How many words (on average) do you write for exam answer? Forum

[dresden doll]

That is true, but even still with 4500 words, you are looking at 30k characters which is much higher than 17k.

but 17k chars = 3400 words, which is much more believable for a 3hr exam than five times that amount.

with the exception of contracts, 3400 words seems like way too few words. i actually think that isn't a very believable number. i dont believe anyone wrote 15000 words on a 3 hour exam, but ill buy into 8000 - 9000.

As far as I have been able to discern, 3000-4000 has been typical of 3-hour exams at HLS. I can't imagine writing a 9000-word exam without a massive amount of unnecessary word vomit and/or writing anecdotes and hypothetical analogies to take up more wordspace.

Agreed. I spit out 4,500 words for my 3 hour Civ Pro exam and that was me typing, typing, typing - I didn't even get to go back and edit what I'd written. Now, admittedly, I'm not the fastest typer ever and I could see someone hitting 6,000 words in that timespan - but anything above that I just don't buy.

[rbgrocio]

My guess is some people are counting characters, not words!

We used the examsoft software. I dunno if the count at the bottom was words or character, but mine said 17,000 and my friend's said more than 15000. Our contracts exam was 4 hours. Our torts was 3 hours. We did not have a word limit. If you guys wanna call bs, fine... but such is the truth. Why would I lie about such studpid thing, is not like the more you write, the better the grade.

[Llewellyn]

My guess is some people are counting characters, not words!

We used the examsoft software. I dunno if the count at the bottom was words or character, but mine said 17,000 and my friend's said more than 15000. Our contracts exam was 4 hours. Our torts was 3 hours. We did not have a word limit. If you guys wanna call bs, fine... but such is the truth. Why would I lie about such studpid thing, is not like the more you write, the better the grade.

That number on the bottom is a character count.

[excelsiorcaelo]

My guess is some people are counting characters, not words!

We used the examsoft software. I dunno if the count at the bottom was words or character, but mine said 17,000 and my friend's said more than 15000. Our contracts exam was 4 hours. Our torts was 3 hours. We did not have a word limit. If you guys wanna call bs, fine... but such is the truth. Why would I lie about such studpid thing, is not like the more you write, the better the grade.

That number on the bottom is a character count.

That makes much more sense.

[mallard]

I type faster than anybody I know and typing over 100WPM for three or four hours at a time would absolutely destroy my hands. I mean I'm pretty sure they'd be unusable for days. And I could only keep up the pace for that long if I were typing off of a pre-written essay or something.

[thesealocust]

My guess is some people are counting characters, not words!

We used the examsoft software. I dunno if the count at the bottom was words or character, but mine said 17,000 and my friend's said more than 15000. Our contracts exam was 4 hours. Our torts was 3 hours. We did not have a word limit. If you guys wanna call bs, fine... but such is the truth. Why would I lie about such studpid thing, is not like the more you write, the better the grade.

lmfao. Not only is that a character count, it makes your overall word count WEAK. CE2JD and a couple others broke 10,000 words (i.e. 50,000+ characters).

I actually just got some replies to my firm mass mailings - they told me that they'd like to interview me over break, but since I didn't have any grades yet, I should just forward them the word counts for my exams.

[1474292940502124]

My guess is some people are counting characters, not words!

We used the examsoft software. I dunno if the count at the bottom was words or character, but mine said 17,000 and my friend's said more than 15000. Our contracts exam was 4 hours. Our torts was 3 hours. We did not have a word limit. If you guys wanna call bs, fine... but such is the truth. Why would I lie about such studpid thing, is not like the more you write, the better the grade.

lmfao. Not only is that a character count, it makes your overall word count WEAK. CE2JD and a couple others broke 10,000 words (i.e. 50,000+ characters).

I actually just got some replies to my firm mass mailings - they told me that they'd like to interview me over break, but since I didn't have any grades yet, I should just forward them the word counts for my exams.

I had a char. count of over 50k, but word count of 7.5k... It was torts, and I said the word negligence a lot.. Also, I said insurance, foreseeability, and deep-pocket theory alot. Maybe that accounts for it.

[mallard]

For what it's worth, A/A+ answers (from model answer banks and the like) for my classes tended to be around 6000 words (20 pages), although there was one particularly good one that was around 8000.

[1474292940502124]

For what it's worth, A/A+ answers for my classes tended to be around 6000 words (20 pages), although there was one particularly good one that was around 8000.

