Outlines allowed? Forum

[Geneva]

I just found out that some (admittedly, lower ranked) schools apparently don't let 1Ls use outlines on exams! I am shocked because all of my law school friends have been able to take outlines into exams. Does anyone have a breakdown on which schools do and don't permit outlines? Are open notes tests the norm?

Also: legal writing: graded or ungraded at most schools?

[kalvano]

Depends on professor.

Depends on school.

[TB12]

Of all the ways you could choose a school, this is probably th worst.

[Geneva]

Haha, this has nothing to do with my ls decision method. I am just curious, as I was under the impression that most ls exams were open outline.

[TB12]

Haha, this has nothing to do with my ls decision method. I am just curious, as I was under the impression that most ls exams were open outline.

I'm not sure how many schools, if any, ban them. It's usually professor by professor. Doesn't really matter, outlines are useless on exam day

[FlanAl]

At cornell we had multiple completely closed book exams.

[Bildungsroman]

All sorts of law schools, bad and good, have classes where the exam is closed-book, no outline, no notes.

[MrPapagiorgio]

Doesn't really matter, outlines are useless on exam day

Mostly this. Out of all my 1L exams, I only opened my outline once, and that was in contracts.

I go to a T30, and except for 2 classes, all of mine are open book. The one prof is very traditional and the other is going off the basis of "the bar isn't open book, so my exam won't be either." But for the most part, open-book is allowed, with some profs limiting what you can bring in (e.g. self-created vs. commercial material)

[PinkCow]

Haha, this has nothing to do with my ls decision method. I am just curious, as I was under the impression that most ls exams were open outline.

I'm not sure how many schools, if any, ban them. It's usually professor by professor. Doesn't really matter, outlines are useless on exam day

IMO, not this. I had an open book professor who basically said the same thing: you can bring everything, but nothing will help you. I can guarantee you that I used the book/my notes to correctly answer at least 10 multiple choice questions, and write my essays. I sincerely don't understand how people keep saying that outlines are useless. It seems to me that:

(a) You effectively have everything that you will need to know memorized.
(b) You have no idea how to look stuff up efficiently.

[MrPapagiorgio]

Haha, this has nothing to do with my ls decision method. I am just curious, as I was under the impression that most ls exams were open outline.

I'm not sure how many schools, if any, ban them. It's usually professor by professor. Doesn't really matter, outlines are useless on exam day

IMO, not this. I had an open book professor who basically said the same thing: you can bring everything, but nothing will help you. I can guarantee you that I used the book/my notes to correctly answer at least 10 multiple choice questions, and write my essays. I sincerely don't understand how people keep saying that outlines are useless. It seems to me that:

(a) You effectively have everything that you will need to know memorized.
(b) You have no idea how to look stuff up efficiently.

Multiple choice is a totally different ball game. All my exams have been essay, and when you have 3 two-page long fact patterns to answer in 3 hours, you don't have time to go through an outline.

[crossarmant]

Doesn't really matter, outlines are useless on exam day

This is quite true with the exception of Civil Procedure. when you're looking up the exact number of a FRCP and you can't quite remember if it's subsection (a) or (d) or some other inanity needed for the exam, having a quickly ctrl+f-able outline makes it much much better.

[Guchster]

Doesn't really matter, outlines are useless on exam day

This is quite true with the exception of Civil Procedure. when you're looking up the exact number of a FRCP and you can't quite remember if it's subsection (a) or (d) or some other inanity needed for the exam, having a quickly ctrl+f-able outline makes it much much better.

You can use your outline on your computer during the exam? Don't you use examsoft (or something comparable) that locks out all other programs?

[cinephile]

I only had one open exam last semester, but I found the outline really useful for that class.

But to echo everything everyone else said, it's professor specific at any school. You can't control it, so don't worry about it.

[jarofsoup]

If you have a good memory it is usually better when you can't(because of curves).

[crossarmant]

Doesn't really matter, outlines are useless on exam day

This is quite true with the exception of Civil Procedure. when you're looking up the exact number of a FRCP and you can't quite remember if it's subsection (a) or (d) or some other inanity needed for the exam, having a quickly ctrl+f-able outline makes it much much better.

You can use your outline on your computer during the exam? Don't you use examsoft (or something comparable) that locks out all other programs?

