The lack of consistency in law school grading is one of the top reasons law school is so stressful. The law student whose grades correlate perfectly with the time spent and his or her understanding of the class simply hasn’t been delighted or screwed by a grade they feel they didn’t deserve. Unless you are a machine who can study every class to perfection or you are actively trying to fail, it’s going to happen.
This is neither a good nor a bad thing. It’s simply the reality of choosing a method of education where one test, typically three to four hours long, is the sole basis for your grade.
But it can be something of an issue if that causes you to embrace some magical thinking. Take Leo, now convinced that she does better when she is focuses less on class:
There is a really fucked up relationship between the amount of effort you put into school and the grades you get. The less I try, the less I care and the more distracted I am, the better my grades are.
Now, I’m sure intellectually, every law student knows that’s not the case. Whether good grades come to pass or not, the odds are better if you spend more time on the material.
But take a moment and ask yourself if part of you believes that. Is there a little voice in your head suggesting that it would be advantageous to not spend so much time on a subject? Or more likely, is there a little voice that says it’s just not worth it?
For most students I think this is part of a mind trick that law students play on themselves. If I tried really, really hard on an exam, knew the material inside and out, and was a superstar in class, a B+ might seem like a pretty big injustice. Conversely, if I phoned a course in and struggled mightily on the exam, a B might seem like winning the lottery.
I’m sure Leo and other law students can point to transcripts and GPAs that show they actually do better when they cannot devote the time and focus to school they would like. I’ve even come up with a theory about why this happens. But if you had the two courses I mentioned above, which one are you going to be happier about: the lucky B or the unlucky B+?
Keep in mind the extent to which your expectations dictate how you feel about a course. That’s why I came up with the way I did to postmortem an exam. My expectations were just about how I was going to perform on the exam. After I came up with an opinion about that, the grade just was what it was. As best you can, try not to let your expectations dictate how you feel about your exam performance. A little fatalism combined with some introspection goes a long way in law school.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m a firm believer in positive thinking combined with a diligent work ethic. It won’t always get you to where you want to be, but if you remove either of those from the equation, you’ll almost never net there.
If you do both, then let the results play out however they will.
If you looked at my grades for the last two years, you see exactly that trend. The one’s I never read for I got high marks in, the one’s I took a major interest in and thought I would want to have a practice in, were terrible effects to my gpa.