6k words is 20 pages? Could you imagine reading at least 20+, but in my class 90+ papers, each being roughly 20 pages, and all being relatively horrible to read based on time limit?

[mallard]

For what it's worth, A/A+ answers for my classes tended to be around 6000 words (20 pages), although there was one particularly good one that was around 8000.

6k words is 20 pages? Could you imagine reading at least 20+, but in my class 90+ papers, each being roughly 20 pages, and all being relatively horrible to read based on time limit?

Could you imagine that you have no other work to do all semester besides teach three to six hours of class, for which you have little responsibility, having been granted tenure?

[1474292940502124]

For what it's worth, A/A+ answers for my classes tended to be around 6000 words (20 pages), although there was one particularly good one that was around 8000.

6k words is 20 pages? Could you imagine reading at least 20+, but in my class 90+ papers, each being roughly 20 pages, and all being relatively horrible to read based on time limit?

Could you imagine that you have no other work to do all semester besides teach three to six hours of class, for which you have little responsibility, having been granted tenure?

Oh.. it's worth it... I'm not commenting on the overall worth. Just commenting as to the task itself.

[mallard]

Well, our grades aren't due for awhile, so professors probably need to read something like three exams a day for the next month. This is the hardest part of the year for them. So...

[Leeroy Jenkins]

Well, our grades aren't due for awhile, so professors probably need to read something like three exams a day for the next month. This is the hardest part of the year for them. So...

And they probably read them more than once! craaaazy

[1474292940502124]

Well, our grades aren't due for awhile, so professors probably need to read something like three exams a day for the next month. This is the hardest part of the year for them. So...

I just wouldn't look forward to it. I still believe they should have them ready before they will (mid-Jan, for us). I'd weed people out with M/C.

[excelsiorcaelo]

I type faster than anybody I know and typing over 100WPM for three or four hours at a time would absolutely destroy my hands. I mean I'm pretty sure they'd be unusable for days. And I could only keep up the pace for that long if I were typing off of a pre-written essay or something.

Them's fightin' words! Go on facebook and prove it!

[Grad_Student]

I wrote 9600 for my torts final. It was one very long essay.

I wrote about 17,000 for my contracts final. It had four essays. The first one you were supposed to take 45 mins to answers, the second one 30 mins, the third one 10 mins and the last one 75 mins. WE also had 40 multiple choice questions. The last essay was a hypothetical where, if you spotted every issue, you had to say pretty much all you knew about contracts. My friend wrote more than 15,000, and a lot of people were about the same.

I'm going to have to call bullshit on this. For a 160 minute exam, as you stated, to type 17,000 words you would have to be typing at an average of 106 words per minute not including going back and checking mistakes. Not saying impossible but I don't believe it.

YHBT. HTH. HAND.

Probably. BTW, ILY

[sperry]

6,000 words for a model answer seems absolutely ridiculous. Our professors' model answers tended to be 2-3,000 words. I wrote 2,400 on the only true issue spotter we had, and while I don't think mine was outstanding or anything, I can't even imagine that anything above 4,000 words be useful.

[thesealocust]

6,000 words for a model answer seems absolutely ridiculous. Our professors' model answers tended to be 2-3,000 words. I wrote 2,400 on the only true issue spotter we had, and while I don't think mine was outstanding or anything, I can't even imagine that anything above 4,000 words be useful.

Well, it depends on the question / class / time allotted. I'll say for sure though that the conventional wisdom of 'there are always more issues than time to adequately discuss them' proved quite true on all of my exams, so I fail to see how you could pick a word count and say 'I can't even imagine anything above that would be useful'.

Also, the only 'real' model answer I had access to was A) not the highest scoring exam and B) chosen for its brevity. There are a zillion different ways to skin the law school (exam) cat.

[rayiner]

6,000 words for a model answer seems absolutely ridiculous. Our professors' model answers tended to be 2-3,000 words. I wrote 2,400 on the only true issue spotter we had, and while I don't think mine was outstanding or anything, I can't even imagine that anything above 4,000 words be useful.

Don't you go to YHS or something?

[Snooker]

I figure the average answer is actually closer to 3,500 words in length (12 pages); TLS is just a place full of gunners. 1 professor given 5 weeks to read 100 of such exams only needs to read about 35 pages per day, when they could probably do 300 per day. Obviously scholarship is being given a front seat to grading.