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What's the difference between a pass and a fail in law exam?

OK this is probably a silly question but I want to know what exactly is the difference between a pass and a fail in a law exam. After my first contract exam yesterday I was 100% sure I'd get a 2.2 at least but now I'm paranoid :s-smilie: I could correctly identify the main issues in every question but couldn't remember all the legal rules and ran out of time in the middle of my last answer.

To put this in a perspective, about 30-40 people out of 300 fail contract every year. How likely is it that I am going to be one of them?? Has anyone failed an exam they thought they would pass?
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cliffg
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Original post by Ratach
OK this is probably a silly question but I want to know what exactly is the difference between a pass and a fail in a law exam. After my first contract exam yesterday I was 100% sure I'd get a 2.2 at least but now I'm paranoid :s-smilie: I could correctly identify the main issues in every question but couldn't remember all the legal rules and ran out of time in the middle of my last answer.

To put this in a perspective, about 30-40 people out of 300 fail contract every year. How likely is it that I am going to be one of them?? Has anyone failed an exam they thought they would pass?


That Contract exam is finished and past. There is nothing you can do now which will alter the result. Forget about it. Put it behind you. The paranoia you describe can be very dangerous if you have more exams to sit. It will eat away at your confidence. Do not go back over exams in your mind or discuss them with others after the event. If you really must then concentrate on what you did know, not on what you didn't know. Accentuate the positive. Likewise, when doing your next exam concentrate on what you do know and get that right. Too many students waste valuable exam time worrying about the things they can't remember than writing well and clearly about what they can. If you realise that you are running out of time then use the last 5 minutes or so to write quick bullet points of the remainder of the answer. You will pick up a few extra marks for those. In the middle of an exam period keep looking forward with confidence, not backwards with fear and loathing. It's all too easy to talk yourself out of giving a good performance next time around.
The difference between a fat pay cheque or a life on benefits.

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Original post by cliffg
That Contract exam is finished and past. There is nothing you can do now which will alter the result. Forget about it. Put it behind you. The paranoia you describe can be very dangerous if you have more exams to sit. It will eat away at your confidence. Do not go back over exams in your mind or discuss them with others after the event. If you really must then concentrate on what you did know, not on what you didn't know. Accentuate the positive. Likewise, when doing your next exam concentrate on what you do know and get that right. Too many students waste valuable exam time worrying about the things they can't remember than writing well and clearly about what they can. If you realise that you are running out of time then use the last 5 minutes or so to write quick bullet points of the remainder of the answer. You will pick up a few extra marks for those. In the middle of an exam period keep looking forward with confidence, not backwards with fear and loathing. It's all too easy to talk yourself out of giving a good performance next time around.


What you say makes sense - it is pointless to fret over something I can no longer control. And yes I did use bullet points towards the end of my last answer as a "I'd have written this if I had more time" measure.
Original post by uberteknik
The difference between a fat pay cheque or a life on benefits.

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I would, on the contrary, like to see a rather well-adjusted lawyer in a law-firm holding a 3rd class law degree than the many robots who perform well in LLBs exams but have zero common sense. Life is not all about having materials and good grades shouldn't equal good life for some but not others. According to some American professors of law, to hold the view that passing law exams, even the extremely complicated United States Bar Exam, equates to academic ability, is a pseudo intellect. Passing a law exam does not necessarily pertain to academic ability, it merely represents that a person can learn what is required to pass the examination and regurgitate it back. Some people quite simply are better than others in demonstrating a competence standard (academic ability) in timed LLB examination performances. This is of course a rather elitist approach and tends to reflect the elitist model (not necessarily those persons being elites) views to retain and preserve 'the establishment' in the legal profession. It is more about the ability to pay than ability per se. Unfortunately, in moderns times lawyers are just robots and regrettably will pay a person how well you performed on your LLB exams. It is the exams which really determine whether it is 2.2/ 2.1 or 1st Class. This is the nature of the game! In reality, according to modern US law journal commentators, course work assignments (problem questions/ essays etc) are really the tools which teach a person to think, and be like, a lawyer. It is said that UK qualified lawyers disparage other non-qualified lawyers/ law students just as US judges berate the lawyers in his court. A US company even studied the performances of US lawyers with the highest and lowest degrees, predictably, over these three decades the highest degree recipients were no more competent at their jobs except for some equivalent 1st class equivalent alumni.

Congratulate yourself even if you scrape a pass on an LLB law exam. Be a lateral thinker to the many robots universities produce and you will be successful, as a lateral thinker is far better for the client than a robot who just conveys the law, but does not necessarily argue, what is or should be the law.
(edited 8 years ago)

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