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This is my last week of class, and I haven't finished outlining for all of my classes. I'm trying to finish by LDOC, dec 8. I'm at NYU. my first exam is on Dec 14. I took a civ pro practice exam and only answered 2/5 questions, and obviously not as completely as I wanted. I pretty much finished that outline up until this last unit. Feeling very concerned that I'm really behind and am doing this wrong. I know I have to take as many practice exams as possible, but I don't know how to balance this with outlining. The outlining has been really beneficial for me. I've done just about every reading, so once I'm done outlining I really want to drill. Very scared because I'm not even sure if I can even completely answer exam questions, and it's in about a week. What am I doing wrong? What should I do?

This whole semester I don't think I sifted through the information effectively, so I have briefs and notes, but it seems like now I'm just rushing through everything.

Honestly I was in the same boat as you (my finals are in 3 days). 10 days is plenty to learn civpro assuming you read/paid attention/E&E'd it throughout the semester. I ended up just saying f outlining, used an upperclassman's (except for the one new prof), filled in extra stuff, and started doing tests.

SlippinJimmy wrote:Honestly I was in the same boat as you (my finals are in 3 days). 10 days is plenty to learn civpro assuming you read/paid attention/E&E'd it throughout the semester. I ended up just saying f outlining, used an upperclassman's (except for the one new prof), filled in extra stuff, and started doing tests.

thanks, are you feeling more confident now that you've used the reading period to review?

Keilz wrote:This is my last week of class, and I haven't finished outlining for all of my classes. I'm trying to finish by LDOC, dec 8. I'm at NYU. my first exam is on Dec 14. I took a civ pro practice exam and only answered 2/5 questions, and obviously not as completely as I wanted. I pretty much finished that outline up until this last unit. Feeling very concerned that I'm really behind and am doing this wrong. I know I have to take as many practice exams as possible, but I don't know how to balance this with outlining. The outlining has been really beneficial for me. I've done just about every reading, so once I'm done outlining I really want to drill. Very scared because I'm not even sure if I can even completely answer exam questions, and it's in about a week. What am I doing wrong? What should I do?

This whole semester I don't think I sifted through the information effectively, so I have briefs and notes, but it seems like now I'm just rushing through everything.

At this point I think you should shift to doing practice tests. Do at least one full one a day. You get graded on how well you write your exam, not how pretty or complete your outline is. Taking practice tests will also show you where the gaps in your knowledge and outline are

Mullens wrote:

Keilz wrote:This is my last week of class, and I haven't finished outlining for all of my classes. I'm trying to finish by LDOC, dec 8. I'm at NYU. my first exam is on Dec 14. I took a civ pro practice exam and only answered 2/5 questions, and obviously not as completely as I wanted. I pretty much finished that outline up until this last unit. Feeling very concerned that I'm really behind and am doing this wrong. I know I have to take as many practice exams as possible, but I don't know how to balance this with outlining. The outlining has been really beneficial for me. I've done just about every reading, so once I'm done outlining I really want to drill. Very scared because I'm not even sure if I can even completely answer exam questions, and it's in about a week. What am I doing wrong? What should I do?

This whole semester I don't think I sifted through the information effectively, so I have briefs and notes, but it seems like now I'm just rushing through everything.

At this point I think you should shift to doing practice tests. Do at least one full one a day. You get graded on how well you write your exam, not how pretty or complete your outline is. Taking practice tests will also show you where the gaps in your knowledge and outline are

Thanks for your response. Do you think I'm behind? I'm so scared of just massively effing up and being so far below everyone. my section seems really intense, with people going around about how much they can type and stuff.

Keilz wrote:

Mullens wrote:

Keilz wrote:This is my last week of class, and I haven't finished outlining for all of my classes. I'm trying to finish by LDOC, dec 8. I'm at NYU. my first exam is on Dec 14. I took a civ pro practice exam and only answered 2/5 questions, and obviously not as completely as I wanted. I pretty much finished that outline up until this last unit. Feeling very concerned that I'm really behind and am doing this wrong. I know I have to take as many practice exams as possible, but I don't know how to balance this with outlining. The outlining has been really beneficial for me. I've done just about every reading, so once I'm done outlining I really want to drill. Very scared because I'm not even sure if I can even completely answer exam questions, and it's in about a week. What am I doing wrong? What should I do?

