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I just found out one of my professors basically copied word for word two of three exam questions. One of the questions she got directly from the internet and was too lazy to even change the name. The other came from another law school. At least two to three students, if not more, had seen the test questions and answers prior to the exam. I feel its a slap in the face to every student who has put in over the semester and didn't just happen to stumble upon the right practice exam questions. Not to mention our own student honor code that is strictly enforced. Is there any recourse? Just wondering what I should do or how any other law schools have handled this issue?

Raynemaker wrote:I just found out one of my professors basically copied word for word two of three exam questions. One of the questions she got directly from the internet and was too lazy to even change the name. The other came from another law school. At least two to three students, if not more, had seen the test questions and answers prior to the exam. I feel its a slap in the face to every student who has put in over the semester and didn't just happen to stumble upon the right practice exam questions. Not to mention our own student honor code that is strictly enforced. Is there any recourse? Just wondering what I should do or how any other law schools have handled this issue?

Please find something better to do with your time!

2011L1 wrote:

Raynemaker wrote:I just found out one of my professors basically copied word for word two of three exam questions. One of the questions she got directly from the internet and was too lazy to even change the name. The other came from another law school. At least two to three students, if not more, had seen the test questions and answers prior to the exam. I feel its a slap in the face to every student who has put in over the semester and didn't just happen to stumble upon the right practice exam questions. Not to mention our own student honor code that is strictly enforced. Is there any recourse? Just wondering what I should do or how any other law schools have handled this issue?

Please find something better to do with your time!

I think it's a legitimate issue.

This has happened before. Search TLS and Above the Law.

Report it to the administration. They'll most likely curve the test differently for those who had seen the exam questions before. That's what happened at my school.

Aqualibrium wrote:Report it to the administration. They'll most likely curve the test differently for those who had seen the exam questions before. That's what happened at my school.

how would anyone prove who had and had not seen the exam?

and 2, wow that sucks.

At least half of my old torts exams were based off of actual cases, with large portions of the fact pattern lifted from the opinions.

They were generally new cases around the time of the exam, though, so it seems unlikely anyone actually came across them.

[edit] I wasn't too clear above. I'm speaking of old exams made available to my current (well, now over-and-done-with) Torts class.

Isn't this the same scenario with what happened to University of Baltimore people?

goosey wrote:

Aqualibrium wrote:Report it to the administration. They'll most likely curve the test differently for those who had seen the exam questions before. That's what happened at my school.

how would anyone prove who had and had not seen the exam?

and 2, wow that sucks.

Honor code. You just have to trust that people won't be dicks.

Aqualibrium wrote:

goosey wrote:

Aqualibrium wrote:Report it to the administration. They'll most likely curve the test differently for those who had seen the exam questions before. That's what happened at my school.

how would anyone prove who had and had not seen the exam?

and 2, wow that sucks.

Honor code. You just have to trust that people won't be dicks.

Eeeh. That's the thing: people tend to be dicks.

Unfortunately I don't see you being able to do too much about how this effected your grade personally, but report that shit to the administration immediately and nail that lazy fucker. I'd be pissed.

Mustard Blood wrote:

Aqualibrium wrote:

goosey wrote:

Aqualibrium wrote:Report it to the administration. They'll most likely curve the test differently for those who had seen the exam questions before. That's what happened at my school.

how would anyone prove who had and had not seen the exam?

and 2, wow that sucks.

Honor code. You just have to trust that people won't be dicks.

Eeeh. That's the thing: people tend to be dicks.

Well, at my school people weren't dicks. The school also raised the overall curve to encourage people not to be.

what school do you attend, op? just out of curiosity. and yes, you should have a dean of academic affairs. he/she should know about this, post haste.

Aqualibrium wrote: Well, at my school people weren't dicks. The school also raised the overall curve to encourage people not to be.

but how would you know? i mean, technically almost everyone who said they didnt see the test could just be lying and being dicks

so if 25% said they did see it, those ppl are definitely not dicks (in this regard), but the remaining 75% who said they didnt...anywhere from 0-75% could be lying lol

Aqualibrium wrote:Well, at my school people weren't dicks. The school also raised the overall curve to encourage people not to be.

that's nice for everyone in that class, but how about everyone else in the school competing for class rank?

dailygrind wrote:

Aqualibrium wrote:Well, at my school people weren't dicks. The school also raised the overall curve to encourage people not to be.

that's nice for everyone in that class, but how about everyone else in the school competing for class rank?

Overall means just that. Each sections, curve for that specific class snapped to be in line with the new, slightly higher one. This was like two years ago with a crazy visiting professor.

