OFFICIAL 1L Exam Prep & Motivation Thread (CSWS) Forum

[Jsa725]

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[LetsGoLAW]

I'm up to 1,000 words per 20 minutes. Thank goodness I was such a computer nerd growing up.

[SportsFan]

I'm up to 1,000 words per 20 minutes. Thank goodness I was such a computer nerd growing up.

Ok thats insane. and I was happy at doing ~3200 in 2 hours today haha!

[brotherdarkness]

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[LetsGoLAW]

How are you memorizing BLL?

I'm up to 1,000 words per 20 minutes. Thank goodness I was such a computer nerd growing up.

Ok thats insane. and I was happy at doing ~3200 in 2 hours today haha!

From what I've heard, two of my three doctrinal exams will favor word-vomit. How many words are you guys hoping to get out, in total, on your exams?

Honestly, when I wrote my property exam, I wrote until my hands bled. I used a quick LEEWS version to just get every issue as possible. My K professor wants about ~10-12 pages in 4 hours, so that's not bad. Except he hates "A would argue. On the other hand, B would argue." So no LEEWS, IRAC that mother fucker.

Guys, listen to Arrow's advice when he says type out your mini outlines OVER AND OVER. It's helping me memorize everything so well.

And don't worry about small typos. TYPE TILL IT HURTS!

[SportsFan]

I'm up to 1,000 words per 20 minutes. Thank goodness I was such a computer nerd growing up.

Ok thats insane. and I was happy at doing ~3200 in 2 hours today haha!

From what I've heard, two of my three doctrinal exams will favor word-vomit. How many words are you guys hoping to get out, in total, on your exams?

I'm doing 1400-1600 words an hour right now. If I do 1600 an hour (leading to ~4800 on a 3 hour exam) on the actual exam, I won't be unhappy, but I'm aiming to get up to 2000 if I can.

[Blumpbeef]

sup yall? Mind if I jump in?

I did 1100 words in 70 minutes on a non-vomit question the other day

I worked up to 600/20 minutes in one of my vomit classes

[Maximized]

First PT tomorrow... I've got six ready to go for Civ.Pro., three for Contracts (plus the ones in JSA's much-appreciated link), three for Torts (plus some from another link), and not a damn thing for Leg.Reg. Time to crush it.

First final is a week from Tuesday. CSWS

[LetsGoLAW]

Finished my first contracts PT. Rocked it. Got ~75% of the issues with good analysis. Finished in time. I typed 4,000 words, so that needs to increase. But overall, CSWS BABY. Gon' do a few Siegel's. Fuck sleep.

I get so mad at myself when I see the issues I missed afterwards. !!! No matter, it teaches us to spot them in the future.

Keep plugging, boys.

[renardthecrocs]

Maybe I'm going against the grain here and it doesn't even matter for my upcoming exams (take-home with strict word limit, multiple choice, etc., no typical issue spotters), but I spent a lot of time thinking my fast typing speed would significantly help me during the first exams I took (I'm 1 semester in), and it didn't. Besides people who hand wrote (lolwut), a lot of my classmates and I compared word counts after the exam and we were all somewhere in the 8,000 range for a 3.5 hour exam, which produced pretty disparate grades at the end.

TL;DR Don't practice your typing speed just to practice your typing speed.

[mr.hands]

Finished my first contracts PT. Rocked it. Got ~75% of the issues with good analysis. Finished in time. I typed 4,000 words, so that needs to increase. But overall, CSWS BABY. Gon' do a few Siegel's. Fuck sleep.

I get so mad at myself when I see the issues I missed afterwards. !!! No matter, it teaches us to spot them in the future.

Keep plugging, boys.

Shit 4,000 words? How long were you writing?

I'm getting only 1800 for an hour and a half exam. I may be in trouble

[SportsFan]

Finished my first contracts PT. Rocked it. Got ~75% of the issues with good analysis. Finished in time. I typed 4,000 words, so that needs to increase. But overall, CSWS BABY. Gon' do a few Siegel's. Fuck sleep.

I get so mad at myself when I see the issues I missed afterwards. !!! No matter, it teaches us to spot them in the future.

Keep plugging, boys.

Shit 4,000 words? How long were you writing?

I'm getting only 1800 for an hour and a half exam. I may be in trouble

~1200 an hour? I don't think thats terrible (but what do I know!). I think you should try to be more efficient with your time, though. Are you finding that you're spending too much time sitting there spotting issues? Or is it analyzing them and thinking of the proper rules? Or... anything really. Just try to find whats causing you to be inefficient, and work on improving that. I think the obsession with word count is because so many professors just grade based on giving points for things, so naturally, writing more things that could potentially give points is seen as a good thing. If you can fit a great analysis into 1200 words, I wouldn't worry about it. But if you find that at the end there are still issues you wanted to analyze more, or you just didn't have time to get to, then you should probably change something.

