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I'll just say this.

I CALI'd a class first semester. Second semester, two professors made it a point to break my balls with absurd cold-call questions the first two weeks, then they left me alone after that once I answered their questions well.

A friend in another section who aced one of her classes experienced the same thing.


So, professors talk. If you do well in a particular course first semester, you may get some ribbing from your professor if the two are close.

lawlskoolz wrote:I just started 1 L year a few weeks ago. Every time I get cold called I give the wrong answer or an answer that's half-way there. I'm still trying to learn everything and don't have it all down by rote memory if you asked me on the spot.

There are a couple people in class who, when called on, give exactly the right answers and the professor praises them for an excellent answer every time. Am I in trouble? Are those students the ones who will probably do really well on the exam and rank highly in class?

no don't worry

lawlskoolz wrote:I just started 1 L year a few weeks ago. Every time I get cold called I give the wrong answer or an answer that's half-way there. I'm still trying to learn everything and don't have it all down by rote memory if you asked me on the spot.

There are a couple people in class who, when called on, give exactly the right answers and the professor praises them for an excellent answer every time. Am I in trouble? Are those students the ones who will probably do really well on the exam and rank highly in class?

No. Anecdotally: the two people in my class who gave the absolute dumbest imaginable answers to every cold call reportedly did quite well on exams. A certain casenotes-spouting gunner, not so much.

Taking an exam requires very different skills than answering a cold call. There's some overlap, but not a whole lot. As long as you are generally understanding what is going on in class, don't worry about it. But if you are bombing because you have no idea what's happening, then that's bad and you should work on that.

ymmv wrote:

lawlskoolz wrote:I just started 1 L year a few weeks ago. Every time I get cold called I give the wrong answer or an answer that's half-way there. I'm still trying to learn everything and don't have it all down by rote memory if you asked me on the spot.

There are a couple people in class who, when called on, give exactly the right answers and the professor praises them for an excellent answer every time. Am I in trouble? Are those students the ones who will probably do really well on the exam and rank highly in class?

No. Anecdotally: the two people in my class who gave the absolute dumbest imaginable answers to every cold call reportedly did quite well on exams. A certain casenotes-spouting gunner, not so much.

Pretty much this.

I had a legendarily-bad coldcall midway through one of our classes last quarter. Like, I didn't answer the prof for a good 45s-1m, and then said horrendously wrong things, one after another, over the next five minutes. I just kinda blanked and didn't really get what he was asking, and hadn't really understood the material. People were laughing at how bad my answers were. Got my balls busted.

Killed it in the class. There's no correlation. It doesn't matter one iota either way.

I guess the thing about building relationships is fine. But I don't think they really remember unless you stand out memorably either direction. It's more about interacting and building a relationship outside of class IMO.