This whole semester I don't think I sifted through the information effectively, so I have briefs and notes, but it seems like now I'm just rushing through everything.

At this point I think you should shift to doing practice tests. Do at least one full one a day. You get graded on how well you write your exam, not how pretty or complete your outline is. Taking practice tests will also show you where the gaps in your knowledge and outline are

Thanks for your response. Do you think I'm behind? I'm so scared of just massively effing up and being so far below everyone. my section seems really intense, with people going around about how much they can type and stuff.

I have no idea where you are. But don’t worry about other people or try to compare yourself. Just do everything you can to prepare yourself for writing a good final. And length of a final is not that strongly correlated with a good grade. A shorter final with concise but complete analysis and no bs tangents will always outscore a rambling recessitation of the law that’s short on actual analysis.

Mullens wrote:

Keilz wrote:

Mullens wrote:

Keilz wrote:This is my last week of class, and I haven't finished outlining for all of my classes. I'm trying to finish by LDOC, dec 8. I'm at NYU. my first exam is on Dec 14. I took a civ pro practice exam and only answered 2/5 questions, and obviously not as completely as I wanted. I pretty much finished that outline up until this last unit. Feeling very concerned that I'm really behind and am doing this wrong. I know I have to take as many practice exams as possible, but I don't know how to balance this with outlining. The outlining has been really beneficial for me. I've done just about every reading, so once I'm done outlining I really want to drill. Very scared because I'm not even sure if I can even completely answer exam questions, and it's in about a week. What am I doing wrong? What should I do?

This whole semester I don't think I sifted through the information effectively, so I have briefs and notes, but it seems like now I'm just rushing through everything.

At this point I think you should shift to doing practice tests. Do at least one full one a day. You get graded on how well you write your exam, not how pretty or complete your outline is. Taking practice tests will also show you where the gaps in your knowledge and outline are

Thanks for your response. Do you think I'm behind? I'm so scared of just massively effing up and being so far below everyone. my section seems really intense, with people going around about how much they can type and stuff.

I have no idea where you are. But don’t worry about other people or try to compare yourself. Just do everything you can to prepare yourself for writing a good final. And length of a final is not that strongly correlated with a good grade. A shorter final with concise but complete analysis and no bs tangents will always outscore a rambling recessitation of the law that’s short on actual analysis.

Thanks. I just meant, like if I have only done one practice exam and my exam is in 9 days, is that like unreasonably short amount of time to learn the skill to a decent level? I just don't know what is generally accepted

Keilz wrote:

Mullens wrote:

Keilz wrote:

Mullens wrote:

Keilz wrote:This is my last week of class, and I haven't finished outlining for all of my classes. I'm trying to finish by LDOC, dec 8. I'm at NYU. my first exam is on Dec 14. I took a civ pro practice exam and only answered 2/5 questions, and obviously not as completely as I wanted. I pretty much finished that outline up until this last unit. Feeling very concerned that I'm really behind and am doing this wrong. I know I have to take as many practice exams as possible, but I don't know how to balance this with outlining. The outlining has been really beneficial for me. I've done just about every reading, so once I'm done outlining I really want to drill. Very scared because I'm not even sure if I can even completely answer exam questions, and it's in about a week. What am I doing wrong? What should I do?

This whole semester I don't think I sifted through the information effectively, so I have briefs and notes, but it seems like now I'm just rushing through everything.

At this point I think you should shift to doing practice tests. Do at least one full one a day. You get graded on how well you write your exam, not how pretty or complete your outline is. Taking practice tests will also show you where the gaps in your knowledge and outline are

Thanks for your response. Do you think I'm behind? I'm so scared of just massively effing up and being so far below everyone. my section seems really intense, with people going around about how much they can type and stuff.