Only on one closed book exam. On CivPro it was open book, open note, open internet but proctored. Contracts was a 5 hour take-home (though that sucked for me because my laptop froze up about two hours in, had to rush to IT Dept and lost like 30-45 minutes).

This semester though, we have a closed book hand written; one half closed book, half open; and then another straight open book.

[JoeFish]

All of my 1st semester exams were open book; 2 of my 3 in second semester are closed book.

To provide a bit of a counterpoint, I actually found myself looking at my outline/actually looking through casebooks more than I wanted to or should have, especially in Torts. And I don't think it really hurt, in that the negatives of losing maybe 8 total minutes (for me, that's about 350 words) were largely balanced out by how much more comfortable I felt being knowing I could look at all of that stuff if I needed it. I mean to say, a couple minutes every hour to make sure I knew what I was talking about was worth it for me. At the beginning of the third hour of each exam I took a deep breath, sat back in my chair, and closed my eyes/kind of just glanced about for a few minutes.

I mean, ideally, you'll be at the point where you're equally comfortable with and without written material, because you'll have everything you could have possibly written in an outline memorized cold. But if that's not the case, I wouldn't automatically dismiss the whole comfort-level type thing. For what it's worth, even though I usually do pretty well on them, I really freak out about tests (I mean, teeth grinding, pacing, hyperventilating, almost shaking in the 30 minutes before a really important exam), so I'm probably pretty atypical when it comes to the value I place on the whole fallback/comfort level thing. But if you're like me, it is possible to rely more heavily on that stuff - if only as a bit of a check - and still do pretty well.

[Flash]

All sorts of law schools, bad and good, have classes where the exam is closed-book, no outline, no notes.

If we ever have a closed exam I'm even more screwed than normal.

[bk1]

You can use your outline on your computer during the exam? Don't you use examsoft (or something comparable) that locks out all other programs?

NU allows computer outlines (find is glorious). There are some prohibitions depending on profs (e.g. no copy/paste). We don't have any exam software, just the honor code.

[Xifeng]

You can use your outline on your computer during the exam? Don't you use examsoft (or something comparable) that locks out all other programs?

NU allows computer outlines (find is glorious). There are some prohibitions depending on profs (e.g. no copy/paste). We don't have any exam software, just the honor code.

That's how ours is, too. I looked at my outlines during the exams, though I mostly focused on my shorter/attack outline. Control + F is amazing for exams <3

[Guchster]

CLS doesn't trust any of us because it's a school full of gunners and liars.

We're completely locked out of our computers with the exception of the soft test program.

Sucks cuz we can't use ctrl+f, but since no one can use ctrl+f it does matter.

[notstevedoocy]

I'm in the second semester of my 2L at a T-40 school and have yet to encounter a class that doesn't let you use outlines. If there is a school that doesn't, that is very far outside the mainstream.

[JoeFish]

I'm in the second semester of my 2L at a T-40 school and have yet to encounter a class that doesn't let you use outlines. If there is a school that doesn't, that is very far outside the mainstream.

This thread is about using outlines on exams. Surely you're not suggesting that the occasional closed-book exam is "very far outside the mainstream", right?

[JR1988]

2 out of 3 of mine last semester were closed book. I actually wish they all were. I was suprised how many people didn't have everything memorized come test time, and I felt like I had a huge advantage because I had everything down cold. This semester I have all open book and am struggling with figuring out how to approach them.

[reformed calvinist]

I just found out that some (admittedly, lower ranked) schools apparently don't let 1Ls use outlines on exams! I am shocked because all of my law school friends have been able to take outlines into exams. Does anyone have a breakdown on which schools do and don't permit outlines? Are open notes tests the norm?

Also: legal writing: graded or ungraded at most schools?

I think one of the advice threads for 1L (maybe it was Arrow? not sure) said that Loyola doesn't allow them on 1L exams. That's the only categorical ban I know of, but that was written a few years ago.

[reformed calvinist]

You can use your outline on your computer during the exam? Don't you use examsoft (or something comparable) that locks out all other programs?

NU allows computer outlines (find is glorious). There are some prohibitions depending on profs (e.g. no copy/paste). We don't have any exam software, just the honor code.

That's how ours is, too. I looked at my outlines during the exams, though I mostly focused on my shorter/attack outline. Control + F is amazing for exams <3

Oh man I hate both of you. At the end of my last exam last semester, my eyes (accidentally) wandered and I noticed Exam4 had spellcheck. Damn it.