ITT: Post HORRIBLE exam stories that resulted in a B+ or bet Forum

[Bronx Bum]

I'll start.

First semester had a closed book contracts exam. I thought it was on Monday but it was on Wednesday the previous week. I found out Tuesday night.Was seriously thinking of jumping out of a 4 story window and breaking every bone in my body. Did 0 reading all semester and went to class but didn't pay attention. Printed out old outline from someone the night before and memorized the fuck out of it until my exam (roughly 18 hours).

Typed furiously for 3 hours and ended up with an A-. Ironically, did all of the readings for Crim and made own outline. B+.

[BruceWayne]

A B+ isn't a bad grade.

[Bronx Bum]

A B+ isn't a bad grade.

Should have wrote "or better".

I mean shit that went down that you could never have exprected would have resulted in a good grade.

[yngblkgifted]

Just out of curiosity, what school? If you don't want to out the school, can you give a range?

[Bronx Bum]

Just out of curiosity, what school? If you don't want to out the school, can you give a range?

T30.

[fl0w]

1st semester torts. I literally ran out of time during the last question of the exam. My response?
1) switch to all caps
2) start typing in outline mode

It looks something like this. Literally it was in all caps. I don't know why I thought it was a good idea to draw more attention to the fact that I was running out of time.

I'M SORRY I'M RUNNING REALLY SHORT ON TIME.. HERE'S AN OUTLINE OF THE REST
ISSUE 1
ELEMENT - SATISFIED EXPLANATION / NOT SATISFIED EXPLANATION
ELEMENT - SATISFIED EXPLANATION / NOT SATISFIED EXPLANATION
PROBABLE RESULT
ISSUE 2
...
..
.

Was my best exam.

[yngblkgifted]

Just out of curiosity, what school? If you don't want to out the school, can you give a range?

T30.

Ok cool, thanks. Do you mind if I use your brain next year?

[whymeohgodno]

I'll start.

First semester had a closed book contracts exam. I thought it was on Monday but it was on Wednesday the previous week. I found out Tuesday night.Was seriously thinking of jumping out of a 4 story window and breaking every bone in my body. Did 0 reading all semester and went to class but didn't pay attention. Printed out old outline from someone the night before and memorized the fuck out of it until my exam (roughly 18 hours).

Typed furiously for 3 hours and ended up with an A-. Ironically, did all of the readings for Crim and made own outline. B+.

So you did 0 readings for a course, went to class but didn't pay attention, and only did 18 hours of rushed prep and got an A-? Are you sure you're not a genius?

[Bronx Bum]

Just out of curiosity, what school? If you don't want to out the school, can you give a range?

T30.

Ok cool, thanks. Do you mind if I use your brain next year?

Honestly, not that intelligent. Just DRILL the "applying law to the facts" formula in your head and you're good. It doesn't matter what the subject. If you have that template in your head, you can fill it in with facts for a few days and own all of the kids who go in without a real plan.

[Bronx Bum]

I'll start.

First semester had a closed book contracts exam. I thought it was on Monday but it was on Wednesday the previous week. I found out Tuesday night.Was seriously thinking of jumping out of a 4 story window and breaking every bone in my body. Did 0 reading all semester and went to class but didn't pay attention. Printed out old outline from someone the night before and memorized the fuck out of it until my exam (roughly 18 hours).

Typed furiously for 3 hours and ended up with an A-. Ironically, did all of the readings for Crim and made own outline. B+.

So you did 0 readings for a course, went to class but didn't pay attention, and only did 18 hours of rushed prep and got an A-? Are you sure you're not a genius?

Think about it I guess: the reading would have amounted to an outline. The course discussions would have amounted to an outline. I had the outline without doing the work to make the outline. But I went in knowing the same material that the person who made the outline knew.

[3ThrowAway99]

LMAO at some of the stories... I'm still hoping this will happen for me. Well, it kind of did with a Torts mid-term I took first semester. Ran out of time on the main section (only addressing half the issues) and still ended up well within A range. But this semester I thought I did well on the Crim Pro mid-term and ended up with a mid-B... Other than that though I seem to have had a fairly accurate sense of how I did on my finals last semester.. Hoping my sense is a little less acurrate this semester, because right now I feel like I could end up with straight Bs or close to it (which would considerably lower my GPA)....

[snowpeach06]

I finished my torts exam an hour an a half early. Everyone else struggled like crazy with time. I figured I must have forgotten pretty much everything. Turns out, I'm just an absurdly fast typer who knew my shit. A-.

And then sort of like the above users contracts thing, only I knew when the test was and studied. B+ despite getting, I think 16 points out of 90 on the first question.

[NoleinNY]

1st Semester Torts.

Had a case of food poisoning the night before. Got to the exam, and it was about food manufacturing workers getting ill. So much pain. I simply regurgitated (my outline, not my stomach) onto the laptop and fell far below the expected word limit. B+

[yngblkgifted]

Just out of curiosity, what school? If you don't want to out the school, can you give a range?

T30.

Ok cool, thanks. Do you mind if I use your brain next year?

