Exams as a "Rewarding Experience":
Ann Althouse wonders whether "law students know (or believe) that we lawprofs mean for the exam to be a rewarding educational experience?" and provokes some interesting comments.
UPDATE: Rick Garnett has prompted more discussion on this topic at Prawfsblawg.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Why Law Schools Generally Grade Based on a Single End-of-Semester Exam:
- Exams as a "Rewarding Experience":
It's all for the good of the students! Who knew?
I should think if exams are intended to be rewarding educational experiences, they certainly give more than one a semester: More exams; more reward.
I personally saw a marked improvement in exam performance when I stopped trying to write creative, thoughtful, and interesting answers. It is possible that this simply reflects poorly on my ability to be creative, thoughtful, and interesting.
However, I feel pretty confident in stating that:
- When an exam question obviously presents you with point of contention C
- C obviously comes out for one side under argument A1 and the other under argument A2
- A1 is obviously supported by policy considerations P1, while A2 is supported by policy considerations P2
The most successful answering strategy is to simply flesh out the outline above, and maybe include a sentence or two about why P1 or P2 is better. A perhaps more thoughtful and interesting answer might focus more on why we might prefer P1 and P2, or try to tie in consideration P3, or discuss how P1 and P2 bear on another argument. However, most professors won't credit you with linking up the policy argument to the outcome of the case unless you make it explicitly clear, which generally sucks up your word count. I assume that they do this because it makes things easier to grade.
This isn't just for "issue spotter questions", either, whatever Professor Althouse might suggest. Even on policy questions professors are generally looking for a warmed-over rehash of the arguments discussed in class, rather than any kind of original analysis.
I also suspect that one's perception of the exam experience changes with time and with perspective. I would be curious to see Professor Althouse's thoughts if she were to sit in on a colleague's course and take their exam, and have it blind graded along with the students' tests.
Is there really a reason for it besides this?
Also, Bearcat, what *is* a real reflection of your intelligence?
"Having to grade one exam at the end of a semester provides a prof with the least amount of work.Is there really a reason for it besides this?"
I would guess that there isn't. But there are people, myself included, who love that kind of pressure.
No problem, I'd actually like them more often.
Given a choice between a class with 3 exams during the year vs. a 3 hour test at the end of it that determines my grade - I'd take the 3 exam course. (It's basic statistics-I'd count on a lot of tests during a year to better reflect what I know than 6-8. I was the same way in undergrad.)
My feeling here is though, outside of some sado-masochistic purpose I don't understand, that the tests and the courses are structured to provide a professor with the least amount of work-nothing more.
Some other exams have been pretty cathartic for me too, particularly closed book exams because the student must know all of the material by heart, which results in greater comfidence, calm and, usually for me, better writing. I don't have to look at any notes--the answers are all upstairs and can be instantly incorporate with sentence drafting.
Most of all, taking exams feels like spring cleaning of my cerebral attic. It is satisfying and extremely emotional--like letting out a breath you've been holding for 16 weeks. Looking at the exam process as a positive (get to show off what you know and see what you've learned, finish the class, sell books, etc.) as opposed to a negative can greatly change my attitude about an exam.
One thing is sure, though: I will never consider classes, in which I did poorly, to be among my favorites. Something about the bad grade washes away any redeeming experience one may have had. And the exam will never seem rewarding either--it will haunt you forever....
The typical law school exam, i.e. essay test issue spotter graded by several TAs and/or a professor, includes a certain inherent subjective bias. I'm not talking politics here, although that is also a common complaint of students--what I mean is, the psychology of grading a large number of exams will likely produce irregularities. Fatigue, evolving or different criteria over time, grading affected by other answers (e.g. "wow, I thought that test was great until I read the answer from student 6139N!"), etc., are reasons why the law school exam is prone to inaccuracy. Now, I am sure most profs can tell the difference between a student who has done the work and someone who never showed up to class, but I don't know how good a job they do ranking the top 50% against each other.
In terms of the experience taking these things, I have found that the most enjoyable classes are those that spread the stress out and involve a high degree of participation. I took a seminar this semester where the grading was based on four 5-pagers and one 45-min. in-class presentation. On the last day of class, I was done with the work, had learned the material much better than I would've if the only significant prep involved had been one week cramming, and I loved the prof for making my 3L life that much less stressful!
