Happy Holidays from Susie Law School
No animals or polar ice caps were hurt in te making of this game but it's great fun! Only managed a score of 312m so far... sure I can do better!
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
Mock examining
Next week we have mock exams. Three of them to be exact - one for each compulsory subject.
The consensus in law school is that most people are anticipating abject failure. Apparently the average mark last year was an impressive 30%. Considering the mark required to pass the final exams is 50% I felt this fosters a great deal of confidence in the fact that since most people passed their final exams, there is enough time to do all the revision well between now and the end of February. As a result many of my peers are planning to carry out minimal revision and prepare to perform the happy dance if they succeed in obtaining over 30% in the mock exams (seeing as that would be deemed 'above average').
However, the situation has created within me considerable cognitive dissonance.
In one corner is the Logical Susie. She accepts there really is not enough time for the kind of decent revision between now and next week that would be required for say a 60-70% outcome. Therefore she has decided the best course of action is to instead focus on detailed consolidation and do what she can in the mocks, and not worry if the result is less than encouraging. It is all about experiencing what the exams will be constructed and suchlike.
In the other corner, however, is Competitive Susie. She is thinking that really it would not do to fail the mocks. This is despite the fact that they are entirely insignificant and most people improve greatly from their mock result when they sit the final exam. She is wanting to do all she can to maximise the points she can score, and see exactly how well she COULD do, to provide confidence for the impending final exam revision and at least a small smidgeon of self-satisfaction.
Currently Logical Susie is winning. She has convinced me to sit down and carry out very diligent consolidation activities which, although taking longer than superficial cramming, is providing me with a much better in-depth understanding of the topics and which should put me in good stead come exam-time.
However, notwithstanding this victorious outcome, I fear it is highly unlikely that Logical Susie will be able to convince Competitive Susie not to be too disappointed when she averages 29% in the mock exams...
The consensus in law school is that most people are anticipating abject failure. Apparently the average mark last year was an impressive 30%. Considering the mark required to pass the final exams is 50% I felt this fosters a great deal of confidence in the fact that since most people passed their final exams, there is enough time to do all the revision well between now and the end of February. As a result many of my peers are planning to carry out minimal revision and prepare to perform the happy dance if they succeed in obtaining over 30% in the mock exams (seeing as that would be deemed 'above average').
However, the situation has created within me considerable cognitive dissonance.
In one corner is the Logical Susie. She accepts there really is not enough time for the kind of decent revision between now and next week that would be required for say a 60-70% outcome. Therefore she has decided the best course of action is to instead focus on detailed consolidation and do what she can in the mocks, and not worry if the result is less than encouraging. It is all about experiencing what the exams will be constructed and suchlike.
In the other corner, however, is Competitive Susie. She is thinking that really it would not do to fail the mocks. This is despite the fact that they are entirely insignificant and most people improve greatly from their mock result when they sit the final exam. She is wanting to do all she can to maximise the points she can score, and see exactly how well she COULD do, to provide confidence for the impending final exam revision and at least a small smidgeon of self-satisfaction.
Currently Logical Susie is winning. She has convinced me to sit down and carry out very diligent consolidation activities which, although taking longer than superficial cramming, is providing me with a much better in-depth understanding of the topics and which should put me in good stead come exam-time.
However, notwithstanding this victorious outcome, I fear it is highly unlikely that Logical Susie will be able to convince Competitive Susie not to be too disappointed when she averages 29% in the mock exams...
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Invaluable LPC advice
Last year I reported my puzzlement with outlining.
In academic study this was never appealing to me in any other sense than revision notes. I still maintain it is just revision notes but I can see the as due to the different teaching styles across the pond where revision only becomes similar at a later stage in education when big nasty finals start to rear their ugly head.
In comparison to academic study the LPC is a whole different beast altogether. Gone are the days when you would have a lecture on a topic one week and then a seminar on the same topic the week after. Now everything is all over the place, information strewn across the curriculum left right and centre.
So, I have started outlining.
