The Last Day

At the end of today, I will have finished my first year of law school. I don't have time now to give my overall view and impressions of it (will save that for later this week). I have my Contracts final tonight. Normally, even though the exams are scheduled for 3 hours, the professors make them a little shorter. Since the exams are at night (and I am NOT a night person, when it comes to studying, reading, etc.), any bit shorter helps me. My Torts exam was 2.5 hours, and Civ Pro was 2 hours 40 minutes. From the old exams I've been studying, it appears that tonight's exam will be 3 hours and 15 minutes. I likely won't be leaving the parking lot until 10pm! Ugh! Nice way to zap any last bit of energy we might be having.

I'm not feeling as confident as I would like going into this. I feel like I know the material, but the volume is so much, it is overwhelming. I just hope I can recall things as fast as I know I will need to. We are going to have 2 essay questions (each worth 30% of our class grade), and 10 short answer questions (basically, like a mini essay, usually covering just one issue- each worth 3% of our class grade). In working on old tests, I think I have decided the better strategy is to do the 2 essays first (while timing myself to make sure I keep each to one hour), and then do the short answers. The short answers could easily take more time, and I'd rather lose out on finishing a couple of those, than part of an essay, if I have to. And SofTest has a timer, but time increments on it are not as conducive to starting with the short answers (they don't have a 6 minute option). It would be too frustrating to me to start with that section, give myself only 5 minutes a question. I'd rather start with something that made me feel like I was accomplishing more. Anyway, that's my thoughts on test order.

I need to get back to studying. Good luck to all my fellow law students, especially my fellow first years! Here's hoping we see each other on the other side!