I've been through both (still in law school). there is a difference. Medical school coursework is much more fact intensive, and there is much less interrelationship among the facts. If med schools did nt test several times,students who postponed studying would be left in the dust.
I find the law school finals a great way to integrate my knowledge.
On the few occasions I've had those questions, I had to think about what I actually believed and support that belief with reason. For every other exam, I just related what the cases or the professors told me to think.
We had finals in undergrad. There's no reason we couldn't them in law school also. They were cumulative - they covered everything.
My problem here is sampling. It's like taking a poll of 8 people when you can take a poll of 40. The poll of 40 will always be more reliable. Nobody would rely on a poll of 8 people, just like you wouldn't rely on a drug whose medical research consisted of testing 6 patients.
Adjust the time and the amount of information covered and you'd be able to make any test rough. You could make a test of material you learn in one day of class brutal and with enough time you can make a test of an entire semester pretty care-free. I've had those too - but it's as efficient to rely on one test in those situations as it is in a class that puts you under a lot of pressure.
I'd actually argue the opposite happens in a lot of cases after the first year (when you're less likely to be called on in class and especially if you have access to other outlines). In that case you can blow off a course for most of the semester, cram a couple weeks before an exam, and then take the test. Back to the point of the post, I don't have a study I link to off hand, but (from what I have read about this) it's just an inefficient way to teach material in general. You're more likely to forget it than if you'd studied.
On the other hand, there's the whole "think like a lawyer" argument-that you're training someone in a way to think vs. teaching specific material. It's probably not a surprise that I also think this is a crock, but - if that's the case - I don't see why the need to only rely on one test is even harder to defend.
If teaching specific information isn't the main point, why not have tests more often? Especially after somebody has already spent a few months in law school and has been introduced to the case method, why is it necessary for a test to cover at least 70 cases vs. also having a couple that cover 25?
You don't have to have one exam to have a test be brutal. You don't have to have one exam to have a final.
More importantly, I just don't think there's a legitimate reason to test all of the information on just one exam.
"You're more likely to forget it than if you'd studied."
I should have written
"You're more likely to forget it than if you'd studied for a few different test over the semester."
However, I think we should bear in mind that the current system of relatively easy-going learning for 4 months, followed by 3 weeks of 15-18 hours a day of work, and then hinging it all on a series of 3-5 hour tests, does approximate what practice is like for a lot of lawyers. (Though if you plan to draft wills for 40 years and then retire, I could see how this isn't the best set up for you).
In all honesty, I think law school is the most significantly flawed model of education I've ever experienced in my life, and it distresses me to no end that professors think they are doing much more than needlessly destroying 50 percent of their students.
Exams may or may not be cathartic but rewarding? That's a real stretch.
Thankfully, this past semester, I had the chance to take two seminar classes. Since there was no final exam, each class felt like it was designed to add to my general legal toolbox rather than just give me a list of rules I needed to memorize. Because papers in a seminar class require research, thinking, and independent thought to solve a particular problem in the law, there's much more opportunity to find the experience rewarding. Instead of copying my outline onto my exam and forgetting about it immediately afterwards, a final paper actually lets students take possession of the project, and (especially for those professors who welcome students in their officers) an opportunity to work closely with a professor in learning to frame and defend an argument. When a professor tells you "wow, that's an interesting idea; I never thought about approaching it *that* way," you know you've accomplished something.
Is that meant to be a provocative statement, or does she really believe that?
In any event, what a load of horse####!
Oh yes, and grading essay exams during a semester would cut far too heavily into perfersors' time for media appearances, speeches, article writing, paid seminar appearances, etc. etc. - a big income drain.
From what I've read and heard, the law school experience has been roughly the same for a few decades now. LSAT, required core curriculum, socratic method, one exam. Is it possible that only now the supposedly rewarding nature of exams would be revealed? Surely someone long ago, in her most lucid and honest moments, would have been inspired to reveal such a discovery to us? If in fact this traditional and unchanging core element of law school were rewarding, then why the silence of our professors and administrators and counselors and mentors? Why would the introdcution of such an idea seem so foreign to those of us who take/took law school exams?