[mr.hands]

Finished my first contracts PT. Rocked it. Got ~75% of the issues with good analysis. Finished in time. I typed 4,000 words, so that needs to increase. But overall, CSWS BABY. Gon' do a few Siegel's. Fuck sleep.

I get so mad at myself when I see the issues I missed afterwards. !!! No matter, it teaches us to spot them in the future.

Keep plugging, boys.

Shit 4,000 words? How long were you writing?

I'm getting only 1800 for an hour and a half exam. I may be in trouble

~1200 an hour? I don't think thats terrible (but what do I know!). I think you should try to be more efficient with your time, though. Are you finding that you're spending too much time sitting there spotting issues? Or is it analyzing them and thinking of the proper rules? Or... anything really. Just try to find whats causing you to be inefficient, and work on improving that. I think the obsession with word count is because so many professors just grade based on giving points for things, so naturally, writing more things that could potentially give points is seen as a good thing. If you can fit a great analysis into 1200 words, I wouldn't worry about it. But if you find that at the end there are still issues you wanted to analyze more, or you just didn't have time to get to, then you should probably change something.

Yeah i was trying to spend 20% of my time spotting issues, reading, and sketching an outline of the answer. Freer suggests you spend 25% doing that and the guy who wrote "8 secrets of exam performance" (or whatever it's called), said spend 1/3.

I'm not really sure though. I don't want to be the guy who has 1/2 as much written as everyone else

[Jsa725]

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[5ky]

Yeah i was trying to spend 20% of my time spotting issues, reading, and sketching an outline of the answer. Freer suggests you spend 25% doing that and the guy who wrote "8 secrets of exam performance" (or whatever it's called), said spend 1/3.

I'm not really sure though. I don't want to be the guy who has 1/2 as much written as everyone else

A lot depends on the exam, professor's grading style, and personal preference. But if you're taking a pure issue spotter race, spending anything more than a few minutes organizing your thoughts (after reading the question carefully, of course) is going to be a waste of time.

Then again, if the professor likes things short and sweet, it's more than appropriate to take a long time.

At UVA, I think more professors tend towards the former than the latter, and I think 25% to 33% is probably more than any person can afford to take.

[LetsGoLAW]

It depends on the test. As you complete more and more tests, you develop a discipline. On the 4,000 word final I typed, the A+ paper was 3900 words. So, it really depends on your professor. Just get that discipline down!

Edit: I'm exhausted, but I love this.

And when this garbage is all over, we gon' drink. Oh hell yeah, we gon' drink.

[gaud]

You all should check this out when you have a moment

http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 3&t=199175

[Jsa725]

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[gaud]

Taking a K's exam..... sucks.

I enjoy Civ Pro

haven't really started Torts prep




why couldn't I have won the lotto?

[brotherdarkness]

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[Raiden]

took a crim exam just now with 4300 words in 2 hours. Though I didn't really follow LEEWS outline structure except to just get going (game myself of 20 mins of only-outline time since we have that on the real exam), and kind of did it on the fly. This may have been my mistake because the issues where just poppin at me, but I also feel that Ugly But Effective method would just waste my time in things that I already had in my mind. Maybe I am one of the few who think excessive outlining is much? Once you write down the issues, I think that may be all you need.

In any case, anyone want to critique a portion of my crim essay?

[LetsGoLAW]

took a crim exam just now with 4300 words in 2 hours. Though I didn't really follow LEEWS outline structure except to just get going (game myself of 20 mins of only-outline time since we have that on the real exam), and kind of did it on the fly. This may have been my mistake because the issues where just poppin at me, but I also feel that Ugly But Effective method would just waste my time in things that I already had in my mind. Maybe I am one of the few who think excessive outlining is much? Once you write down the issues, I think that may be all you need.

In any case, anyone want to critique a portion of my crim essay?

Hey bro. PM me because I am using the LEEWS method closely and am typing less words. Maybe we can find a middle ground.

[Blumpbeef]

What do you guys think about 15/20 minute questions? How long should we outline for those or should we just jump in? I feel like if I spent 5/15 minutes outlining im screwed.

[Jsa725]

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[SportsFan]

Just wondering, what exactly do you guys do when you're outlining an answer? I've been basically reading through exam questions, underlining what I think are key facts, writing in some margin notes (like for torts, I'll write in "breach" or "proximate cause?" or "product liability" or whatever), and then I get started writing. I guess it helps that none of my exams have hypos that are longer than 2.5 pages so I've never really felt the need to go crazy outlining an answer, but I think it could help. If I do decide to outline my answers, should I be handwriting or typing (not 100% sure how the exam software works so I don't wanna type out an outline if I won't be able to quickly refer back to it or delete it at the end or w/e)?

What do you guys think about 15/20 minute questions? How long should we outline for those or should we just jump in? I feel like if I spent 5/15 minutes outlining im screwed.

My civ pro exam is sort of like this, where the professor doesn't ask any long/overwhelming questions but breaks it up into a bunch of 15-40 minute questions. I'm not gonna bother outlining of those since frankly its unnecessary IMO.