Exams and Other Fun Stuff

By the end of the semester, you need something to save you from the frenzy of laughter of your law school classes. That's why law schools have final exams.

Studies have shown that the best way to learn is to have frequent exams on small amounts of material and to receive lots of feedback from the teacher. Consequently, law school does none of this. Law school is supposed to be an intellectual challenge. Therefore, law professors give only one exam, the FINAL EXAM OF ARMAGEDDON, and they give absolutely no feedback before then.


Actually, they give no feedback after then, either, because they don't return the exams to the students. A few students go and look at their exam after it is graded, but this is a complete waste of time, unless they just want to see again what they wrote and have a combat-veteran-type flashback of the whole horrific nightmare. The professors never write any comments on the exams. That might permit you to do better next time, which would upset the class ranking.

Some professors are kind enough to distribute a model answer for you to look at. You tell the professor that you can't see any difference whatsoever between your low-scoring exam and the model answer. He replies, "Well, there's your problem."

Another reason that law professors give only one exam is that, basically, they are lazier than comatose three-toed sloths. They teach half as many hours as other professors, are paid twice as much, and get promoted three times as fast. Then they whine like three-year-olds because they have to grade one exam per class. I mean, this is every single semester, year in and year out. The constant grind is enough to kill a person, I tell you.

Since professors won't tell you how to do well on your exams, I will. Because you cover so much material, you need to make an outline for each class. You can do this alone, assuming you have about an extra thousand years to kill. An easier way is for your study group to divide up the classes, with each person outlining one class. This differs from the prior approach in that it is humanly possible. However, you are likely to open up your study group's Contracts outline the night before the exam and find a sentence like this: "An offer is the manifestation of gooberness to enter into a something or other (I didn't catch what the professor said here) so made as to justify another person in understanding that [illegible] is invited and will gyre and gimble in the wabe. Or something like that. You then realize that the classmate who wrote this dropped out six weeks ago and is inaccessible by telephone, and you run screaming around the room like the lunatic that you are. So it's really better just to buy the commercial outline and forget it.

Then, memorize the outline. As you pour it in the top of your head, most of it will run out your ears. Keep scooping up the stuff that runs out your ears and pour it back into the top of your head. Eventually, a little of it will begin to stick. You should also use acronyms, or "pneumatic devices," to help you memorize.

For example, the prima facie case of a tort action for negligence has several elements: an Act or omission, a Duty, a Breach, Actual cause, Proximate cause, and Damages. The first letters of these elements are A, D, B, A, P, and D. Now, think of a sentence using words beginning with those letters. See? You will never forget the elements of negligence again. You can use this technique to remember everything you learn in law school. Employing this method, one student was able to reduce his entire Civil Procedure outline to one word, and finally, to one letter. Then he forgot the letter.

Next, get some of the professor's old exams from the library and try to answer them. As you read them, note that you don't have the foggiest idea what they are asking. You can't even tell what the subject matter of the class was. Put the exams away. This year's test will probably be easier.

Then the two-week exam period begins in earnest, and students begin to feel like a nine-lived cat run over by an eighteen-wheeler. To take their minds off the crush of exams, students engage in a variety of activities, such as:

Trying to concentrate while panicking. Having anxiety attacks while panicking. Panicking while panicking.

It is important not to be late to your exams. Your professor might not believe your excuse. The story is told of four Harvard law students who arrived an hour late for their final exam. They explained that they had a flat tire on the way to school, so the professor agreed to give them a makeup exam. Suspecting that the students were lying, the professor placed each student in a separate room and gave each one a copy of the exam. The first question on the exam was: "Which tire?"

I strongly recommend that you type your exams, instead of writing them. There are several advantages to typing. For instance, you can bring a "memory typewriter," and when the exam begins you can push a button and your typewriter will reproduce your entire outline. This is very handy.

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You might find it a little difficult to concentrate in the typing room, because all those typewriters pounding together sound like a herd of elephants doing an impersonation of Gregory Hines. If somebody starts typing before you have even finished reading the first paragraph, don't get upset. It probably means nothing, except that someone is a genius and how are you supposed to compete with a genius and what are you doing in law school anyway!!! Take a deep breath. Take several deep breaths. Now you are hyperventilating and are going to pass out. Cease breathing.

The sound of the typewriters is not the only reason you're having trouble concentrating. You have not slept or eaten for two days. Also, you have not changed your clothes or bathed for a week, and things are beginning to get a little bit itchy. You are wearing a hat to hide the fact that your hair looks like the La Brea tar pits.

Try to hum a tune (to yourself, so that the person next to you doesn't bash you on the head with his typewriter) to help yourself relax. Suddenly--and you have never noticed this before-- you realize that La Bamba has exactly the same chord progression as You've Lost That Loving Feeling and Twist and Shout. This will probably be hard to do, but let it go for now. You can think about it later--like during your next exam. Twist a little closer to your typewriter and try to write something quasi-intelligent. Do not shout.

