Papers in Law School really need to change. Atleast, our evaluation pattern can be slightly better than it already is. Maybe this is a systemic problem prevalent across places in this country. Eitherway, it’s something that annoys me. I fully recognize that you’re reading several exam-related posts. This is what my last two weeks has been – so you can skip past a couple more of posts if you’re uninterested.
Too many of our questions expect us to have memorized too many trivial things about the Law. As a subject and profession that essentially relies upon the application of a static, definite thing (subject to change, of course), to dynamic, changing facts (essentially, situation dependent), it’s slightly sad that we need to spend most of our time during examinations answering theoretical questions about what was held maybe in one particular case. What makes me a little more sad than normal is that these theoretical questions don’t just need to be answered with the theory. That won’t fetch you the marks. They need to be answered in the exact manner and method that have been taught to you. This is saddening because it means you can’t apply your brain to what you’ve studied in the way you want to – and you’re not really assessed on how you’re using your brain, which is what I believe the purpose of an examination is.
That aside, while testing the application of the Law we’ve studied to a factual situation, more often than not, Professors end up copy-pasting the facts of one particular caselaw. And we end up writing down all the cases that have come before that Caselaw and then describing that caselaw itself – and it’s still sometimes deemed to be inefficient.
This isn’t actually application – because we’re already taught the case in class.
And I’m glad we all score well, I know that’s important. But we don’t really learn anything in the exam. Which I think is tragic.
Tejas Rao 