After Grades - What did we learn? Forum

[vanwinkle]

I think the later posters in this thread are doing a disservice by chatting about ur petty bullshit in what was for the first few pages pretty solid posts. Please stay on topic and continue the small talk in another thread, preferably in private msgs. Thanks in advance.

Who died and put you in charge?

(Hint: You're adding to the petty bullshit, good job.)

[prezidentv8]

I think the later posters in this thread are doing a disservice by chatting about ur petty bullshit in what was for the first few pages pretty solid posts. Please stay on topic and continue the small talk in another thread, preferably in private msgs. Thanks in advance.

Gunner.

[Cavalier]

I think the later posters in this thread are doing a disservice by chatting about ur petty bullshit in what was for the first few pages pretty solid posts. Please stay on topic and continue the small talk in another thread, preferably in private msgs. Thanks in advance.

Quick, call the waaaahmbulance!

[apper123]

I think the later posters in this thread are doing a disservice by chatting about ur petty bullshit in what was for the first few pages pretty solid posts. Please stay on topic and continue the small talk in another thread, preferably in private msgs. Thanks in advance.

pew pew pewww

(those are gunner noises)

[Connelly]

Very difficult to take someone seriously who has Partner Emeritus as his avatar.

[TTT-LS]

.

[ScaredWorkedBored]

Lesson learned:

For the fifth semester running, when I barely finish tough material exams and second-guess myself for a month, I get an A.

[vanwinkle]

I'm still reeling from getting the rest of my grades last night. After three decent/good grades I had one that was so much lower than the others it made me ill. I have no idea what went wrong there, it was the class I felt the most confident I'd do well in, and I just got annhilated.

I now understand why people would say they felt law school grading was entirely random. Randomness does feel like the only explanation right now. Fortunately I'm rational enough to know there must be some kind of other explanation, and to go find out as much as I can about it.

There's nothing more gut-punching than working your ass off all semester and then getting told you finished somewhere in the bottom third of the class.

[steve_nash]

.

[eth3n]

im hoping that evidence is not one of those classes

[SteelReserve]

There's nothing more gut-punching than working your ass off all semester and then getting told you finished somewhere in the bottom third of the class.

You good sir are duly credited for being honest. There is undoubtedly no shortage of people on this site that would never publicly share what you have.

Go find out where you went wrong and best of luck.

[steve_nash]

.

[eth3n]

first good law-school related news ive gotten in awhile, thx

[Cavalier]

One thing I will do next semester is pay more attention to the cases. I still won't go as far as actually briefing them, but I will make sure I do not slack off in highlighting the facts and important parts of the court's reasoning. I may even use two different colored highlighters!

On two of my exams, there were at least a couple questions that dealt with particular cases in great detail. For instance, in civil procedure, "assume the facts of this case, but the plane crash took place in Florida instead of Scotland." When we covered those cases in class I had only skimmed through the text and quickly highlighted just to prevent myself from looking like a total fool if I was cold called. On the exam, I was faced with the choice of either spending a lot of time rereading the cases to understand them, which would eat up way too much of the 3 1/2 hours, or rely on whatever I happened to highlight, and my notes, to guess my way through the problem. I chose the latter approach. Based on my grades it certainly didn't cause me to do poorly on the exam, but I probably could have done better had I entered the exam room with a more material on the cases than sloppy notes and random highlighting.

[RVP11]

I second Cav's suggestion that cases are more important than most of TLS would have you believe.

One thing that worked for me was putting little case blurbs in my outline. 1 sentence of facts, 1 sentence of reasoning, 1 sentence of holding/rule. Any more than that is probably overkill.

Some profs had "assume the facts of __________" questions. Some profs seem to give bonus points for case citations.

[vanwinkle]

I second Cav's suggestion that cases are more important than most of TLS would have you believe.

One thing that worked for me was putting little case blurbs in my outline. 1 sentence of facts, 1 sentence of reasoning, 1 sentence of holding/rule. Any more than that is probably overkill.

Some profs had "assume the facts of __________" questions. Some profs seem to give bonus points for case citations.

This man speaks the truth. I had one exam where half the questions required you to refer to at least one specific case. Of the remaining classes, what was by far the highest grade I got was the one in which I most heavily cited cases during my analysis. I haven't gotten to see the exam and how it was graded but I have a feeling that has something to do with it.

[vamedic03]

I second Cav's suggestion that cases are more important than most of TLS would have you believe.

One thing that worked for me was putting little case blurbs in my outline. 1 sentence of facts, 1 sentence of reasoning, 1 sentence of holding/rule. Any more than that is probably overkill.

Some profs had "assume the facts of __________" questions. Some profs seem to give bonus points for case citations.

I think I would add a little to this and say its important to know the major cases. The case that JS and Cav are referring to the professor spent 2 days on. That said, I found that closely reading the cases in all my classes has been extremely beneficial and, I find that citing cases was a really quick way to make a point - I especially like to use cites to distinguish fact patterns . . . I found that for most of my exams, I was finishing early and with only 3500-4500 words per exam

[BobSacamano]

I just got my last grade, for a class I felt lost the entire semester. I tried to pull it all together by the end of the year but it just wasn't clicking. The exam was a total curveball and I honestly felt physically ill leaving it, thinking I had done so poorly. All week I've been trying to calculate how low my GPA would go with a C or C+.

