afternoon exam - tips please! Forum

[IPlaw09]

I have a K exam at 2pm.
What do I do that day? Come in early? Study? Do a hypo?
Just clueless because this is a weird time for me (I usually need coffee at that time...)

Any tips will be greatly appreciated.

[WestWingWatcher]

It depends. Do you need to be in the room early to get a good seat? Does good seat matter for you (in my case, I like a seat in the back on the edge of an aisle so there aren't distracted coming at me from each direction)? If not, then I would say just get there 15 minutes before hand because thats when proctors usually start handing out things/giving instruction. I don't go in earlier because I'm too distracted to focus on going through my notes and there tends to be a lot of stressful energy going around. For 2 pm exams I like to bring a small coffee in and drink it slowly before the exam as I'm waiting. Enough to get the effects, but hopefully not enough to make me jittery/have to pee.

Now that I think about it, I do all these things for an exam no matter which time.

[felinafelina]

I don't know if others agree, but I found it very useful to do a hypo about an hour before the exam. My general strategy for 2PM exams was:


Get up around 10AM, have coffee and breakfast, read through entire outline at least once.
Do at hypo at 12PM - pick a hypo that you've already done, but that you don't remember it completely, that you know covers a lot of material. This will get your mind running and ready to think through different issues, spot issues, analyze them, etc. And since you've already done it, you don't need to look at the answers after and freak yourself out, just in case you missed something.
Get to exam at 1PM to get a seat, drink an energy drink, go to the bathroom before the exam starts so you don't need to in the middle of the exam.
Study in my seat by flipping through my outline and refreshing my mind of the topics until the exam is passed out.


Good luck!

[pancakes3]

I don't know if others agree, but I found it very useful to do a hypo about an hour before the exam.

christ, no.

[felinafelina]

I don't know if others agree, but I found it very useful to do a hypo about an hour before the exam.

christ, no.

Lol well it worked for my study group and I. Different strokes.

[pancakes3]

I don't know if others agree, but I found it very useful to do a hypo about an hour before the exam.

christ, no.

Lol well it worked for my study group and I. Different strokes.

Study group? We are very different law students.

[felinafelina]

I don't know if others agree, but I found it very useful to do a hypo about an hour before the exam.

christ, no.

Lol well it worked for my study group and I. Different strokes.

Study group? We are very different law students.

Yeah, it's interesting how many different tactics there are that still lead to good grades. One person I know studied entirely by himself, I studied in a study group, we both got very high grades. I think the most important thing is to know what works for each person.

[orangecup]

Sleep in, relax until 1:30 and crush it at 2:00.

It's unlikely you're going to learn something new the hour before the exam, so just chill out and go in fresh.

[hangingtree]

You should just do what's best for you. If you have no idea what that is, I'd probably suggest what orangecup above said: make it an "early" exam by adjusting your sleep schedule. Maybe 4am to 12pm is a bit much, definitely don't get up before 10am under this approach. You're more likely to be high functioning, everything else equal, a couple hours after you wake up instead of 7 hours after you wake up.

By the way, you're right to be thinking about this. My worst grade in law school had an afternoon exam. I was concerned about it throwing off my routine, and it did. I probably psyched myself out a bit, but it did affect me.

[IPlaw09]

Thank you everyone for your honest feedback!

Here's to hoping I'll crush it and never fail to recognize SOF issues!

[FSK]

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