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

[sperry]

3700 on a 2 3/4 hour Torts exam.

We had a policy question and an issue spotter, admittedly I don't think my policy answer was very good, but I wrote 2300 words for the issue spotter and am quite confident I didn't miss anything major, and felt like I addressed a whole lot of minor issues too.


I am getting riduclously worried about this whole process. I can't even imagine how someone would have written 4000 words or something on my Torts issue spotter today. I don't believe that I missed 6 pages worth of issues, yet I"m sure that people wrote that much.

Don't worry too much about it. I'm in a different section than you and our two questions were hybrid issue spotter/policy questions. So you needed to write a lot. It's quite possible that your Torts test really didn't have all that much. Or other people ramble/meander constantly.

Anyway, I've heard sections two and three at Penn have it much easier than section one. So don't worry.

By the way, 2 3/4 hours? What's wrong with a 3 hour test?

When all you learn for the entire semester is the tort of negligence, I guess there's just not much you can put on the exam.

Our exams haven't been too bad, but Civ Pro is going to be just insanely difficult. 70 Multiple Choice questions and then time pressured issue/ policy questions.

We spent half the semester on intentional torts which barely came up on the exam. We spent two classes on product liability and that was half the test. Granted, our professor barely taught us anything, so I guess it really doesn't matter how much time we spent on a given subject in class, since we all learned it from supplements anyway.

That was our COntracts class. First 5 weeks were spent on damages, and then damages consisted of 3 or 4 out of 35 multiple choice questions on the final, and damages weren't relevant at all for the essay question.

[imchuckbass58]

Right now I'm looking at two actual student answers from HLS that received straight As. Both were from 3 hour issue spotters with 3 general questions ("discuss the issues"). One is 3,300 words, one is a hair over 4,000.

I know it's anecdotal, and perhaps not typical, but I think it goes to show you don't HAVE to write 10,000 words to get an A.

[tiesto82]

i write roughly 10-12 pages per exam (Exam 4 pages) which I would estimate is around 3500-5000 words

Grades above 3.7

[rayiner]

When all you learn for the entire semester is the tort of negligence, I guess there's just not much you can put on the exam.

You can do an enormously complicated exam with just negligence if your fact pattern brings out all the subtleties of causation, etc. Our torts midterm was a 70-minute question and the professor's model answer was 2400 words. You probably could've gotten all the points on the exam with ~2000 words if you wrote concisely.

[Esc]

I ended up at slightly over 5000 words for my 4 hours Crim Law exam (1/2 of mandatory reading). 3 essays, one being 50% of the grade, the other two each being 25%, one of those being a philosophy-of-the-law type question with a 4 paragraph limit.

I'm not feeling confident, but only because I feel that I underperformed on the 50% issue spotter. I don't think typing any more words would have improved my answer.

[vanwinkle]

When all you learn for the entire semester is the tort of negligence, I guess there's just not much you can put on the exam.

You can do an enormously complicated exam with just negligence if your fact pattern brings out all the subtleties of causation, etc. Our torts midterm was a 70-minute question and the professor's model answer was 2400 words. You probably could've gotten all the points on the exam with ~2000 words if you wrote concisely.

I have to agree with this. Our prof spent very little time on intentional torts or strict liability, there was one policy question at the end that asked us to explain whether a particular cause of action we hadn't yet studied should be negligence or strict liability, but that was it. I still ended up writing 7,000 words in 4 hours for that test and I could've written more if there was more time.

There is a hell of a lot you can write about negligence if you want. Proximate cause by itself should get you a couple thousand words on a test written for 3-4 hour exam length.

[gollymolly]

Right now I'm looking at two actual student answers from HLS that received straight As. Both were from 3 hour issue spotters with 3 general questions ("discuss the issues"). One is 3,300 words, one is a hair over 4,000.

I know it's anecdotal, and perhaps not typical, but I think it goes to show you don't HAVE to write 10,000 words to get an A.