Also, you guys really act like everything is fair across the board, it's not. There are so many things outside of your control on law school exams. I had one class last semester where we had a 3.3 curve . One professor gave pretty much everyone a B+. Another professor followed a normal distribution, which meant that there weren't that many A's distributed. Another professor gave something like 20 grades in the A/A- range, but also gave much lower grades to balance it out (yes he gave D's). Is it "fair" that in one section it's pretty much impossible to get an A? Sure the people who weren't gonna compete for one anyway like that, but what about the others? Is it "fair" that one section has so many A range grades? Sure the people who wrote B+ papers but got A's are happy about that, but it sucks for people who would have other wise fallen into the now non-existent middle.

Life, and law school, are not fair.

Aqualibrium wrote:Life, and law school, are not fair.

too true, but that doesn't mean you should just lie down and take it.

dailygrind wrote:

Aqualibrium wrote:Life, and law school, are not fair.

too true, but that doesn't mean you should just lie down and take it.

LOL, I don't want to make an assumption, so I'll ask whether you're a 0L, 1L, etc...? If you're a 0L or 1L, you'll soon find out that your professors generally in an ivory tower of sorts. There is very little that you can challenge them on. Their judgment on how to distribute grades so long as they are in line with the curve, and how to grade exams are great examples of things they won't be challenged on. Outside of an egregious error, your grade is your grade.

I mean what could I have done about the situation I described in my above post? Go to the administration and complain that it's not fair, everyone should be on the normal distribution because it screws up class rank? They knew good and well how the grade distributions looked. It has been like that in that specific class for the last 5 years (my school lets you look at the grade distributions that far back).

Your options are:

1) Report to administration.
2) Do nothing.

Personally, I wouldn't be able to do nothing - I'd be too pissed off. I'd report, and if nothing happens, well, then nothing happens. Professors have to give one effing exam a [strike]year[/strike] semester, and I don't think it's too much to ask of them that they write a new question for each one.

Edit: Changed year to semester.

sundance95 wrote:Your options are:

1) Report to administration.
2) Do nothing.

Personally, I wouldn't be able to do nothing - I'd be too pissed off. I'd report, and if nothing happens, well, then nothing happens. Professors have to give one effing exam a year, and I don't think it's too much to ask of them that they write a new question for each one.

Agreed.

Aqualibrium wrote:

dailygrind wrote:

Aqualibrium wrote:Life, and law school, are not fair.

too true, but that doesn't mean you should just lie down and take it.

LOL, I don't want to make an assumption, so I'll ask whether you're a 0L, 1L, etc...? If you're a 0L or 1L, you'll soon find out that your professors generally in an ivory tower of sorts. There is very little that you can challenge them on. Their judgment on how to distribute grades so long as they are in line with the curve, and how to grade exams are great examples of things they won't be challenged on. Outside of an egregious error, your grade is your grade.

I mean what could I have done about the situation I described in my above post? Go to the administration and complain that it's not fair, everyone should be on the normal distribution because it screws up class rank? They knew good and well how the grade distributions looked. It has been like that in that specific class for the last 5 years (my school lets you look at the grade distributions that far back).

the situation you described (clustering of grades vs. loose clustering) you can't do much about ex post. ex ante, you find out which ones have a tight clustering and you slack your ass off, devoting your time to those which have a higher degree of variance.

the situation the other guy described, that's something you get up in arms about. i'd be livid. also, 1L.

This happened @ NYU last year. I don't remember how it was handled . . . but someone(s) ended up reporting it to the administration. I'd report it, even if you don't get a grading change (which would be difficult to determine) the lazy professor would (hopefully) get some kind of rebuff or something.

Stanford4Me wrote:This happened @ NYU last year. I don't remember how it was handled . . . but someone(s) ended up reporting it to the administration. I'd report it, even if you don't get a grading change (which would be difficult to determine) the lazy professor would (hopefully) get some kind of rebuff or something.

I have that professor for contracts. Everyone's been wondering if he's going to do it again here.

bostonian wrote:

Stanford4Me wrote:This happened @ NYU last year. I don't remember how it was handled . . . but someone(s) ended up reporting it to the administration. I'd report it, even if you don't get a grading change (which would be difficult to determine) the lazy professor would (hopefully) get some kind of rebuff or something.

I have that professor for contracts. Everyone's been wondering if he's going to do it again here.

Are people really wondering? I think he'd be nuts if he did it again.

dude has one of the cushiest jobs ever, and he couldn't even create his own fucking exam. That's bull shit.