Should I take the option of take-home exams for law school?
November 3, 2020 12:36 PM
Hey University Students! Some of my law classes this year offer a take-home exam option. I have never written a take-home exam and have been out of school for a decade... I've never even written an exam on a computer!
How do you approach a take-home versus classroom exams?
Any advice for take-home exams, especially in the context of high-pressure, post-graduate degrees?
I am a mature student attending law school. I graduated from my last degree ten years ago, so its been a minute, and I never wrote any take-home exams.
This year, several of my classes have the option of either a take-home (12 hours max, with a word limit) or in-class exam (3 hours). The in-class option is likely to be administered via some e-learning mechanism because of Covid restrictions.
I would like your thoughts about the benefits/drawbacks of choosing take-home exams. I don't have test anxiety or any issues with in-class tests. Just feel like I'd be better off with the extra time to proofread and organize my thoughts. But maybe I will just end up writing too much and my perfectionism is going to get in the way of completing the damn thing. What are your thoughts?
I am a mature student attending law school. I graduated from my last degree ten years ago, so its been a minute, and I never wrote any take-home exams.
This year, several of my classes have the option of either a take-home (12 hours max, with a word limit) or in-class exam (3 hours). The in-class option is likely to be administered via some e-learning mechanism because of Covid restrictions.
I would like your thoughts about the benefits/drawbacks of choosing take-home exams. I don't have test anxiety or any issues with in-class tests. Just feel like I'd be better off with the extra time to proofread and organize my thoughts. But maybe I will just end up writing too much and my perfectionism is going to get in the way of completing the damn thing. What are your thoughts?
i wrote time limited essay exams on a computer in law school (open book, access to all course material and notes, but no internet). you are being tested on your writing skills and ability to organize an argument and make sure all necessary elements are there. i remember being so, so stressed due to the 3 hour limit, even in classes I did well in. the extra hours at home would have been great.
i would definitely do the take home exam if i were you, and do nothing else that day but work on it.
make sure you have already done some practice exams from that professor's previous course iterations. i got these from the library and did a bunch of them especially for my first year classes. sometimes those practice tests reveal that the professor is teaching something totally unrelated to what he will test on. (thanks, property law guy, for four months of lectures about your personal interests! glad i stopped attending your lectures and studied off the practice exams and a $10 book i bought online or i would have gotten a D.)
also make sure your notes/references are typed so you can control+f for things
when you take the bar you will probably have to write the essay part on a computer, so it's good to get used to doing that now.
posted by zdravo at 1:11 PM on November 3, 2020
i would definitely do the take home exam if i were you, and do nothing else that day but work on it.
make sure you have already done some practice exams from that professor's previous course iterations. i got these from the library and did a bunch of them especially for my first year classes. sometimes those practice tests reveal that the professor is teaching something totally unrelated to what he will test on. (thanks, property law guy, for four months of lectures about your personal interests! glad i stopped attending your lectures and studied off the practice exams and a $10 book i bought online or i would have gotten a D.)
also make sure your notes/references are typed so you can control+f for things
when you take the bar you will probably have to write the essay part on a computer, so it's good to get used to doing that now.
posted by zdravo at 1:11 PM on November 3, 2020
It varies from person to person, but as a former late-30's 1L, I would never, ever, ever, blever take a 12-hour take-home. You will be competing with people who will slam 20 espressos (and maybe some adderal) and write for 10 straight hours, then revise for two, turning in law-review quality material.
A three hour exam is necessarily more general, and it's not possible to cover every detail, so you don't have to freak out the next day when you realize you didn't analyze topic XYZ. Also, it's done in 3 hours. The last bit is the most important part.
My law school let us do in-class exams with headphones, and that really helped me be able to concentrate in a crowded room. I prepared 4 beloved albums to help me keep track of time, had two beverages and several pieces of chocolate handy, and would completely zone out for three hours, it's amazing how quickly the time goes.
posted by skewed at 1:42 PM on November 3, 2020
A three hour exam is necessarily more general, and it's not possible to cover every detail, so you don't have to freak out the next day when you realize you didn't analyze topic XYZ. Also, it's done in 3 hours. The last bit is the most important part.
