another exam story
some of you wanted more exam stories. well, this is more of a reflection. but it's what you're getting. so i just took my last exam and it was a lot in too little time. at least i didn't stare at it and have no idea what to do, so that's at least a start.
but now for the part that isn't really any good, which i am going to talk about here since the people i would be ok with talking about this with don’t want to talk about it and the people who probably would (read: smart people) aren’t the people i want to talk to about it.
so the fact pattern we had was one of those things where there is SO much and you start by sketching thru some stuff, but then you don’t really get to finish b/c there’s no time and you have these half completed sentences and ideas and you don’t really have time to work thru everything. or even much of anything.
and then, this is my favorite technique on these exams—i dismiss all points by saying, “he would have a case if _x_, but since _y_, then too bad for him.”
there are two problems with this. 1) you’ll notice that it doesn’t really address anything. 2) y is the legal conclusion i had time to address back in paragraph one. the problem is that i’m never quite sure that y is right. so by the end of the essay, i may very well have made one inaccurate conclusion and then based everything else on that. it’s always about the third time i say this that i start to wonder if y is right. it seemed ok, until it became the basis for everything else. then it starts to seem verrrry suspect.
in this particular instance, my doubt about y was not helped by the fact that i forced molly to take one question after the exam. so i asked, “y?” and she was like, hm. as in that wasn't something that had crossed her mind at all. which is not a good sign if it’s the ONLY POINT I MADE IN 2 HOURS WORTH OF ESSAY WRITING. ok, so that’s a bit of an exaggeration. but still. probably not a good sign.
but now for the part that isn't really any good, which i am going to talk about here since the people i would be ok with talking about this with don’t want to talk about it and the people who probably would (read: smart people) aren’t the people i want to talk to about it.
so the fact pattern we had was one of those things where there is SO much and you start by sketching thru some stuff, but then you don’t really get to finish b/c there’s no time and you have these half completed sentences and ideas and you don’t really have time to work thru everything. or even much of anything.
and then, this is my favorite technique on these exams—i dismiss all points by saying, “he would have a case if _x_, but since _y_, then too bad for him.”
there are two problems with this. 1) you’ll notice that it doesn’t really address anything. 2) y is the legal conclusion i had time to address back in paragraph one. the problem is that i’m never quite sure that y is right. so by the end of the essay, i may very well have made one inaccurate conclusion and then based everything else on that. it’s always about the third time i say this that i start to wonder if y is right. it seemed ok, until it became the basis for everything else. then it starts to seem verrrry suspect.
in this particular instance, my doubt about y was not helped by the fact that i forced molly to take one question after the exam. so i asked, “y?” and she was like, hm. as in that wasn't something that had crossed her mind at all. which is not a good sign if it’s the ONLY POINT I MADE IN 2 HOURS WORTH OF ESSAY WRITING. ok, so that’s a bit of an exaggeration. but still. probably not a good sign.
posted by laura at 12:43 PM
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