Tips for how to not dwell

[mae]

I'm having the worst time not dwelling on an exam I had yesterday that went really badly for me.  I knew the material but honestly feel that I did not perform well (remembering at 2am that I didn't write about something I meant to, etc.).  As a result, I didn't sleep hardly at all last night because I was so stressed about what I didn't do on the exam.  A previous exam I had last week I had no problem not dwelling on, so I wish I could do the same for this one!

Does anyone have any good tips to get over the dwelling?

[VitaminE]

I have the same problem. I ALWAYS walk out thinking I totally bombed the test. I've had 2 nightmares about my Contracts final that I took over a week ago. In the dream I could read the test, and I woke up in a cold sweat remembering something that I forgot to write.

I'm not sure what helps. I just keep on telling myself to forget about it, because we won't get the results back for a LONG time. I also drank right after my Contracts final, got a buzz, passed out... and then woke up and it was like I hadn't even taken a test that day... Unfortunately I had one of the nightmares that night...

Anyone less neurotic have any ideas? Sorry, Mae, I guess I wasn't much help

[jd06]

We've all been there.  Most of us that attend(ed) law school are OCD anyway, so it just makes things worse. 

Have a rational discussion with yourself: 

A.  Of course, missed issues popped in your head in the middle of the night.  That's because you're relaxed and no longer under exam pressure.  It happened to you and it happened to everyone else in that room.  But that's all part of the game.  Your grader is well aware that your answer was written under time constraints.  Nobody's answer will be perfect. Oftentimes we tend to dwell on the stuff we forgot to write and we totally dismiss the fact that we were really strong on another question or another issue.  Most of the time your grade will be significantly higher than you anticipated.  Because (a) you did have some good stuff in there and (b) everyone else missed issues too. 

B. Dont' beat yourself up.  It's wasted energy and you don't want to carry that into your next exam. Most law students were top of their class throughout their entire academic career. They're used to success.  Getting comfortable with the ocassional failure is part of the "process."  It also helps steel you for the courtroom. Things don't always go your way but you don't quit.  You just dust yourself off, get back on your horse, and fight on.   

C. Take a big picture approach.  It's just one exam out of many, many that you'll take over the course of your law school tenure.  You'll have good and you'll have bad.  Eventually it'll balance out.  And guess what?  One day, and it'll come much faster than you can imagine, you'll be graduating and those blown issues in Contracts will seem like a very distant memory.  They'll no longer matter.

So sit back and enjoy.  The whole experience goes quickly and you'll realize at the end that the failure was as much a part of the learning process as the success.  Good luck.   

[mirror]

you people are freaking retarded.  i doubt ill make law review but thankfully the paranoid little beyotches like this make me well above average

[veganvenus]

Beer.

[llavoy]

I agree. You need to purge the traumatized brain cells, and beer is the best way to do that.

[JohnnyAwesome]

Are you in law school or are you a 0L who thinks he knows what he's talking about. If you don't feel some nerves about your results then you didn't work hard enough. You put so much into your first year grades and they account for 100% of the score. I don't know how it's possible to not feel a little apprehensive about them. I don't know what the average above average thing means, but if being paranoid makes you below average as you're implying, well I've already made law review at my school and I did it with my last semester grades. So I guess being a little paranoid wasn't such a bad thing.

you people are freaking retarded.  i doubt ill make law review but thankfully the paranoid little beyotches like this make me well above average

[Ronald Hyatt]

It's a good thing they don't test for grammar. Sorry, split infinitives are a pet peeve of mine.

[Flashman]

Are you in law school or are you a 0L who thinks he knows what he's talking about.

you people are freaking retarded.  i doubt ill make law review but thankfully the paranoid little beyotches like this make me well above average

Pssst. Don't feed the trolls, they just keep coming back.  Maybe when the guy actually learns how to capitalize, he can join the discussion.


As to the OP: you really shouldn't let it bother you too much.  While it's healthy to do a post-op on your exams, the amount of time it takes to get the results back is too long for you to dwell on it.  You can be sure that most of your classmates have missed the same or other issues that you got, so it generally balances out.

[slacker]

It's a good thing they don't test for grammar. Sorry, split infinitives are a pet peeve of mine.

The prohibition on splitting infinitives is a holdover from the Latin form where the infinitive was all one word. Time to boldly go, Hyatt, into the current millenium. English rules and infinitives are splitting like cheerleaders on meth.

For the OP, uh, dig into the other test. Whatever you do, stop talking about it. If all else fails, go for the beer solution offered.