Of course not. Half this thread is trolling, and the other half is people talking about how long their answers are without having any idea how well they actually did (nothing wrong with that).

I got a 4.1 last semester, none of my answers (all three hour tests) reached 5,000 words.

It's kind of like sex. Ideally it'll be really great and last for a while. But it's better to do it right for 15 minutes than to do it horribly for an hour.

[vanwinkle]

Of course not. Half this thread is trolling, and the other half is people talking about how long their answers are without having any idea how well they actually did (nothing wrong with that).

I got a 4.1 last semester, none of my answers (all three hour tests) reached 5,000 words.

It's kind of like sex. Ideally it'll be really great and last for a while. But it's better to do it right for 15 minutes than to do it horribly for an hour.

Ahahahaha +1.

I'll freely admit I don't know how well I did yet. But the thread title isn't "How well do you think you do on your exams?", it's "How many words do you write for an exam answer?"

[gollymolly]

I'll freely admit I don't know how well I did yet. But the thread title isn't "How well do you think you do on your exams?", it's "How many words do you write for an exam answer?"

Right, I didn't mean that it's bad that people are talking about how much they wrote. Like you said, it's the purpose of the thread.

It's just that some people are drawing inferences from the posts here and some old posts that 10,000+ answers are necessary for a good grade when clearly that's not necessarily true. Just trying to help some 1Ls relax

[rayiner]

Right now I'm looking at two actual student answers from HLS that received straight As. Both were from 3 hour issue spotters with 3 general questions ("discuss the issues"). One is 3,300 words, one is a hair over 4,000.

I know it's anecdotal, and perhaps not typical, but I think it goes to show you don't HAVE to write 10,000 words to get an A.

Of course not. Half this thread is trolling, and the other half is people talking about how long their answers are without having any idea how well they actually did (nothing wrong with that).

I got a 4.1 last semester, none of my answers (all three hour tests) reached 5,000 words.

It's kind of like sex. Ideally it'll be really great and last for a while. But it's better to do it right for 15 minutes than to do it horribly for an hour.

Are you claiming that some posters ITT are both verbose and bad in bed?

[vanwinkle]

6,500 words on Civ Pro, but it was a long exam. 3 hours, 45 minutes. I had to spend a lot of time thinking about it, the issues were very complex on it. Still think I'll be proud of the results, though.

Of course, I could've just written a bunch of garbage compared to everyone else and fall in the median. No way of knowing 'til grades post.

[apper123]

Should I try to type 12k on my 4-hour civ pro exam tomorrow just so I can post here to impress TLS? Maybe I'll tell the professor some gunner stories in my exam answers.

[vanwinkle]

Should I try to type 12k on my 4-hour civ pro exam tomorrow just so I can post here to impress TLS? Maybe I'll tell the professor some gunner stories in my exam answers.

Yes. Do that. Tell us all how well it works so we [strike]point and laugh[/strike]know how it goes.

[Blindmelon]

6,500 words on Civ Pro, but it was a long exam. 3 hours, 45 minutes. I had to spend a lot of time thinking about it, the issues were very complex on it. Still think I'll be proud of the results, though.

Of course, I could've just written a bunch of garbage compared to everyone else and fall in the median. No way of knowing 'til grades post.

I'm more afraid of writing garbage and falling below median. Its easier than you think.

[YCrevolution]

Should I try to type 12k on my 4-hour civ pro exam tomorrow just so I can post here to impress TLS? Maybe I'll tell the professor some gunner stories in my exam answers.

Yes. Do that. Tell us all how well it works so we [strike]point and laugh[/strike]know how it goes.

I think we should have a 15,000 word option and a 20,000+ word option on the poll. I'd bet at least 10% of people would click 'em.

