Drake Law Faculty Bumbles Writing Exams, Will Students Suffer?

[ToTransferOrNot]

You honestly believe that they are completely free of guilt for not making sure there exam was formatted correctly?!

Hahahaha, oh, good lord. I mean, I can understand thinking it was a somewhat understandable oversight. I can understand having more sympathy for them than I have. But you honestly believe that they had absolutely no responsibility to inquire further?

That essentially ends the conversation, because there is no way to get around the foolishness of that position. The number of jobs that would get you fired from ("Well boss, it seemed like something may have been wrong with the client file was incomplete, but I didn't think to check because I was stressed and under time pressue." Response: "Oh, that's unfortunate. You're still fired.") alone demonstrates how untenable the position is, so I won't get in to all of the other times in life that a lack of dilligence will screw people over, regardless of how "unfair" it may be.

[ISUCKATTHIS]

"That essentially ends the conversation"

Thank Christ.  I hope this conversation hasn't "effected" your self esteem. 

Good day.

[ToTransferOrNot]

Mah publik skoolin didnt include no fanci "grammerz."

It is an awfully good thing that I can write well where it counts, apparently: law school final exams, personal statements, cover letters and seminar papers (notice what I did thar with the proper comma use in a sequential list with more than three items? I'm not sure tho, maybey i was suppozed to use a semi-colon instead lolz.)

My incorrect use of "effect" instead of "affect" will, however, haunt my internet persona forever.

In conclusion, this has been one of the more entertaining distractions I have had from studying from my final exams, but I had better get back to making sure my worst grade comes because I wrote over the word limit on an exam. I would hate to make a more serious mistake on any of my finals, such as not leaving myself enough time to answer some of the questions because I was... oh, I don't know, uncomfortable with the doctrine or something.

[ISUCKATTHIS]

I'm sure that would never happen to you.  And, if it did, that it would be somebody else's fault.

[StevePirates]

It is an awfully good thing that I can write well where it counts, apparently: law school final exams, personal statements, cover letters and seminar papers (notice what I did thar with the proper comma use in a sequential list with more than three items? I'm not sure tho, maybey i was suppozed to use a semi-colon instead lolz.)

Shouldn't there be a commma after "cover letters"? 

[jacy85]

Not necessarily.  Although personally, I'm a fan of the oxford comma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma

[Kiwiki]

Holy hell this thread is rife with exam period moodiness. 

Students who didn't check the contents/format of the exam to help allocate their time wisely deserve what they get.  Time management is something that most law school exams test.  The extra instruction pages given to the first students were only unfair insofar as they required those students to take one extra (and pretty minor) mental step in deciding how to allocate the time than was required of the students who did not have the extra instruction pages.  I don't think that is enough of a difference in requirements to warrant special grading procedures.

[ISUCKATTHIS]

Holy hell this thread is rife with exam period moodiness. 

Students who didn't check the contents/format of the exam to help allocate their time wisely deserve what they get.  Time management is something that most law school exams test.  The extra instruction pages given to the first students were only unfair insofar as they required those students to take one extra (and pretty minor) mental step in deciding how to allocate the time than was required of the students who did not have the extra instruction pages.  I don't think that is enough of a difference in requirements to warrant special grading procedures.

I disagree that it would be minor, but I respect your opinion and accept that this is the best way to argue against my position. 

Another thing law school exams test is performance under pressure.  Screwing with the exam format and making it more confusing can create more pressure and even cause some to panic.  That's okay across the board, I think, if everybody is subjected to the same pressure.  It's not okay if they aren't.  I don't think there is any way to measure how much confusion/pressure/panic screwing with the exam format ought to cause.  This would probably vary with student.  Then, I think the safe assumption would be that it should cause some confusion/pressure/panic and that the playing field is not level.

Obviously, there would be a limit to this approach.  Putting the staple on different parts of the page, for example, would not be a reasonable source for additional confusion.  Nor would including duplicate pages, etc.  However, I think scewing with the format is a different issue.  I agree that the first thing a student is expected to do when he/she gets an exam is to allocate time appropriately.  Making that process more difficult/confusing for students might well have an impact on their performance.  On that basis alone, I think it's unfair.

[goaliechica]

Nor would including duplicate pages, etc.  However, I think scewing with the format is a different issue.  I agree that the first thing a student is expected to do when he/she gets an exam is to allocate time appropriately.  Making that process more difficult/confusing for students might well have an impact on their performance.  On that basis alone, I think it's unfair.

Um, I shouldn't really come back to this, but isn't this exactly what happened? There were duplicate pages—not even of substantive pages of the exam—but of the instruction page.

ETA: Unless you only mean duplicate pages that are right in a row—because then it should be obvious what happened—but duplicate pages that are not consecutive are deathly confusing? Again, I feel like we are splitting hairs about saying "this is enough to throw someone off" and "this is not enough to throw someone off." I'm sure someone could come on here and pitch a fit about a misplaced staple, and someone would agree with them.

I agree that the crux of the disagreement is whether you think this is something that could reasonably throw someone off to the extent that it would affect their performance, or whether it's in the realm of somewhat annoying but not particularly debilitating *&^% that you deal with. Clearly people disagree about that.

[ISUCKATTHIS]

No, it isn't exactly what happened here.

Yes, by "duplicate pages" I meant duplicate pages that do not change the overall format of the exam.  This is why I distinguished between duplicate pages and screwing with the exam's format. Admittedly, I wasn't explicit about that.  I assumed it would be implied. 

I do think that reordering pages would be inherently confusing in a way that simply duplicating a page without changing the format would not.

Thank you for helping me untangle and clarify this issue.