The professor has maintained through the whole semester that despite the complications of his lectures, his students routinely find his exam to be "simple and straightforward". Having now done three of his old exams, I can't say I agree. I would not say the exams are unfair, but I also wouldn't call them simple.

In college, preparing for an exam just meant finishing the reading, reviewing your notes, etc. Most exams I had in college were closed-book, so you'd arrive, prepared as well as you can be, and take whatever comes.

In law school, most of the exams are open book, so part of the preparation is making an outline of your notes to take with you into the exam. The other thing is that professors all make past exams from their class available. So the good news is, since professors very rarely change the format of their exams dramatically, you know kinda what to expect.

The bad news is, taking practice exams becomes a core part of your preparation. So instead of taking three exams over 10 days, you're taking more like 10 exams, 3 of which are graded. Joy.

PS to anyone who is studying for the LSAT --- yep, taking old 3-hr exams repetitively without losing your mind is yet another LSAT skill you can take to school.

14 Dec 04