page limit exam BETTER performance? Forum

[yellowjacket2012]

I've done BEST in my exams where I've had a word limit or page limit, it has minimized my first instinct to engage in keyboard diarrhoea during exams. Has this been the case with anyone else?

The classes I did best on, with these limits, I had to basically deliver a "concentrated chemical" versus a "diluted chemical" type of response. I wouldn't waste time on getting too funky or creative, but would just deliver the cold logic of my reasoning in as few words as possible, while arguing in the alternative and speaking to policy considerations - and move on to the next issue.

Anyone else noticed a similar pattern? I'm trying to figure out a way to do well in my 2L and 3L year, to reflect on what worked, and while a lot of the grades seem arbitrary and not correlated with the amount of time I put into these classes, this is the ONE pattern that I have noticed.

Anyone else find a similar deal?

[zanda]

Now that I think of it my 2 worst grades were my only 2 exams with page limits.

[Jordan77]

On character/page limit exams I generally find myself struggling to find a way to distinguish myself from everyone else. In my mind, tests with limited pages are much harder to distinguish yourself on because everyone will put in the core elements needed for discussion with little room for policy talk or side points that generally merit me more credit on any given exam. To each their own I suppose!

I also think it is much harder for a professor to decide grades when most papers will have the same language given the page limit.

[270910]

I mean, everyone has strengths and weaknesses and styles. But because every law school exam is curved, you can't really make generalizations about the exams so much as you can learn about your own strategies and practices.

Every time I hear somebody call a prof a hard or something I chuckle. It's all curved!