Welcome to LearnLawBetter where today we aregoing talk about the number 1 mistake students make on their exams.
That mistake is called a brain dump, and occurswhen a student regurgitates as much knowledge as they can on to the exam.
Today I will tell you why professors hateit and why it is hurting your grade.
Hi there, this is Beau Baez and today I amgoing to help you understand why you should never, ever, ever, write down every rule statementthat you know on an exam.
In college, most professors reward studentexam answers that have lots of information.
That is because college professors onlytest students on knowledge retention.
Law school essay exams do require that youknow the law, but that is the starting point.
Most of the points on a law school essay exam are allocated to applying the rules to the facts.
So here is what law professors think whenthey see a brain dump.
We start asking ourselves, does this student reallyunderstand the issue or is the student trying to throw everything they know into the answerbecause they are confused.
For example: on a business associations examthe facts clearly state that Mat is an employee.
Some students will provide lengthy rule statementsdealing with the level of control necessary to create vicarious liability.
But that is all unnecessary as the facts providethat Mat is an employee.
So I am left wondering if the student knowsthe rule or not.
When there is uncertainty, guess what, thatanswer gets a lower grade.
It is possible that the student knew the rule,but because they discussed all these non-issues, employing the brain dump, they got a lower grade.
Another problem with the brain dump is thatyou might provide different rules that appear to conflict with each other.
This will also cost you points, because again, a professor, when there's confusion, that lowers your grade.
A third problem is that by hiding the realrule with a number of superfluous rules, the professor might miss it completely or notappreciate how you want the correct rule to be applied to the fact pattern.
Keep in mind that law school is primarilya professional school, which means you are being prepared to be a lawyer, not an academic.
When you bring your case before a judge, ordiscuss your case with a partner, that judge or partner only wants to hear about the law that isrelevant to the case—not everything you know about the law.
Judges, partners, AND professors are busypeople, so only provide the rules you need to answer the question.
Finally, since all exams have some kind oftime limit, you are wasting precious time discussing rules that, at best, will be ignored,and at worst, will cost you points.
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