A Letter to my classmates

[StonewallJacksonFan]

I see, but I think you can pick up a lot on that from the casebook, I dunno.  Maybe you will overstudy, lol.  I have seen previous exams for Civ Procedure from W&M, at least half of the exam is multiple choice.  There is a guy on top-law-schools.com from W&M who says he never touches anything but the class notes and he has 4.0 after first year.

[the white rabbit]

I see, but I think you can pick up a lot on that from the casebook, I dunno.  Maybe you will overstudy, lol.  I have seen previous exams for Civ Procedure from W&M, at least half of the exam is multiple choice.  There is a guy on top-law-schools.com from W&M who says he never touches anything but the class notes and he has 4.0 after first year.

Multiple choice is more the exception than the rule from what I've seen.

Different strategies work for different people.

[StonewallJacksonFan]

Thats true.  I guess I am just going to buy all required 1L textbooks and read them until September.  It is fun, and hopefully it will help.

[Pop Up Video]

Law school exams are curved. Most people will know the material very, very well. You could say knowing the material well is necessary, but not sufficient.

[StonewallJacksonFan]

I know. I guess the bottom line is you cant know how well you will do even if you study your nuts (ovaries) off.  I guess the best any of us can do is push the pedal to the floor and see what happens.

[Jamie Stringer]

Arent law school exams pretty much the same (plaintiff A from CA sues defendant B from IL, who brings in third party defendant C from TX; whats the appropriate venue)?  I dont understand why people keep saying that there is no guarantee to get good grades in law school.  Exam questions are objective, they have to be, and if you know your shiit like nobody's business you should get an A.

Basically no. It is not likely to be something as obvious as where they tell you there's an issue with venue -- that's something you'll need to spot on your own. And the issue is rarely ever discrete. Usually it's tied up in various other issues and those issues are forked (can go one of two or more ways). Plus, as previously mentioned, everyone knows their *&^% and there's a curve.

Oh, and I didn't have any multiple choice questions on my exams last semester and I doubt I will this semester either. No other 1Ls I know at my school had m/c questions on their exams. I wouldn't necessarily bank on that unless that's the school you plan to attend.

[nealric]

what is a hornbook? would class notes and reading the required textbook and required cases several times be enough for to do well in a 1L class?

They are closer to traditional textbooks than your casebook is. They basically just lay out the concepts for you instead of forcing you to glean insights from the cases. You could pull an A+ with class notes, you could also pull an A+ never going to class and just studying supplements. It depends on the student and the prof.

[StonewallJacksonFan]

Cool..thank you.  Does anyone have suggestions about good hornbooks for 1L standard classes?

[MCB]

You sound like a real gem.

She does sound like a gem!  Hilarious.

As far as Hornbooks (way to make the conversation boring guys  )... I usually find the Examples and Explanations ones really helpful, and they seem to be popular.

[StonewallJacksonFan]

I hope it will still be funny when I rank higher than you guys.