C+ or less.

Wow, that is such bullshit.

Yeah that's kinda screwed.

[vamedic03]

Can any of you amazing A/A+ achievers speak to preparing for classes without any practice exams or newbie profs? Last semester we had a database of exams and no answers, this semester none of my profs even have exams to practice with/have never taught these course before. I've decided exam writing is where I must have gone wrong on finals (prof listed all the issues he graded on for one class, so I know I didn't miss issues), but without sample exams, I'm not sure how to practice doing it the way they're looking for to get over the B+/A- hump. Any advice is appreciated.

If you didn't miss issues, then you're missing something on application. The goal is to apply law to facts, and that means a couple things:

1) Make sure you state how the law would treat both sides. Every case has two points of view, two parties in conflict, and you want to make sure you're adequately covering both positions. This is where the book "Getting to Maybe" gets its title from; you want to make sure you're explaining why maybe a court would come out one way and maybe it might go the other. Go through both adequately; spotting the issue isn't enough, you have to cover how both sides would try to apply the law to the facts of the case to resolve that one issue.

2) Give policy reasons that a court might come out one way or another. There's two sides, but there's only going to be one ruling at the end. Which way you come out isn't that important, what's important is being able to correctly state what policies you discussed in class that a court might use to pick one side over the other. As long as you properly apply the policies the professor brought up in class you'll be earning additional points. Most exams are written so that you could actually argue they could come out either way, so what matters isn't how you come out but why.

3) Make sure you know the BLL enough to spot not just the overall issues but all the proper details. Likewise, make sure you mention all the proper details. This doesn't mean going crazy and studying the most minute details of everything, but at least the stuff the professor spends a full day or especially multiple days on. Being able to spot that an issue resolves around 2-207(2) and whether additional terms come into play is one thing. Spotting that 2-207(2) discusses additional terms "between merchants" and mentioning whether both parties are merchants or not is additional points. Even if it seems obvious that both are merchants, it's important to point it out because it would change the outcome if they weren't. You can't just go "oh, they're both merchants, this part is obvious" and not explain that part, you're thinking about it but not showing that thought process to the professor and losing the additional points you'd get for considering it.

Without knowing your problem specifically I can't give any better advice, but I'd bet that's a big chunk of it. Even if you're analyzing things properly, are you describing your full analysis, or just jumping straight to the conclusion?

All of this should be taken with a grain of salt, because I fell below median in one class and cannot understand why. I do intend to speak to the professor and find out WTF happened, though, I just haven't been able to find him yet.

I think this is good advice, although I would add that some variability between professors changes the game. Word limits ftl on the Getting to Maybe stuff, as the issue then becomes prioritizing. And then my big issue - over half of my questions were policy-based (and based on a response in another thread, not clearly articulated), which seem to be an entirely different beast. And then, of course, there's the whole time limit thing that is an issue for just about everybody.

I don't know how tight your word limits are, but I found that even without word limits I didn't write more than 3-4k words per answer. The key is to clearly state the issue and pertinent facts, the BLL, analyze each way it can come out and make a prediction. Use cases for good short hand reference - say why its similar or why its distinguished

As to time limits, work steadily and pay attention to the time recommendations for each question/sub part. Also, read the entire exam before you start so you have an idea of what questions are coming up and where you might need more time. While I occasionally felt stressed, I finished every exam early and had time to think about the responses and add in info where I needed to. For the most part, good analysis is what counts.

If you know you're going to have an issue spotter, make an issue checklist at the beginning of your outline. My contracts professor recommended this and it served as a great reminder.

[GummiBear]

I've learned that I'm awesome at exam writing and my gunning abilities are off the charts earning me some neato bumps.

God I kick ass.

[vanwinkle]

I've learned that I'm awesome at exam writing and my gunning abilities are off the charts earning me some neato bumps.

God I kick ass.

Oh god, not here too.

[98234872348]

I've learned that I'm awesome at exam writing and my gunning abilities are off the charts earning me some neato bumps.

God I kick ass.

Oh god, not here too.

This person hasn't been banned yet?

Surprising.

[prezidentv8]

I don't know how tight your word limits are, but I found that even without word limits I didn't write more than 3-4k words per answer.

Less than that for two full take home tests, if I recall correctly, which were each three questions. It was quite painful to leave such a teeny amount of discussion on the paper, to say the least.

[chadwick218]

I've learned that I'm awesome at exam writing and my gunning abilities are off the charts earning me some neato bumps.

God I kick ass.