Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has? Forum

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dingbat

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by dingbat » Wed Dec 12, 2012 11:24 pm

Lawquacious wrote:
dingbat wrote:
Lawquacious wrote:
eeksorry wrote:If so, how did it happen? Is it even possible to fail if you go to most classes and go so far as to study a little?

I think a lot of it has to do with the professor. IMO most profs at T20-level schools won't give below B- or C+ (or maybe C) .
My school sets a mandatory 3% minimum C grades, which is 1 per section or 2 per supersection
Which is not inconsistent with the statement you quoted (to the extent you were implying it was--you may not have been)... What tier school do you go to out of curiousity (ie. I think you are around T10 but I'm not sure).
Fordham

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by 3ThrowAway99 » Wed Dec 12, 2012 11:34 pm

dingbat wrote:
Lawquacious wrote:
dingbat wrote:
Lawquacious wrote:

I think a lot of it has to do with the professor. IMO most profs at T20-level schools won't give below B- or C+ (or maybe C) .
My school sets a mandatory 3% minimum C grades, which is 1 per section or 2 per supersection
Which is not inconsistent with the statement you quoted (to the extent you were implying it was--you may not have been)... What tier school do you go to out of curiousity (ie. I think you are around T10 but I'm not sure).
Fordham

Cool, thx bro. I'm at T20, and luckily I don't think there are such required curves... at least for upperclassmen. Most profs don't give below B-, but out of about 50 profs I have seen one give D-level grades and another who gave as many Cs as she did Bs (based on released grade distributions at my school).

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fathergoose

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by fathergoose » Wed Dec 12, 2012 11:44 pm

kalvano wrote:
fathergoose wrote:In 1L fall contracts we had someone fail. Our prof normalized his grades on a 0-100 scale and sent out the high, low, and median grades. The median was in the 50s or 60s or something but the low was along the lines of a 6 or 7. That same person subsequently failed a class the next semester I think and is barely hanging on to graduate.

To be fair, you go to a shitty T2.
I know. So so shitty

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by 3ThrowAway99 » Thu Dec 13, 2012 12:05 am

fathergoose wrote:
kalvano wrote:
fathergoose wrote:In 1L fall contracts we had someone fail. Our prof normalized his grades on a 0-100 scale and sent out the high, low, and median grades. The median was in the 50s or 60s or something but the low was along the lines of a 6 or 7. That same person subsequently failed a class the next semester I think and is barely hanging on to graduate.

To be fair, you go to a shitty T2.
I know. So so shitty

TBF, I think Kalvano was in kind of a feisty mood haha

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kalvano

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by kalvano » Thu Dec 13, 2012 12:15 am

Lawquacious wrote:
fathergoose wrote:
kalvano wrote:
fathergoose wrote:In 1L fall contracts we had someone fail. Our prof normalized his grades on a 0-100 scale and sent out the high, low, and median grades. The median was in the 50s or 60s or something but the low was along the lines of a 6 or 7. That same person subsequently failed a class the next semester I think and is barely hanging on to graduate.

To be fair, you go to a shitty T2.
I know. So so shitty

TBF, I think Kalvano was in kind of a feisty mood haha

We attend the same fine institution of higher learning.

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fathergoose

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by fathergoose » Thu Dec 13, 2012 12:25 am

kalvano wrote:We attend the same fine institution of higher learning.
"Higher" being a very relative term

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Lincoln

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by Lincoln » Thu Dec 13, 2012 12:29 am

My dean of students told me today that the standard for an F is "did it appear as if the student had not actually taken the class." That being said, we have an F every couple of years. Apparently mostly people who deserve it.

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cinephile

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by cinephile » Thu Dec 13, 2012 12:42 am

In theory we have Fs, but only for cheating/plagiarism. I've never even heard of anyone getting a C. Anything below a B- is discretionary at my school.

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OneMoreLawHopeful

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by OneMoreLawHopeful » Thu Dec 13, 2012 1:32 am

I'm at UC Hastings, and I know someone in my section got an F in crim.

The key to the F was not understanding what mens rea was, like not at all. Not a poor understanding, but literally no understanding, didn't know how to find it in a statute, didn't think it was part of the crime, and didn't bother to answer any part of the test relating to it.

That's literally the only F I've heard of.

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by wsw15 » Thu Dec 13, 2012 1:50 am

How do professors (specifically property) usually treat an exam (25% MC/ 75% essay)- where you likely where one of the only students to get all of the MC correct, and you got all of the essay "final answers" correct, but did a bad job with time management and pretty much had to briefly bullet point the majority of 1 of the 2 essays (yet actually nailed the conclusions to the various issues?)