I have no idea where you are. But don’t worry about other people or try to compare yourself. Just do everything you can to prepare yourself for writing a good final. And length of a final is not that strongly correlated with a good grade. A shorter final with concise but complete analysis and no bs tangents will always outscore a rambling recessitation of the law that’s short on actual analysis.

Thanks. I just meant, like if I have only done one practice exam and my exam is in 9 days, is that like unreasonably short amount of time to learn the skill to a decent level? I just don't know what is generally accepted

not at all, it only takes a few exams to really understand how you should be writing it (assuming you have model answers)

Keilz wrote:

SlippinJimmy wrote:Honestly I was in the same boat as you (my finals are in 3 days). 10 days is plenty to learn civpro assuming you read/paid attention/E&E'd it throughout the semester. I ended up just saying f outlining, used an upperclassman's (except for the one new prof), filled in extra stuff, and started doing tests.

thanks, are you feeling more confident now that you've used the reading period to review?

Way, way better after doing a practice test and methodically picking apart my answer to improve it.

Keilz wrote:

Mullens wrote:

Keilz wrote:

Mullens wrote:

Keilz wrote:This is my last week of class, and I haven't finished outlining for all of my classes. I'm trying to finish by LDOC, dec 8. I'm at NYU. my first exam is on Dec 14. I took a civ pro practice exam and only answered 2/5 questions, and obviously not as completely as I wanted. I pretty much finished that outline up until this last unit. Feeling very concerned that I'm really behind and am doing this wrong. I know I have to take as many practice exams as possible, but I don't know how to balance this with outlining. The outlining has been really beneficial for me. I've done just about every reading, so once I'm done outlining I really want to drill. Very scared because I'm not even sure if I can even completely answer exam questions, and it's in about a week. What am I doing wrong? What should I do?

This whole semester I don't think I sifted through the information effectively, so I have briefs and notes, but it seems like now I'm just rushing through everything.

At this point I think you should shift to doing practice tests. Do at least one full one a day. You get graded on how well you write your exam, not how pretty or complete your outline is. Taking practice tests will also show you where the gaps in your knowledge and outline are

Thanks for your response. Do you think I'm behind? I'm so scared of just massively effing up and being so far below everyone. my section seems really intense, with people going around about how much they can type and stuff.

I have no idea where you are. But don’t worry about other people or try to compare yourself. Just do everything you can to prepare yourself for writing a good final. And length of a final is not that strongly correlated with a good grade. A shorter final with concise but complete analysis and no bs tangents will always outscore a rambling recessitation of the law that’s short on actual analysis.

Thanks. I just meant, like if I have only done one practice exam and my exam is in 9 days, is that like unreasonably short amount of time to learn the skill to a decent level? I just don't know what is generally accepted

Ten days is enough time to improve vastly and get to a decent level. The biggest thing to me is getting in the right mindset to write the exam. These aren’t like college finals where you get points for knowing the subject of the class. You gets points for applying the law, not knowing it.

I think of law school exams like a game where the goal is to gain as many points as possible. I used that mentality in studying and approaching my outlining so that on the exam I would be able to rack up points and waste as little time as possible on things that didn’t get points. To do that, I would pre-write all my rule statements into my outline so I could copy them verbatim onto the exam without having to think about them and faster than if I was writing them off the cuff (this is especially helpful in civ pro where there are so many rules). I would also think about analysis and places where I could get points with certain counter-arguments or by distinguishing analysis under contradictory cases/sources of law.

Mullens wrote:

Keilz wrote:

Mullens wrote:

Keilz wrote:

Mullens wrote:

Keilz wrote:This is my last week of class, and I haven't finished outlining for all of my classes. I'm trying to finish by LDOC, dec 8. I'm at NYU. my first exam is on Dec 14. I took a civ pro practice exam and only answered 2/5 questions, and obviously not as completely as I wanted. I pretty much finished that outline up until this last unit. Feeling very concerned that I'm really behind and am doing this wrong. I know I have to take as many practice exams as possible, but I don't know how to balance this with outlining. The outlining has been really beneficial for me. I've done just about every reading, so once I'm done outlining I really want to drill. Very scared because I'm not even sure if I can even completely answer exam questions, and it's in about a week. What am I doing wrong? What should I do?