Just now I woke up from a nap, went to check my grades, found out I got an A. I honestly have no earthly idea how this happened. I keep checking the grade to make sure I wasn't still sleeping when I saw it. I hope this post doesn't come across as bragging (I don't know any of you so I don't even know what the point would be), I'm just shocked. It's not that I thought I didn't do well, I KNEW I bombed it. I'm thinking now that lots of people completely missed the what the question was asking on one of the essays (it was tricky, not obvious what the prof wanted) or that I just got really, really lucky on the multiple choice.

I wish I could be happy right now but I'm too shocked. I know that it may be stupid of me too think this, and I should probably just be happy for myself right now, but I'm terrified of this semester now. I don't know how I pulled off my GPA and I don't know how to do it again.

[Dick Whitman]

I just got my last grade, for a class I felt lost the entire semester. I tried to pull it all together by the end of the year but it just wasn't clicking. The exam was a total curveball and I honestly felt physically ill leaving it, thinking I had done so poorly. All week I've been trying to calculate how low my GPA would go with a C or C+.

Just now I woke up from a nap, went to check my grades, found out I got an A. I honestly have no earthly idea how this happened. I keep checking the grade to make sure I wasn't still sleeping when I saw it. I hope this post doesn't come across as bragging (I don't know any of you so I don't even know what the point would be), I'm just shocked. It's not that I thought I didn't do well, I KNEW I bombed it. I'm thinking now that lots of people completely missed the what the question was asking on one of the essays (it was tricky, not obvious what the prof wanted) or that I just got really, really lucky on the multiple choice.

I wish I could be happy right now but I'm too shocked. I know that it may be stupid of me too think this, and I should probably just be happy for myself right now, but I'm terrified of this semester now. I don't know how I pulled off my GPA and I don't know how to do it again.

The curve strikes again.

[Cavalier]

^ Congrats! For me, grades have been rather predictable in a sense. Obviously I had no idea what they would be (like most people I figured they could be anywhere from a B- to an A), but on some finals I thought I did a lot better than on others, and my grades have confirmed that. So I am not surprised at which class I did the best in and which class I did the worst in.

Maybe contracts will surprise me, when it comes out...

[RVP11]

All my grades have been surprising, but in relation to each other my guesses were accurate. By this I mean I correctly predicted which was my best, my worst, etc., but I was way off on a couple grades.

[prezidentv8]

I just got my last grade, for a class I felt lost the entire semester. I tried to pull it all together by the end of the year but it just wasn't clicking. The exam was a total curveball and I honestly felt physically ill leaving it, thinking I had done so poorly. All week I've been trying to calculate how low my GPA would go with a C or C+.

Just now I woke up from a nap, went to check my grades, found out I got an A. I honestly have no earthly idea how this happened. I keep checking the grade to make sure I wasn't still sleeping when I saw it. I hope this post doesn't come across as bragging (I don't know any of you so I don't even know what the point would be), I'm just shocked. It's not that I thought I didn't do well, I KNEW I bombed it. I'm thinking now that lots of people completely missed the what the question was asking on one of the essays (it was tricky, not obvious what the prof wanted) or that I just got really, really lucky on the multiple choice.

I wish I could be happy right now but I'm too shocked. I know that it may be stupid of me too think this, and I should probably just be happy for myself right now, but I'm terrified of this semester now. I don't know how I pulled off my GPA and I don't know how to do it again.

I think no matter where my grades are I'm going to be surprised

[mac.empress]

I second Cav's suggestion that cases are more important than most of TLS would have you believe.

One thing that worked for me was putting little case blurbs in my outline. 1 sentence of facts, 1 sentence of reasoning, 1 sentence of holding/rule. Any more than that is probably overkill.

Some profs had "assume the facts of __________" questions. Some profs seem to give bonus points for case citations.

In the Commonwealth, the "ignore cases" advice wouldn't cut it here at all. You MUST know the cases. No way around that.

[joobacca]

well, i need to talk to my professors first, but i think clarity/organization/general writing sytle might be holding me back. i've noticed on practice exams that i spot enough issues but i just write on and on about something that might actually require a few sentences and i might just write a couple of sentences that require more analysis.

i don't think writing style is something i can fix overnight so in order to solve this i might take even more practice exams so that i can get myself to write in the preferred way. this method is a bit brute force for me so i would appreciate any suggestions yall have on this

[ak362]

Alright. All grades back, so I'm ready for my TLS debrief and ready to contribute. Not.. you know, offering brief, noncontributory remarks.

School: T1/T50 - whatever you want to call it.

Civil Procedure: ... open book, felt most confident about it, but oh well. Used Glannon E&E. Went running to a hornbook a couple of times for clarification on specific issues. Used CALI, also.

Torts: ... closed book. Better than expected. Used Glannon E&E, CALI. Used Prosser hornbook only to clarify what this nebulous thing called "proximate cause" was. Memorized major cases, outlined, did a three-page table of cases grouped by subjects. Matched certain Restatements to principles and cited to them during the exam.

Contracts: best grade ... closed book. I really have no idea how this happened. Used part of the Blum E&E, but it was so dense I really couldn't effectively use it in crunch time. Lots and lots of CALI. No hornbooks, no other supplements. No case name memorization, but took in all of the holdings and laid them out based on a memorized syllabus structure to help map out themes. Obviously I will be doing this more often.

LRW: ... I'll live.

A huge thank you to TLS for everything. I didn't use all of the study tips given by the great posters (maybe I should...?) but you guys helped me keep the eyes on the prize and navigate the roadbumps along the way.

Second semester's here - clean slate. Time to start anew and approach it with the same level of motivation, etc. Taking nothing for granted.