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...

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.

Back in action

So Reading Week passed with little reading taking place. I pursued some Business Accounts related work on Saturday - so much fun, lots of maths involved! :) However I soon realised where I had gone wrong during Reading Week.

Here's the thing. I did actually do a fair bit of work over the week. I did everything I had to do and a bit extra. Not everything I wanted to do, but enough. Yet I was left feeling a smidgeon guilty about my failure to work hard during the week 'off'.

This was clearly because I had decided to do lots of work, then didn't feel like it and spent some of the time I had set aside to work doing other stuff. Of course relaxation is crucial. And I did have various pre-scheduled social engagements taking place. However this was not the problem.
What I should have done was set aside a couple of days when I wasn't going to do any work and spend those days specifically not doing any work. Scheduled chilling-out time so to speak. Then some other days would have been work days and my studying would have been more concentrated. I probably still would have got the exact same amount of work done, but felt less bad about my time spent not doing work.

So clearly, it's all about how you spin it. And in the spirit of this newfound wisdom, I spent Sunday doing absolutely nothing.

Susie Law School v The Library

Staying at home didn't work out well on Monday. After typing up the first part of my research memo, I pretended to do research on the second part and spent most of the morning chatting to Mummy Law School and most of the afternoon talking to a boy. And then I went out for the evening.

I am in principle against studying at home, because home is for relaxing and I don't want to get it confused with work. The TV doesn't really distract me because I don't watch a lot of TV. The internet, however, does. And everything is fine as long as I don't have to do work on something online. Unfortunately my research had to be done online. You can see where it all went wrong...

Yesterday was better and I completed the research on the second part, decided it leave it in peace and think about it for a couple of days, and do some other work. But turns out stuff I needed was at school. So today I went to school. Only to find out that additional stuff I needed was at home! So I came home and have worked for a couple of hours.

Generally speaking, studying isn't going well at the moment but I have finally worked out the problem.

I don't like the library at this year's law school as much as the last one, or at University. Normally I have easily found a good spot to study, and stayed there like a happy little law student.

No such luck this year. The new library is dark and horrible, with stupid low ceilings. I like to be near a window but that doesn't seem to be an option unless I sit in one of those nasty little cubicle things, which just don't work for me. I need space. But you only get space in the middle where there is no natural light.

Ergo I blame the Law School for my lack of motivation and poor (current and hopefully temporary) work ethic! And will be staying home tomorrow. Sans turning on the computer.

Reading week

It's Reading Week. Or what is otherwise known as "week off doing any work and then having a panic at the end when you realise you should have been doing work"

Of course none of my regular readers will be the bit least surprised that I actually plan on studying a lot this week. Today I will mostly be attacking my Legal Research coursework. Obviously I want it to be good but it seems somewhat frustrating to complete a piece of work and work hard at it, only to be assessed as "competent" or "not yet competent". That basically means that a person who got 90% is as good as a person who only got 51%. This does not bode well for my competitive streak!

However, for one day only I am conducting an experiment and staying home, instead of hitting the library - this may be a mistake.

The pros are that I only just got up, and feel rested and refreshed, there is no transport involved (well I am going out this evening but that's a whole different issue), and I will save money on lunch. The major con is that I am a library bunny at heart, and working at home sometimes poses distraction problems.

Best get on with it, wish me luck!

A small post of self-appreciation

So as many of you know, I am a bit of a geek. I love studying and I love law school. I'm also a bit of an over-achiever and slightly competitive, and am aiming for a distinction (average of 70%+) and thus the following news will come as no surprise to some.

Yesterday I got back my first practice assessment and found out that I got 90%!!! thats NINE-OH!!! Thats like 10% off 100%!!! Most of the time even the distinction marks are somewhere between 70-80%. The teacher said it's the highest mark she has ever given any student answer. Wow.

Go me.

Off to the library to write the next one now!

The fun of essay writing

So tomorrow I have a practice assessment due. Basically it's a practice exam question you can do in your own time, hand it in and your tutor will put big red marks all the way across it and tell you how much you suck.

I handed one in before the Christmas break that I haven't got back yet (it would have been nice to as then I could have perhaps avoided some of the red pen on the basis of the previous answer). I am starting to get the impression though that the marking criteria is pretty tough, as two people I thought were pretty clever, managed only 37%.

Friday night I set about writing my answer, thinking it wasn't likely to take that long and it seemed pretty straightforward as a problem question, but I fell into a trap.

The trap of over-thinking. Instead of being sensible, I started trying to pick out bits where they're trying to trick you and where it would be easy to talk about one piece of law when the answer is actually something different. So it all went downhill from there.

I thought I knew the law. I know I understand the law. I thought the question looked easy.

But now I'm convinced it's not a very good answer. Boo hiss.

Watch this space for my grade!!

Back to school

So I'm back.

Home was lovely thank you very much, but a lot of time was spent eating, watching tv and generally vegging out. This may be an enjoyable activity but it certainly is not the most effective way to get any studying done, and thus is entirely unrelated to my mission to get a distinction.

Going back to school was an amusing experience. Clearly a somewhat significant number of students (read: the ones who don't bother to go to class normally) have decided as a New Year's Resolution to improve the attendance. Thus Monday morning was the first time since the first week that the lecture hall was actually busy! Also people usually quiet in tutorials have started to pipe out answers. Presumably because they have been really doing the work over the holidays.

It's a rather interesting phenomenon and I expect it to last about two weeks, max. I can next be witnessed around exam time when everyone freaks out.

Good thing I'm such a geek... ;)