I have been under the impression, that basically those who write a lot in the explanation section, yet form an incorrect conclusion, will do much better than a student who is right about the final conclusions but leaves out much of the explanation.

Any thoughts or first hand knowledge?

bean1234

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by bean1234 » Thu Dec 13, 2012 1:37 pm

Lowest I ever heard of was a C- in professional responsibility. Same thing as an F because you need a C to graduate. He had to retake the class to get the credits but is still hit with the C- on his transcript.

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Pretzel_Logic

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by Pretzel_Logic » Thu Dec 13, 2012 2:49 pm

OneMoreLawHopeful wrote:I'm at UC Hastings, and I know someone in my section got an F in crim.

The key to the F was not understanding what mens rea was, like not at all. Not a poor understanding, but literally no understanding, didn't know how to find it in a statute, didn't think it was part of the crime, and didn't bother to answer any part of the test relating to it.

That's literally the only F I've heard of.
A friend of mine failed crim our first semester. Somehow she talked her way into a C- to pass, but...yeah. I don't know whether she genuinely didn't understand it, if she got killed by the curve (this prof is...interesting), or what. It was bizarre. As far as I know that's the only prof who ever fails people at my LS.

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alicrimson

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by alicrimson » Sat Dec 15, 2012 1:08 am

I too know someone who failed crim, mainly because he was in our 1L class as a 2L. Also, there was a kid who failed legal research and writing first semester and had to retake it with my year and a friend of mine got a C- in app ad. The writing teacher I had was kind of a dick and would kill people for IMO minor things. Neither cheated.

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hiima3L

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by hiima3L » Sun Dec 16, 2012 7:12 pm

OneMoreLawHopeful wrote:I'm at UC Hastings, and I know someone in my section got an F in crim.

The key to the F was not understanding what mens rea was, like not at all. Not a poor understanding, but literally no understanding, didn't know how to find it in a statute, didn't think it was part of the crime, and didn't bother to answer any part of the test relating to it.

That's literally the only F I've heard of.
I went to UCH too. I heard of one F, but never found out who it was or his/her story (prof sent grade distribution around). I know of a few people who got D's. One of them sat in front of me on said exam and left crying on the second of 2 questions and wrote literally one sentence on the second question, so, even if she aced the first, she could have only have gotten 50%.

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by cruelestgame » Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:34 pm

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Last edited by cruelestgame on Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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lbeezy

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by lbeezy » Sat Dec 22, 2012 9:53 am

Pretzel_Logic wrote:
OneMoreLawHopeful wrote:I'm at UC Hastings, and I know someone in my section got an F in crim.

The key to the F was not understanding what mens rea was, like not at all. Not a poor understanding, but literally no understanding, didn't know how to find it in a statute, didn't think it was part of the crime, and didn't bother to answer any part of the test relating to it.

That's literally the only F I've heard of.
A friend of mine failed crim our first semester. Somehow she talked her way into a C- to pass, but...yeah. I don't know whether she genuinely didn't understand it, if she got killed by the curve (this prof is...interesting), or what. It was bizarre. As far as I know that's the only prof who ever fails people at my LS.
Interesting is one way to describe her.

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dingbat

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by dingbat » Sat Dec 22, 2012 10:13 am

wsw15 wrote:How do professors (specifically property) usually treat an exam (25% MC/ 75% essay)- where you likely where one of the only students to get all of the MC correct, and you got all of the essay "final answers" correct, but did a bad job with time management and pretty much had to briefly bullet point the majority of 1 of the 2 essays (yet actually nailed the conclusions to the various issues?)

I have been under the impression, that basically those who write a lot in the explanation section, yet form an incorrect conclusion, will do much better than a student who is right about the final conclusions but leaves out much of the explanation.

Any thoughts or first hand knowledge?
You do know that half the time there is no right answer, right?

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Pretzel_Logic

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Re: Has anyone ever failed an exam or know anyone who has?

Post by Pretzel_Logic » Sun Dec 23, 2012 12:41 am

lbeezy wrote:
Pretzel_Logic wrote:
OneMoreLawHopeful wrote:I'm at UC Hastings, and I know someone in my section got an F in crim.

The key to the F was not understanding what mens rea was, like not at all. Not a poor understanding, but literally no understanding, didn't know how to find it in a statute, didn't think it was part of the crime, and didn't bother to answer any part of the test relating to it.

That's literally the only F I've heard of.
A friend of mine failed crim our first semester. Somehow she talked her way into a C- to pass, but...yeah. I don't know whether she genuinely didn't understand it, if she got killed by the curve (this prof is...interesting), or what. It was bizarre. As far as I know that's the only prof who ever fails people at my LS.
Interesting is one way to describe her.
HAHA. She knows her stuff but she has dat eccentricity.

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