Ok when I say outlining I really mean that instead of making revision notes by hand I am doing them on my trusty PC. The significant benefit of this being that I can write down all the information from my lectures and seminars, combine pieces of law from enough pieces of paper to annihilate all the forests in Sweden, and then work out what is linked together and move it all around. Obviously with handwritten notes once you've written it down, the whole thing becomes much more confusing if you realised something else was relevant and you didn't put it in!
Potentially, dear readers, you may feel this is one of my less enticing topics. However, there is a point to it. The point is - consolidate. When they say this all the time on the LPC they are not kidding. The contents are bitty, you get lots of pieces of information and it is up to you to make sense of it.
So, boys and girls, do not leave it all until the last minute. No time like the present. You will thank me later.
In academic study this was never appealing to me in any other sense than revision notes. I still maintain it is just revision notes but I can see the as due to the different teaching styles across the pond where revision only becomes similar at a later stage in education when big nasty finals start to rear their ugly head.
In comparison to academic study the LPC is a whole different beast altogether. Gone are the days when you would have a lecture on a topic one week and then a seminar on the same topic the week after. Now everything is all over the place, information strewn across the curriculum left right and centre.
So, I have started outlining.
Ok when I say outlining I really mean that instead of making revision notes by hand I am doing them on my trusty PC. The significant benefit of this being that I can write down all the information from my lectures and seminars, combine pieces of law from enough pieces of paper to annihilate all the forests in Sweden, and then work out what is linked together and move it all around. Obviously with handwritten notes once you've written it down, the whole thing becomes much more confusing if you realised something else was relevant and you didn't put it in!
Potentially, dear readers, you may feel this is one of my less enticing topics. However, there is a point to it. The point is - consolidate. When they say this all the time on the LPC they are not kidding. The contents are bitty, you get lots of pieces of information and it is up to you to make sense of it.
So, boys and girls, do not leave it all until the last minute. No time like the present. You will thank me later.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Interviewing and failing...
My interviewing and advising exam is in the near future*. I am concerned.
Let me give you a short explanation. You go into a room with a client. You have twenty minutes. They tell you their problem. You ask them questions about the bits they have missed out and you need to know. Then you give them some advice, a few options and advantages and disadvantages of each.
In usual LPC style the assessment is highly artificial. You have to say certain things in certain order in a certain way. You have to summarise what the client has said at particular times of the interview. There are about 6-7 points you can ask them questions on. Some of these are crucial - i.e. if you don't get that information, you will fail. This makes sense, as it is information that will change your advice. Others are less important.
As a great surprise to myself I was competent in my mock assessment. This was despite only asking two questions, and forgetting to set out my advantages and disadvantages of my options in the required way. In other words I told the client what they were but I didn't say stuff like "the advantages of Option 1 are..." etc.
I don't normally suffer from nerves. In my previous job I spent hours and hours talking to clients. Daily. A situation where they asked me something and I had to totally wing it is not unknown.
So why is it that this twenty-minute jumping-through-hoops exercise is so difficult to contend with? Bah!
*excessive detail could out me, so try to cope without knowing exactly when it is.
Let me give you a short explanation. You go into a room with a client. You have twenty minutes. They tell you their problem. You ask them questions about the bits they have missed out and you need to know. Then you give them some advice, a few options and advantages and disadvantages of each.
In usual LPC style the assessment is highly artificial. You have to say certain things in certain order in a certain way. You have to summarise what the client has said at particular times of the interview. There are about 6-7 points you can ask them questions on. Some of these are crucial - i.e. if you don't get that information, you will fail. This makes sense, as it is information that will change your advice. Others are less important.
As a great surprise to myself I was competent in my mock assessment. This was despite only asking two questions, and forgetting to set out my advantages and disadvantages of my options in the required way. In other words I told the client what they were but I didn't say stuff like "the advantages of Option 1 are..." etc.
I don't normally suffer from nerves. In my previous job I spent hours and hours talking to clients. Daily. A situation where they asked me something and I had to totally wing it is not unknown.
So why is it that this twenty-minute jumping-through-hoops exercise is so difficult to contend with? Bah!
*excessive detail could out me, so try to cope without knowing exactly when it is.
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