Honestly, not that intelligent. Just DRILL the "applying law to the facts" formula in your head and you're good. It doesn't matter what the subject. If you have that template in your head, you can fill it in with facts for a few days and own all of the kids who go in without a real plan.

You give me hope and I salute you sir!

[Ty Webb]

You give me hope and I salute you sir!

FTR, I can offer some support to the idea that what Bronx Bum did is doable by mortals. I learned supplemental jurisdiction the day before the exam by just reading the E&E. Got one of the model answers on it. You'd be shocked how far just APPLYING the facts will get you. Creative arguments that tie the facts to the law escape most law students because of things like time pressure, anxiety, not understanding that this is the goal, a lack of creativity, etc.

[TTH]

Civ Pro.

The class met four days a week. I probably missed half a dozen sessions. When I went, I mainly played flash games. We had on-call panels so I never did the reading. I started studying two days before the final by watching the BarBri lectures and making flow charts based on Freer's explanations of the concepts.

Got an A on the test.

Moral of the story: Freer teaches the shit out of the jurisdictional concepts of Civ Pro.

[fl0w]

Civ Pro.

The class met four days a week. I probably missed half a dozen sessions. When I went, I mainly played flash games. We had on-call panels so I never did the reading. I started studying two days before the final by watching the BarBri lectures and making flow charts based on Freer's explanations of the concepts.

Got an A on the test.

Moral of the story: Freer teaches the shit out of the jurisdictional concepts of Civ Pro.

this is the truth. the barbri civpro videos were so freakin' clutch

[keg411]

Civ Pro.

The class met four days a week. I probably missed half a dozen sessions. When I went, I mainly played flash games. We had on-call panels so I never did the reading. I started studying two days before the final by watching the BarBri lectures and making flow charts based on Freer's explanations of the concepts.

Got an A on the test.

Moral of the story: Freer teaches the shit out of the jurisdictional concepts of Civ Pro.

this is the truth. the barbri civpro videos were so freakin' clutch

+1

[clintonius]

Fingers crossed for an update here when I get my con law grade back. That was painful.

[Whatisthis]

Civ Pro.

The class met four days a week. I probably missed half a dozen sessions. When I went, I mainly played flash games. We had on-call panels so I never did the reading. I started studying two days before the final by watching the BarBri lectures and making flow charts based on Freer's explanations of the concepts.

Got an A on the test.

Moral of the story: Freer teaches the shit out of the jurisdictional concepts of Civ Pro.

this is the truth. the barbri civpro videos were so freakin' clutch

+1

Did you guys have to sign up to get this or does he sell his lectures outside of barbri?

[TTH]

Did you guys have to sign up to get this or does he sell his lectures outside of barbri?

If you pre-register for BarBri, you get a big book of first-year outlines and access to the lectures. The book o' outlines was not so helpful, but the lectures in some subjects are pretty solid. Based on my CivPro grade alone, it was 25 bucks well spent even if I go with a different Bar prep provider.

[Cupidity]

Rocked K's. Thought I failed.

[romothesavior]

ExamSoft wouldn't start. Spent an hour with the IT people trying to get it resolved and was thrown off my game in the process. Had to hand write the first 45 minutes of the exam, then someone from the IT department came rushing in with a spare laptop with ExamSoft open and told me to use it. The lost time was a huge factor. I only spit out about 2-3 sentences on one of the policy questions and I didn't have time to go back and answer two of the short answer questions I had skipped. After the exam, I called my girlfriend and told her I was going to get in the 70s and drop out, and I called rad law and vented for like 10 minutes. I was absolutely devastated.

Wound up with a 90 (the equivalent of an A- at my school). No idea how it happened.

[kaiser]

Thought that I in no way distinguished my exams from anyone else's in 2 of my classes. Got A's in both. Completely missed 2 of the biggest issues on another exam. Didn't speak one word about them. Got a B+. I was super pissed since, if I had even said a word about the biggest issues, it was an easy A-, or perhaps an A if the analysis was good. Would have been a 4.0 for first semester, but that B+ dragged it down. However, relatively speaking, a B+ isn't a bad grade and I'm happy it wasn't worse given my absolute mind-numbing stupidity on that exam.

[3ThrowAway99]

ExamSoft wouldn't start. Spent an hour with the IT people trying to get it resolved and was thrown off my game in the process. Had to hand write the first 45 minutes of the exam, then someone from the IT department came rushing in with a spare laptop with ExamSoft open and told me to use it. The lost time was a huge factor. I only spit out about 2-3 sentences on one of the policy questions and I didn't have time to go back and answer two of the short answer questions I had skipped. After the exam, I called my girlfriend and told her I was going to get in the 70s and drop out, and I called rad law and vented for like 10 minutes. I was absolutely devastated.

Wound up with a 90 (the equivalent of an A- at my school). No idea how it happened.

That's awesome! On the examsoft note, I got a black-screen of death at the start of one of my exams that just about made me s--- myself... I restarted the machine and it started working. Turns out that it was apparently because I had some other programs I hadn't closed out of running. But nothing like a 45 minute interference.