We had a note taking/how to study effectively lecture 3 weeks before exams started, i.e after the first semester of teaching was pretty much completely finished. It was so stupid. We had a welcome lecture at the start of term that was a massive waste of time, so they could have cancelled that and put the note taking lecture in that slot instead.
By saying you should get there at 1 to have any chance of handing it in, do you mean you have a 3 hour queue of people trying to hand things in? That seems so absurd to me! We just submit things online for the time stamp and then put the paper copy in a box for that course. I've never seen a hand in queue before.