Date: April 25th, 2005 12:32 AM Author: floppy pit becky
When grading timed take home exams do professors take into account the fact that most of the students taking the exam towards the end of the period have cheated (i.e. found out the topic ahead of time)?
Date: April 25th, 2005 2:54 AM Author: Supple Free-loading Principal's Office
at Tulane almost all our tests are closed book, 3 hours long and essays. That and legal writing is graded. I swear had I known that other schools had p/f legal writing and gave take homes and multiple choice finals I would never have gone to my TTT. It isnt fucking right that I have to suffer like this and still have piss poor job prospects. Plus, we are on a 3.0 curve while many/most schools are on a 3.2-3.3. We get shafted in every possible way.
Date: April 25th, 2005 8:53 AM Author: Lime National Boltzmann
if you think takehomes are easier than 3-hour exams, you're wrong. plus, it's irrelevant anyway b/c of the curve. and do you think lawyers can't figure out the differences in curves?
Date: April 25th, 2005 8:57 AM Author: Hateful Stimulating Rigpig Sanctuary
I do think that mixing up the formats on exams (take home, multiple choice, word limits, and so on) makes the end result a little bit more "fair", in the sense that different people may have different aptitudes for different sorts of exams.
Date: April 25th, 2005 12:11 PM Author: Lime National Boltzmann
that may be true. a school that required every single exam to be a 3-hour issue-spotter would clearly be a little skewed toward one type of test-taker (although arguably the most relevant type for success in the legal profession).
Really? So far I haven't encountered a lot of situations in the real world where a lawyer is told to analyze dozens of different issues in three hours, typing all the responses.
That said, I don't think any exam format can really meet the challenge of being highly relevant to legal practice. Our profession is about research and writing, not taking tests.
I second that. Actually, what would make it even more "fair" would be a mid-term and a final, each one worth 50% of the grade. Not that I'm actually _advocating_ this course of action, but it would be more fair insofar as you'd get some feedback that you could then use to correct your errors.
Well, sort of. Lawyers might get only one chance to submit a final brief or draft a final contract for execution. But up to that point, lawyers will typically go through many iterations, usually with a lot of feedback from other lawyers.
But as I note above, expecting any exam system to reflect real life is a bit much. But in terms just of reducing measurment error, it is always a good idea to have more than one exam.
Date: April 25th, 2005 8:41 AM Author: Hateful Stimulating Rigpig Sanctuary
At Chicago, you get eight hours. But you have a brief window in which you can pick up the exam (basically one hour), so even if you cheated like the OP suggested, you would only get a little extra thinking time.
If I understand correctly, that would indeed create an opportunity for cheating, and if I was running a law school I might not want to present such a temptation.
Date: April 25th, 2005 12:35 PM Author: Vigorous Knife Messiness
Not really. Our crim exam is available to be taken anytime from 4/22 to 5/5, and he could have just made it for the day on which we would have been scheduled to have the in-class.
And for all I know the incidence of this sort of cheating is very low, and not very dangerous anyway. In fact, my guess would be that the really dangerous form of cheating would be getting someone else to take the exam for you, and that can't be avoided with any sort of take home system.
Date: April 25th, 2005 12:38 PM Author: Vigorous Knife Messiness
Yeah, as (the 1L exams at least) are graded on a strict curve, you'd have to really like the person you were giving the exam to early to a) take the risk of getting caught, and b) giving them an edge.
Seems like married students would be the most likely culprits.
Date: April 25th, 2005 12:29 PM Author: demanding psychic
Take-home exams probably favor the people who have a deeper understanding, since in-class exams are rushed and usually contain more superficial analyses.
That's the theory, although obviously that depends on how the professor writes and grades the exam--I get the sense that some take-homes basically operate just like typical in-class exams, except with more time.
But at the very least, it should make typing speed less relevant.
Strictly speaking, "less relevant"--because I think being a faster typist could help even on take home exams by giving you more time for breaks, reflection, and revision.
Exactly. And even if there isn't a formal limit, with a well-designed take home exam you might actually run out of helpful things to say--something that rarely happens to slow typists during an inclass exam.
Date: April 25th, 2005 2:01 PM Author: bossy market trust fund
the real benefit comes from typing quickly in class. if you can get everything the prof says down you can more or less mold his/her comments to the question. take homes allow you to cut and paste exact wording from your notes. they don't want to hear what you have to say, they want to hear you saying what they think.