[truthypants]

broken_image

ahaha I adore courage wolf, considering the amount of competition in some law schools you would think there would be more law school related ones, but no. <3

broken_image

[amyraydun]

Read this post yesterday and today took my 3hr property exam.
Q 1 was 8000+ words and Q 2 was 11000+. I didn't try to type a lot on purpose, I simply wrote out all the issues I had outlined before typing, and felt I stayed on topic. I just checked the word count at the end of the exam, out of curiosity, and that's how much I typed. I'm fast at typing since I outlined beforehand for almost a half hour.

Hopefully it helps me, not hurts me.

[vanwinkle]

Read this post yesterday and today took my 3hr property exam.
Q 1 was 8000+ words and Q 2 was 11000+. I didn't try to type a lot on purpose, I simply wrote out all the issues I had outlined before typing, and felt I stayed on topic. I just checked the word count at the end of the exam, out of curiosity, and that's how much I typed. I'm fast at typing since I outlined beforehand for almost a half hour.

Hopefully it helps me, not hurts me.

Are you telling me you typed 19,000 total words on a single 3-hour exam?

Assuming a half-hour for reading/outlining, that's 126wpm continuous for 2.5hr.

[YCrevolution]

Read this post yesterday and today took my 3hr property exam.
Q 1 was 8000+ words and Q 2 was 11000+. I didn't try to type a lot on purpose, I simply wrote out all the issues I had outlined before typing, and felt I stayed on topic. I just checked the word count at the end of the exam, out of curiosity, and that's how much I typed. I'm fast at typing since I outlined beforehand for almost a half hour.

Hopefully it helps me, not hurts me.

As vanwinkle said, that's 105 wpm, and that's assuming zero time spent on doing non-typing activities (like reading the question and outlining).

[Kohinoor]

Read this post yesterday and today took my 3hr property exam.
Q 1 was 8000+ words and Q 2 was 11000+. I didn't try to type a lot on purpose, I simply wrote out all the issues I had outlined before typing, and felt I stayed on topic. I just checked the word count at the end of the exam, out of curiosity, and that's how much I typed. I'm fast at typing since I outlined beforehand for almost a half hour.

Hopefully it helps me, not hurts me.

Are you telling me you typed 19,000 total words on a single 3-hour exam?

Assuming a half-hour for reading/outlining, that's 126wpm continuous for 2.5hr.

Stadium status.

[vanwinkle]

22,000 more words and I'll reach Executive Platinum status and get free upgrades to first class!

[OperaSoprano]

3877 words. Contracts. 3 hours. I type slowly. My classmates got me drunk. Them and that Columbia LLM student from Amsterdam we met at the bar. I hope it was enough.

[amyraydun]

That's what I'm saying! I did the math after the test and was surprised. I can't say I typed without stopping. I know there were long stretches of reading/thinking/sighing/drinking water but that must mean when I do type I'm super speedy. I'm not even trying to brag I was just surprised at how easily I typed that many words in 3 hours.

Proof that it's totally possible!

[vanwinkle]

3877 words. Contracts. 3 hours. I type slowly. My classmates got me drunk. Them and that Columbia LLM student from Asmsterdam we met at the bar. I hope it was enough.

As long as you made the words count, it certainly can be...

Don't get worried because I type more. I type ridiculously fast, and I ramble. I start repeating myself and making redundant arguments. The fact that I produce a lot of words doesn't mean you're supposed to produce that many.

[OperaSoprano]

3877 words. Contracts. 3 hours. I type slowly. My classmates got me drunk. Them and that Columbia LLM student from Asmsterdam we met at the bar. I hope it was enough.

As long as you made the words count, it certainly can be...

Don't get worried because I type more. I type ridiculously fast, and I ramble. I start repeating myself and making redundant arguments. The fact that I produce a lot of words doesn't mean you're supposed to produce that many.

Our professor said the best student answers were around 12 pages. I calculated that I typed between 13 and 15, depending on average # of words per page. He said the average student answer was 9 or 10 pages. That makes me feel better.