Of course you can, and should, as do faculty in virtually every other discipline. There should be synthesis exercises on a regular basis throughout the term/year. There is nothing about law per se that exempts itself from this principle. It's just that law instructors do not, for some reason, necessarily have the means to think beyond law school tradition.
I disagree. One of my favorite classes in law school was telecoms law. I was simply not "in the zone" the day I took the exam, which I wrote competently, but not as if I was walking on water. I passed just fine, but I certainly didn't get the top score in the class, which I was gunning for. The professor even told me my score didn't reflect my class performance! The score didn't matter, though. I was a 3L and didn't need the grade, and I can honestly say that telecoms law was perhaps the only class in law school that has actually helped me in the practice of law, since I've worked on several telecoms deals.
Law school exams don't test actual knowledge of the law. I figured this out after finding no correlation between my exam scores and my knowledge of the material going into the test.
This is basically not true, unless you are only talking about undergrad classes. When I was in grad school, our classes also typically only had one test, (of about 90 minutes) at the end of the course, plus a paper. The three-tests-plus-a-final scheme is very undergrad-y, and is really only appropriate for classes with material that can be easily broken up into discrete parts (i.e., this test is on the three shakespeare plays we read; this test is on the enlightentment; this test is on the French revolution and napoleon). Most law school classes are more synthetic that this, and the exams rely on a cumulative knowledge of many different subjects covered throughout the class. And while it's true that you could have a cumulative final, this would only be 1/4 or 1/3 of the material tested; the bulk of your tests would not be cumulative. And, frankly, law students should not have to be spoon fed.
The other issue, though, relates to the quality of the exams themselves. Ideally, an exam should reflect, as accurately as possible, your understanding of the material. The exam should also, at least roughly, reflect the importance the material received during classroom discussions and the readings. (As an example of this not happening, my law school roommate once took a 4 hour, 3 question property exam with two questions relating to easements; the class had spent a total of two days on easements.)
The biggest problem with law school exams is, IMO, the issue of reliability or repeatability. That is, say a prof has three final exams prepared for a contracts class. If the exams reliably reflect that knowledge of the students, the students' scores should be roughly the same no matter which test is given. I.e., those students scoring in the top 10% on test A should also score in about the top 10% on tests B and C. Some variation is inevitable, of course - but if the correlation tends toward zero, there is a significant problem with the test.
While I've admitted that I don't find exams rewarding, what evidence do you have for your suggestion that there's no correlation between your knowledge of the material and your grade? Law school exams are curved. It's not how well *you* know the material, but how well you know the material in comparison to your classmates, how well you can apply that material to a (usually) silly fact pattern, and how well you can write up that knowledge under time pressure.
Saying that you knew the material cold going into an exam is meaningless, because at least half your class probably thought the same thing.
Law school exams generally all highly correlative with each other, but that's just because they all test the same basic skill set and really has nothing to do with whether the tests actually test the law or something else (I vote for something else).
- Re: Peter/synthesizing:
In my Con law class (like all the others) it was divided up into sections - one on due process, another on equal protection, etc. A section would take up ~4 weeks. If you see a line delineating why it's necessary to have all of these before you take any tests, I just don't (please elaborate). Why not have a test on my sections in class? Why not have a midterm?
Inevitably some law school courses at a school will cover material that other con law courses at that same school won't, so, seeing as that's the case - if you have a class that doesn't cover the last section that another class does - wouldn't the grade in that class be equivalent to a test that had been taken say at the beginning of April in the other class?
If it would - what's wrong with also having a test at the beginning of April in the other class?
Furthermore, at some schools courses like civil procedure are a semester. At other schools the course can be a year-long course with two tests where you have one midway through, along with another one at the Spring. Does that make those courses invalid? Chicago has a quarter system where you take more tests over the course of a 1L year than you would in a semester system - does that mean that's an invalid way of teaching law? Where's the line and how do you justify it? If I wanted to toss in a few more tests a la Chicago would make my the grading inferior?