1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread Forum

[JCougar]

I've been told by someone who did extremely well (and I've experienced it on my practice exams) to treat law school exams like video games...

I would love to do this to my exams:
--ImageRemoved--

Win.

[JazzOne]

This, my criminal law prof told us that his final last year, the highest score was like 75% of the possible points, and the median score was around 40%. If a professor is doing it right, there is no way in hell to get anywhere near a perfect point score on a law exam, and that fact alone will separate the curve

also, you'd be surprised how many people have brain-lapses on exam (myself included) and will forget little things, that others won't, it has a way of working itself out

as stated, just do the best you can do, use what you've learned, use what works best for you, and learn to move on

i've done a shit ton of practice tests for my contracts class, and that's usually the distribution too. there are some years where the highest grade is like a 50%. truly nerve wracking stuff when you're taking it, i'm sure.

Yeah, I walk out of every exam feeling like shit, even the ones I ended up with an A+ on. You know you didn't spot everything, and you have no idea how everyone else did. It's pretty miserable until grades come out.

[dailygrind]

This, my criminal law prof told us that his final last year, the highest score was like 75% of the possible points, and the median score was around 40%. If a professor is doing it right, there is no way in hell to get anywhere near a perfect point score on a law exam, and that fact alone will separate the curve

also, you'd be surprised how many people have brain-lapses on exam (myself included) and will forget little things, that others won't, it has a way of working itself out

as stated, just do the best you can do, use what you've learned, use what works best for you, and learn to move on

i've done a shit ton of practice tests for my contracts class, and that's usually the distribution too. there are some years where the highest grade is like a 50%. truly nerve wracking stuff when you're taking it, i'm sure.

Yeah, I walk out of every exam feeling like shit, even the ones I ended up with an A+ on. You know you didn't spot everything, and you have no idea how everyone else did. It's pretty miserable until grades come out.

sounds like a blast.

the next few months are gonna be rough.

[traehekat]

oh man, printing your outline from onenote feels so nice. look how small the font/margins are!

[bostonian]

I've been making flowcharts in Visio. I don't know if I'm actually learning anything though.

[RUQRU]

I've been making flowcharts in Visio. I don't know if I'm actually learning anything though.

At least you will become an expert in Visio.

[Holly Golightly]

Alllllllllllll the civpro...

[goosey]

im wondering if all the study-aides im making is a waste of time now...should I be using this time to do old exams?

is condensing and recondensing one's outline a good use of time? making a table of rules for frcp? etc..

[BriaTharen]

I've been making flowcharts in Visio. I don't know if I'm actually learning anything though.

I learned a good bit from making flowcharts. Flows force you to condense and link different ideas. I loves me some flow charts. Staring at a Civ Pro one right now, and pondering making a few mini ones (on paper, not computer- no time) to review for Torts on Monday.

[Stanford4Me]

im wondering if all the study-aides im making is a waste of time now...should I be using this time to do old exams?

is condensing and recondensing one's outline a good use of time? making a table of rules for frcp? etc..

At some point I think you should start taking exams using your outline to see what changes you need to make that will allow you to better take the exams.

[BriaTharen]

im wondering if all the study-aides im making is a waste of time now...should I be using this time to do old exams?

is condensing and recondensing one's outline a good use of time? making a table of rules for frcp? etc..

How far away are your exams?

[dailygrind]

quick q, maybe kind of stupid because i'm pretty awful at civ pro, but what qualifies as a federal directive for erie? i know any FRCP will be fine, as will any federal law, really, but how about a case decided by SCOTUS? let's say i can pull some stuff out of carnival v schute (the cruise line case with the adhesion contract) that shows that some behavior is to be discouraged by the fed courts...does that count as a federal directive?

[goosey]

im wondering if all the study-aides im making is a waste of time now...should I be using this time to do old exams?

is condensing and recondensing one's outline a good use of time? making a table of rules for frcp? etc..

How far away are your exams?

crim [8 hr take home] next friday, open book civ pro the wednesday after, and closed book torts the following tuesday

I've taken one civ pro exam semi-timed [went over by 30 minutes due to not knowing the law cold and eating/looking around the library lol] and done lots of multiple choice throughout the semester. I did half of the e&e throughout the semester and will probably do the entire thing the weekend before the exam. But most of my time rt now is devoted to making tables for rules and condensing outlines...I feel like I am wasting time?

[skoobily doobily]

My understanding of Erie is pretty frail right now, does anybody know of any good Erie-sepcific hypos online? maybe with model answers? Are the E&E's good for this?

[kalvano]

Are the E&E's good for this?

YES. Eleventy-billion times yes.

[BriaTharen]

im wondering if all the study-aides im making is a waste of time now...should I be using this time to do old exams?

is condensing and recondensing one's outline a good use of time? making a table of rules for frcp? etc..