My law school let us do in-class exams with headphones, and that really helped me be able to concentrate in a crowded room. I prepared 4 beloved albums to help me keep track of time, had two beverages and several pieces of chocolate handy, and would completely zone out for three hours, it's amazing how quickly the time goes.
posted by skewed at 1:42 PM on November 3, 2020
Speaking as a math student, take-home exams are much harder. A great way to ruin a whole weekend. I'll take an in-class exam over a take-home exam any day.
posted by cross_impact at 1:44 PM on November 3, 2020
posted by cross_impact at 1:44 PM on November 3, 2020
Take-home exams were a regular part of my law school experience (graduated three years ago). Ours were always timed--most were eight-hour exams, and a couple were released a day or two before a due date/time. Will your take-home exams come with a time limit?
Exam questions were not noticeably different between classroom and take-home exams, but classroom exams were shorter (usually three hours). Professors expected higher-quality answers on take-home exams because we had more time to perfect our responses. Classroom exams were often written in shorthand and even in bullet points if running out of time--it was more about nailing the right issues and reasoning than about having perfect sentences or clever references.
Take-home exams weren't necessarily harder because of the expectation of higher quality. You had the luxury of looking through your notes, for example. Classroom exams were more like the written portion of the bar exam: you have to show what you know in a short span of time, which can be harder. With longer exams, you may have to edit yourself down to stick to the word limit, but you'll have the time to do that.
If you get extended time on the take-home option and keep amazing notes that you can easily reference to double-check your answers, the take-home may be better for you. In that case, I would recommend spending the first three hours as if it were a classroom exam, pacing yourself to get through the questions, and working to spot as many issues as you can. In the remaining time, I would massage those answers, maybe look at some notes, maybe rest a bit, then edit again. I got one of my highest grades in law school through an eight-hour take-home where I took a two-hour nap in the middle.
If you have trouble managing time, a classroom exam may be better for you. You sense the passage of time through the changes in people around you--when people around you cough, go to the bathroom, etc.--and that may help you stay on time with your writing.
posted by saltypup at 1:57 PM on November 3, 2020
Exam questions were not noticeably different between classroom and take-home exams, but classroom exams were shorter (usually three hours). Professors expected higher-quality answers on take-home exams because we had more time to perfect our responses. Classroom exams were often written in shorthand and even in bullet points if running out of time--it was more about nailing the right issues and reasoning than about having perfect sentences or clever references.
Take-home exams weren't necessarily harder because of the expectation of higher quality. You had the luxury of looking through your notes, for example. Classroom exams were more like the written portion of the bar exam: you have to show what you know in a short span of time, which can be harder. With longer exams, you may have to edit yourself down to stick to the word limit, but you'll have the time to do that.
If you get extended time on the take-home option and keep amazing notes that you can easily reference to double-check your answers, the take-home may be better for you. In that case, I would recommend spending the first three hours as if it were a classroom exam, pacing yourself to get through the questions, and working to spot as many issues as you can. In the remaining time, I would massage those answers, maybe look at some notes, maybe rest a bit, then edit again. I got one of my highest grades in law school through an eight-hour take-home where I took a two-hour nap in the middle.
If you have trouble managing time, a classroom exam may be better for you. You sense the passage of time through the changes in people around you--when people around you cough, go to the bathroom, etc.--and that may help you stay on time with your writing.
posted by saltypup at 1:57 PM on November 3, 2020
Is the word limit reasonable?
When I was in law school (recently, as a mature student, but in Canada), there were notoriously two types of take-home exams, the ones with reasonable word limits and the ones without reasonable word limits. The first group tended to be difficult, but perhaps less difficult than an in-class exam if you are not normally a super-fast thinker/writer. The second group tended to be a stressful hellscape where everyone felt they had to be exactly on and writing for every second they were allotted because missing even the tiniest, most remote angle on a long fact pattern was the kiss of death.
I have also, fwiw, written "in-class" exams at home through an e-learning mechanism, and those were pretty much like an in-class exam with a little bonus technology related stress. All (or most) of our actual in-class exams were open book and written on computer anyway, so the experience really wasn't all that different.
We used a horrible app called ExamSoft that was clunky and terrible, but which locked you out of everything else on your computer when we did "in-class" exams. Take home exams didn't have that requirement, so you could CTRL-F your notes, which was helpful.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:23 PM on November 3, 2020
When I was in law school (recently, as a mature student, but in Canada), there were notoriously two types of take-home exams, the ones with reasonable word limits and the ones without reasonable word limits. The first group tended to be difficult, but perhaps less difficult than an in-class exam if you are not normally a super-fast thinker/writer. The second group tended to be a stressful hellscape where everyone felt they had to be exactly on and writing for every second they were allotted because missing even the tiniest, most remote angle on a long fact pattern was the kiss of death.
