Writing practice exams without model answers? Forum

[Breezin]

Is this pointless? My contracts exam is Monday. There's tons of material. No time get a study group together.

[LeDique]

Is this pointless? My contracts exam is Monday. There's tons of material. No time get a study group together.

You call your friends. Ask "have you done practice test xyz?" If you both have, discuss with them over the phone now. If not, ask if they're planning to take one and want to talk it over sometime tomorrow. If not, call someone else. Repeat. HTH.

Further, you shouldn't be expecting model answers to spot every single issue either. Our contracts professor said the model answer he gave us got 40% of the possible points, and that was the best grade.

[Gamecubesupreme]

I don't see why practicing with hypos would be pointless regardless of whether there are model answers or not.

I mean, what else could you possibly be doing right now that is more beneficial to helping you master the material?

[094320]

..

[morris248]

Pointless since you have nothing to compare your answer to and may simply be continuing to make the same mistake.

You can find old contracts exams with model answers/grading guides at

http://www.law-school-books.com/contracts.html

[shock259]

It's good practice to just write the BLL and get better at analyzing. It's not nearly as helpful as one with model answers, but it is better than nothing.

[quiver]

It's good practice to just write the BLL and get better at analyzing. It's not nearly as helpful as one with model answers, but it is better than nothing.

Yeah I agree with this. By this point you should pretty much know what your professor is looking for and writing out an exam with no model answer still gives you 1) practice writing an exam under timed conditions, 2) further insight into your professor's style (wording, areas of interest, etc.), 3) more comfort with the BLL and analysis, and 4) the strengths and weaknesses of your own knowledge (related to the previous point). Obviously not as helpful as an exam with model answers, but those other areas need practice as well.

[071816]

I say it's totally worth it if you can discuss what you wrote with a classmate or two whose judgment and competence you trust.

[sun]

Just outline your answers and review them with either your prof or other students.

[Geist13]

It's fine so long as you haven't gotten some part of the doctrine completely wrong, which is unlikely because the BLL is simple. Even if you don't have a model answer, you still get to practice seeing some patterns and practice spotting issues. Going over it with a friend is nice; a couple times I have taken an exam without an answer and emailed my outlined answer to a friend who emails me his outline for the same answer. It's the same as going over it. We'll email each other with things we notice.

It's been my experience that this site drastically overstates how often you will actually have practice exams available. I've only had practice exams available in 4/11 courses, 2 of which have been from the same professor. It is true, however, that my GPA is significantly better when I can see a professor's old exams; they basically do the same thing year after year.