Any success stories on increasing performance 2d 1L semester Forum

[1l2016]

Kind of general, but any tips on what helped you increase your grades from 1st to 2nd semester? I did well 1st semester top ~30% but I was pretty disappointed since i though I was going to do better. Trying to motivate myself to turn some of those B+'s into A-'s and hearing some success stories would be helpful

[bdm261]

I'm finding this semester is split into a few gradable assignments instead of being based 100% on exam performance. For instance, in CivPro we have mock litigation which amounts to 50% of your grade and as long as you follow the rules, you can earn full credit. Property this semester also has a few small assignments thrown in such as a landlord-tenant exercise with a mock client; so I think overall most students will do better this semester just based upon that.

[michaelbluth]

First semester 1L GPA was 3.716 (14 credits), second semester 1L GPA was 4.062 (16 credits) for a cumulative 3.9.

What I did differently second semester was...

-Started outlining earlier
-Read canned briefs (which isn't to say I didn't read the casebook at all, just that I didn't read as closely)
-Got legal writing stuff out of the way earlier so it wasn't hanging over my head
-Stopped worrying what other people were doing or wasting time trying their methods
-Slept more, and more consistently
-Stressed less
-Did more CALI lessons throughout the semester
-Took more practice exams
-Talked through more practice exams
-Spent the reading week and time between exams taking practice exams and rewriting my outlines to make them shorter. (I write really long outlines. I study by condensing them so they're at most half as long as the original, ideally about a quarter as long as the original.)
-Took time during the study period to explain stuff I understood to my classmates - teaching someone else is the best way to expose holes in my own knowledge.
-Read novels for pleasure the night before each exam
-Drank more after each exam let out

[kykiske]

First semester 1L GPA was 3.716 (14 credits), second semester 1L GPA was 4.062 (16 credits) for a cumulative 3.9.

What I did differently second semester was...

-Started outlining earlier
-Read canned briefs (which isn't to say I didn't read the casebook at all, just that I didn't read as closely)
-Got legal writing stuff out of the way earlier so it wasn't hanging over my head
-Stopped worrying what other people were doing or wasting time trying their methods
-Slept more, and more consistently
-Stressed less
-Did more CALI lessons throughout the semester
-Took more practice exams
-Talked through more practice exams
-Spent the reading week and time between exams taking practice exams and rewriting my outlines to make them shorter. (I write really long outlines. I study by condensing them so they're at most half as long as the original, ideally about a quarter as long as the original.)
-Took time during the study period to explain stuff I understood to my classmates - teaching someone else is the best way to expose holes in my own knowledge.
-Read novels for pleasure the night before each exam
-Drank more after each exam let out

+1 to everything.

The only thing I'd add is that I stopped typing up case briefs. I instead opted to create case charts for every class, and added to the chart throughout the semester.

Yeah, I probably didn't do as well on cold-calls, but I didn't bomb them. Also, having a cumulative case chart with all the facts and BLL centralized and organized according to the topic really helped me make my shorter attack outlines.

Just my two.

[dannynoonan87]

Went from straight B+s to straight A-s and one A. Just put more time in. And figure out what kind of exam answers your profs want well before the exam. When a prof goes over a casebook hypo and says "this would be a practice question" write out an answer and make them read it so you can get feedback.