If there is a power failure or your typewriter breaks, don't panic. Calmly remove the paper from the typewriter, gently pick up a pen, and scrawl across the page in ink mixed with blood: "TYPEWRITER BROKE!!!! I WRITE NOW!!!!" Then pass out. To avoid power and equipment failures, you might want to bring in a wheeled cart with about seventeen extra typewriters and a twelve-volt car battery. Better yet, drive a pickup truck full of typewriters into the exam room and open the hood for access to the battery. It would be thoughtful to place a drip pan under the transmission. Also, be sure that the carriage on your typewriter is working, so that you don't end up typing 2,000 letters in one very black spot. This can make your answer hard to read.

The exam questions are usually absolutely hilarious fact situations that just slay students and send them into paroxysms of helpless laughter. The question begins innocently enough with two parties having silly names like "Dan Quaylude" and "Rosanne Barn Door" and ends up in a nuclear explosion stretching halfway across the solar system. The exam asks students to address such realistic issues as whether the Eggshell Skull People who inhabit the planet Pluto are foreseeable plaintiffs. Law professors learn how to write these witty exams at a seminar for new professors, "How to Make Up for Your Humorless Teaching Style on the Final Exam." Try not to let the laughing get out of hand.

While the professor has stressed theory all semester and has insisted that there are no legal rules and that only an idiot would believe that there are rules, the exam tests only on the rules. The rules are printed in heavy black typeface in the commercial outlines, and are therefore called "black letter law." Do not confuse them with black letter theory, which will do you no good whatsoever on the exam.

You should use the "IRAC" method on the exam. "IRAC" stands for Issue, Rule, Application, and Conclusion. Be sure to discuss each part of the formula, except that you can skip the Conclusion, because it doesn't matter which way you come out. Also, there is no time to do the Application, because the exam is so chock-full of issues that you barely have time to list them and to try to state some semblance of a rule using only key words. It shouldn't really be called the "IRAC" method, but "IR" looks kind of stupid and makes it sound like law school exams test only memorization skills. Which of course is what they do.

Be sure to confront any ambiguities in the exam. They were probably placed there accidentally, but the professor will never admit this and will insist that they were deliberately placed there for pedagogical purposes (a phrase you hear a lot). For example, suppose Don throws acid at Pat. (Notice that "Don" begins with "D," as does "defendant," and that "Pat" begins with "P," as does "plaintiff." Those professors are geniuses.) The exam doesn't tell you whether the acid made contact-i.e., a harmful or offensive "touching" (what a moronic word)--with Pat. You should confront this ambiguity and write the following:

The facts don't say whether the acid touched Pat. If it did not, it was an assault. If it did, it was a battery. Of course, it was clearly a battery if it was-j-battery acid!!! (Ha-ha! Get it?)

Professors just love humorous asides like this, and will probably give you several points of extra credit. If they don't, don't blame me. I can't help it if your professor is a prune. Also, to show the professor that you are a nice person, be sure to draw some smiley faces at strategic points throughout your answer.

To promote fairness in grading, law schools have you write an exam number on your exam instead of your name. The story is told of a law school professor whose son was a student in the class. When the professor read the exam answers, he discovered that a third of them began with the words, '"Dear Dad."

After the exam, it is generally considered bad form to do "high fives" with members of your study group outside the exam room door. Also, do not review-or "postmortem"-the exam with other students. This is very depressing-especially if you can't even agree on whether it was a torts exam or a contracts exam. On the other hand, if some persistent bozo absolutely INSISTS on reviewing the exam with you, be sure to point out several issues that were NOT on the exam. This will cost him several days' sleep and probably thirty pounds.

To cheer yourself up about exams, you might sing the following song (sung to the tune of the Beach Boys' song Barbara Ann):

They said, "Be a sport. Come and learn a tort." The teacher called my name, and I went into rigor mort'.

Chorus.

I joined a study group one day. There's nothing much to say. I prepared the outline, but the others got the "A."

Chorus.

So that you don't get depressed by a low grade in a particular class, the law school waits until all your exams are graded before it releases your grades. However, this is small comfort; it's like warming the water before drowning the cat. The day grades come out is a glum day for ninety percent of the students. They have been in the top ten percent all their lives, but now, because of a secret principle of mathematics, only ten percent of them will be in the top ten percent of their law school class. They will immediately blame it all on:

1. The grading system.
    
2. The professors who failed to explain things.
    
3. The fact that it was neap tide when they took their exams.

However, amazingly, even if you fixed all these things, STILL only ten percent of the students would be in the top ten percent of their class. No one can explain why.

You look at the sealed envelope containing your grades. Grades are not a matter of life and death, you tell yourself. No. They're a LOT more important than that. You remember how the protagonist in The Paper Chase didn't even look at his grade sheet. He made a paper airplane out of it and threw it in the ocean.

What a brave and mature person. You, on the other hand, rip the envelope open with bared fangs. Rats. Four F's and a D. The dean calls you into his office and says, "Kid, you've got to stop spending all your time on one subject."

To find some comfort, you open the Bible and read Ezra 9:3. "And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and beard, and sat down astonied." That's exactly how you feel. "Astonied."