This whole semester I don't think I sifted through the information effectively, so I have briefs and notes, but it seems like now I'm just rushing through everything.

At this point I think you should shift to doing practice tests. Do at least one full one a day. You get graded on how well you write your exam, not how pretty or complete your outline is. Taking practice tests will also show you where the gaps in your knowledge and outline are

Thanks for your response. Do you think I'm behind? I'm so scared of just massively effing up and being so far below everyone. my section seems really intense, with people going around about how much they can type and stuff.

I have no idea where you are. But don’t worry about other people or try to compare yourself. Just do everything you can to prepare yourself for writing a good final. And length of a final is not that strongly correlated with a good grade. A shorter final with concise but complete analysis and no bs tangents will always outscore a rambling recessitation of the law that’s short on actual analysis.

Thanks. I just meant, like if I have only done one practice exam and my exam is in 9 days, is that like unreasonably short amount of time to learn the skill to a decent level? I just don't know what is generally accepted

Ten days is enough time to improve vastly and get to a decent level. The biggest thing to me is getting in the right mindset to write the exam. These aren’t like college finals where you get points for knowing the subject of the class. You gets points for applying the law, not knowing it.

I think of law school exams like a game where the goal is to gain as many points as possible. I used that mentality in studying and approaching my outlining so that on the exam I would be able to rack up points and waste as little time as possible on things that didn’t get points. To do that, I would pre-write all my rule statements into my outline so I could copy them verbatim onto the exam without having to think about them and faster than if I was writing them off the cuff (this is especially helpful in civ pro where there are so many rules). I would also think about analysis and places where I could get points with certain counter-arguments or by distinguishing analysis under contradictory cases/sources of law.

Thank you for this. I’m definitely going to heed this advice and take an exam tomorrow and everyday after that, and start to formulate attack outlines. That’s definitely the skill I need to learn now...transferring the information into An exam answer and practice applying the skill.

You seem to be figuring out a system that works for you and will help you feel confident, which is half the battle, so you are doing great so far!

I'll just give my two cents because you could potentially be making a mistake I made my first semester of 1L. It's not about "taking as many practice tests as you can," but about the quality of those practice tests. It's better two go through two tests and methodically and critically analyze your (1) issue spotting, (2) analysis, and (3) organization, than it is to fly through every exam available in the library. Good luck!

I am not sure what the set up of your exams are, but we basically have a short essay to a huge issue spotter on each exam. I really try to knock out the short essay's quickly and efficiently. I think, yesterday, I had about an hour and 40 minutes to finish the issue spotter. I actually used about and hour and a half to get through it, because they are so dense. Good luck!

Don't let the test intimidate you, because you will most likely walk out of there thinking that it wasn't that bad.

RE: scheduling. Divide up your days of studying (not just before finals, but days during finals).

I saw too many people study 3 weeks for test 1 and then 2 days for tests 2,3 and 4.

cannonball wrote:You seem to be figuring out a system that works for you and will help you feel confident, which is half the battle, so you are doing great so far!

I'll just give my two cents because you could potentially be making a mistake I made my first semester of 1L. It's not about "taking as many practice tests as you can," but about the quality of those practice tests. It's better two go through two tests and methodically and critically analyze your (1) issue spotting, (2) analysis, and (3) organization, than it is to fly through every exam available in the library. Good luck!

thank you - how did you do this? Did you compare with a sample answer, and formulate into like an attack/something similar where you took notes on how you should phrase things and important things to remember to address/analyze? did you go back in and fill in other things you could've said?

Desert Fox wrote:RE: scheduling. Divide up your days of studying (not just before finals, but days during finals).

I saw too many people study 3 weeks for test 1 and then 2 days for tests 2,3 and 4.

Thanks. I am going to use 4 reading days for my 5 credit class and 3 reading days for my other two 4 credit classes