How far away are your exams?

crim [8 hr take home] next friday, open book civ pro the wednesday after, and closed book torts the following tuesday

I've taken one civ pro exam semi-timed [went over by 30 minutes due to not knowing the law cold and eating/looking around the library lol] and done lots of multiple choice throughout the semester. I did half of the e&e throughout the semester and will probably do the entire thing the weekend before the exam. But most of my time rt now is devoted to making tables for rules and condensing outlines...I feel like I am wasting time?

Depending on your study schedule, you may be okay. But I think these things really are up to you. If YOU feel like you are wasting time, then stop doing them and focus on practice tests (which you should be doing at least one question per day at this point IMO). If you think the tables and condensing are helping, then stick with that.

[Cupidity]

My civ pro exam is closed book, and there are no published exams...

FML.

[D. H2Oman]

72 hours of Contracts begin now

[Cupidity]

quick q, maybe kind of stupid because i'm pretty awful at civ pro, but what qualifies as a federal directive for erie? i know any FRCP will be fine, as will any federal law, really, but how about a case decided by SCOTUS? let's say i can pull some stuff out of carnival v schute (the cruise line case with the adhesion contract) that shows that some behavior is to be discouraged by the fed courts...does that count as a federal directive?

No.

The difference is FCRP or Federal Rules of Evidence, or the handful of other applicable statutes are all enacted under the Rules Enabling Act. When performing erie on something created by the REA, you have to determine whether it is "Substantial" or "Procedural" and it is substantial if it "enlarges, modifies, or abridges" a right.

Your question seems to be asking what the value of a supreme court precedent it....I have no idea what you are getting at using that in the context of Erie.

[dailygrind]

quick q, maybe kind of stupid because i'm pretty awful at civ pro, but what qualifies as a federal directive for erie? i know any FRCP will be fine, as will any federal law, really, but how about a case decided by SCOTUS? let's say i can pull some stuff out of carnival v schute (the cruise line case with the adhesion contract) that shows that some behavior is to be discouraged by the fed courts...does that count as a federal directive?

No.

The difference is FCRP or Federal Rules of Evidence, or the handful of other applicable statutes are all enacted under the Rules Enabling Act. When performing erie on something created by the REA, you have to determine whether it is "Substantial" or "Procedural" and it is substantial if it "enlarges, modifies, or abridges" a right.

Your question seems to be asking what the value of a supreme court precedent it....I have no idea what you are getting at using that in the context of Erie.

i was hoping to use a supreme court precedent as a federal directive when i couldn't find anything in the FRCP. maybe not the wisest move, but i'm not very good at civ pro, so i figured i'd run it by other people first.

[GATORTIM]

72 hours of Contracts begin now

This is the one thing you and I will prob ever agree on

[BriaTharen]

72 hours of Contracts begin now

So happy to be done with contracts!

*Looks down at Civ Pro notes*

I take it back. I'd rather take a 2nd contracts exam than take this Civil Procedure exam.

[Cherith Cutestory]

i was hoping to use a supreme court precedent as a federal directive when i couldn't find anything in the FRCP. maybe not the wisest move, but i'm not very good at civ pro, so i figured i'd run it by other people first.

I think the problem with this is that the Supreme Court's decisions are usually about how the already existing law should be read. Like, Twombly/Iqbal isn't a directive saying that pleadings have to be plausible, it's just the Supreme Court 'explaining' that Rule 8 says that pleadings have to be plausible. You don't really end up arguing "the Supreme Court says so" as much as you're saying "This conflicts with [whatever] as the Supreme Court says it should be interpreted."

[uzpakalis]

Am I the only one on here not freaking out and studying 16 hours a day? I put in work throughout the ENTIRE semester. Don't get me wrong, I'm still putting in 8-10 hours a day throughout finals, but.....am I crazy for not putting in more hours and feeling confident about it?

[dailygrind]

i was hoping to use a supreme court precedent as a federal directive when i couldn't find anything in the FRCP. maybe not the wisest move, but i'm not very good at civ pro, so i figured i'd run it by other people first.

I think the problem with this is that the Supreme Court's decisions are usually about how the already existing law should be read. Like, Twombly/Iqbal isn't a directive saying that pleadings have to be plausible, it's just the Supreme Court 'explaining' that Rule 8 says that pleadings have to be plausible. You don't really end up arguing "the Supreme Court says so" as much as you're saying "This conflicts with [whatever] as the Supreme Court says it should be interpreted."

let's just use Carnival here, since that's the context in which i was considering the problem. in carnival, it's implicit within the ruling that if carnival's behavior in creating a forum selection clause in an adhesion contract was a strategic choice to discourage lawsuits, it would have been ruled invalid. why? that kind of shit's against public policy. which sounds kind of like a federal directive to me. now imagine that there's a state law which discourages forum selection somehow. because it's a state law, it's essentially an adhesion contract. so it conflicts with carnival, but carnival's just some case that SCOTUS heard; it's not a proper federal directive. so here i am.