I have also, fwiw, written "in-class" exams at home through an e-learning mechanism, and those were pretty much like an in-class exam with a little bonus technology related stress. All (or most) of our actual in-class exams were open book and written on computer anyway, so the experience really wasn't all that different.
We used a horrible app called ExamSoft that was clunky and terrible, but which locked you out of everything else on your computer when we did "in-class" exams. Take home exams didn't have that requirement, so you could CTRL-F your notes, which was helpful.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:23 PM on November 3, 2020
It varies from person to person, but as a former late-30's 1L, I would never, ever, ever, blever take a 12-hour take-home. You will be competing with people who will slam 20 espressos (and maybe some adderal) and write for 10 straight hours, then revise for two, turning in law-review quality material.
Hell, I was a mid-20s 1L and I could barely keep up.
OP, one of the main problems with take-home exams is that they rely on you having a home where you can work, continuously and without any other interruptions or responsibilities, for x number of hours. Some of your classmates will have that home, and will put in those hours; I didn't and couldn't, and that put me at an immediate disadvantage on the curve. Your circumstances may be different from mine, but I'd still find it hard to recommend a testing method that is so affected by external circumstances.
posted by ZaphodB at 2:37 PM on November 3, 2020
Hell, I was a mid-20s 1L and I could barely keep up.
OP, one of the main problems with take-home exams is that they rely on you having a home where you can work, continuously and without any other interruptions or responsibilities, for x number of hours. Some of your classmates will have that home, and will put in those hours; I didn't and couldn't, and that put me at an immediate disadvantage on the curve. Your circumstances may be different from mine, but I'd still find it hard to recommend a testing method that is so affected by external circumstances.
posted by ZaphodB at 2:37 PM on November 3, 2020
When I was a law student I preferred time-limited, in class exams because I knew I'd be working on it the entire time allowed either way. The worst is having a 12 hour take home exam and being done after 4 hours and then looking up extra stuff and editing and etc for the next 8 hours before turning it in. I also felt my advantages--being a better and more creative writer--became less effective when everyone had adequate time to edit (an important consideration since we were graded on a curve).
posted by lockestockbarrel at 3:58 PM on November 3, 2020
posted by lockestockbarrel at 3:58 PM on November 3, 2020
I absolutely loathed take-home exams in law school. Most were 24-hour take-homes, which meant, invariably, that you'd get very little sleep, which helped ruin you for all your other exams. Never had an option to do in-class over take-home, though.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 4:56 PM on November 3, 2020
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 4:56 PM on November 3, 2020
When I was a law student, I preferred take-home exams. They gave me more time to organize my thoughts and make sure I was more thorough in spotting all of the possible issues raised by the exam questions--something that's easier for me to miss, or give short shrift to under the time pressure of an in-class exam, where I"m trying to allocate the shorter amount of time between identifying the issues, outlining the analytical framework for each, and then writing out my answer. I had to do the exact same steps for the take-home, only now, I had more time to do a more thorough job, and never felt like I was shortchanging one of those three parts of th task to make time for the others. With the additional time, I could finish each task separately on a different page of notes, take a step back for a bit, have a snack, and go back to it.
It helped to live alone.
Given that this was many years ago, I had the advantage of not having to deal with intrusive or unreliable exam software, since I hand-wrote all of my exams. Including, I believe most of the take-homes that were actually timed exams (8 or 12 or 24 hours), and not papers.
Your mileage may vary, but I also wouldn't recommend spending, e.g., 12 or more hours on a 24 hour exam. My writing certainly isn't better at the end of a sleepless period, and at least the exams I recall were doable within a 5-8 hour period, if I worked continuously (I usually didn't.).
posted by pykrete jungle at 11:29 PM on November 3, 2020
It helped to live alone.
Given that this was many years ago, I had the advantage of not having to deal with intrusive or unreliable exam software, since I hand-wrote all of my exams. Including, I believe most of the take-homes that were actually timed exams (8 or 12 or 24 hours), and not papers.
Your mileage may vary, but I also wouldn't recommend spending, e.g., 12 or more hours on a 24 hour exam. My writing certainly isn't better at the end of a sleepless period, and at least the exams I recall were doable within a 5-8 hour period, if I worked continuously (I usually didn't.).
posted by pykrete jungle at 11:29 PM on November 3, 2020
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so it depends on the content of your class. For law school, if it's just "research & write a few essays in 12 hours", this seems less likely and I'd probably prefer the take-home test, assuming I could block out a full day to do nothing but work on it.
posted by vogon_poet at 12:47 PM on November 3, 2020