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My class just recently had a practice (half) exam. I'm certain that I did quite badly, but I am nevertheless glad I had to take one because it made me realize what I needed to focus on.

I thought I was doing pretty well in school because I enjoyed the material, always did the reading on time, and was sharp whenever I was called upon. But once I was faced with the task of having to utilize all my knowledge to form a coherent argument on the practice exam, I realized that all I had were a series of facts that I didn't quite know how to put together in time. All the cases seemed to exist in vacuums, separate from each other and refusing to come together to form a general landscape.

Anyway, this was my first experience with a law school exam question. I was a little down afterwards because I felt that I expressed myself poorly on the exam, but now, I'm just glad that I now know what I have to work on.

How did you guys handle your first experience with law school exam questions?

No worries. I can relate to your description of not being able to put the cases together to form a coherent answer early on. I did terrible on my civ pro practice exam, but ended up with the highest grade in the class on the final. Keep at it.

Just feeling that you did badly does not mean that you actually did badly. However, if you were uncomfortable, it's definitely something to put some work into.

Cases should never be seen, read, or learned in isolation. If you are paying attention, the cases you are given will have pretty clear relationships, either one specifies a vague rule from an earlier case, or there are two cases in conflict and you have to learn how to (or know when you cannot) reconcile the decisions, for example.

I think this starts with how you study.

Thought I did terrible on my practice the professor stated two major counter arguments he was looking for that I completely missed when going over the exam. He wrote Terrific Job on the top and was complimentary the whole way through. You never really know until you get it back.. However, if you didn't do well it doesn't matter at all a lot of people don't study/ know what the fuck is going on for practice exams.