Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Gunning Where It Matters

Last night was a fiasco. Not anything I did, per se, more what I did not do. Namely sleep. I probably got a solid 4 hours. I went to bed around 11, hoping to be in dreamland by 12. It turns out that was optimistic. I could not fall asleep no matter what I did. I read, watched tv, had a glass of wine, counted in my head, listened to music, etc. Nothing helped. I just lay there unpleasantly conscious. Covers on; covers off; covers half on; covers seven-eights off. Around 2:30 am I took a shower. My roommate must think I am a freak, but I think it helped so that sometime around 3:30 I drifted off. I woke up (with a wet pillow from my hair) on time this morning to take...my Criminal Procedure final. What a joy!

The final itself went alright. I felt pretty good about it, but so did everyone else. Our grades are distributed on a curve, so the better everyone else does, the harder it is for me to do well (see Will's common gripes about law school: grading curve). I tend to do better on more difficult finals, so I am a bit nervous about this one.
The other reason I am uneasy about this final is that two of the multiple choices questions should be disqualified. One of them had no correct choice as an answer (I am 99% certain, particularly after conferring with some classmates). The second question was not written in complete sentences. I believe the question was, "Which of the following is a true statement?:" The four answers were supposed to be about the Knock and Announce Rule, but only two of the answers actually referenced the rule. The other two answers simply contained incomplete sentences lacking a subject. In retrospect, the subject seems to be "the Knock and Announce Rule." But these incomplete sentences led to some semantic difficulties so that I did not even know what one of them was trying to say. Again, after conferring with classmates, I am not crazy, this actually happened. I want this question excluded (especially because I am not confident I picked the correct answer now that I fully understand what proposition each answer was trying to state).
I remembered the number of the first question (with no right answer), and after the exam I went to my professor's office to ask her to look for it in reviewing the tests. I stupidly forgot to mention the second question and had to later email her my request. Yeah, I felt like a gunner for doing that. But, hey, I am nervous about the test and this could really have an impact. This is real people. This is not a drill. So sometimes one must appear as a gunner. Luckily, I only did so to my professor rather than the rest of the class. And I guess to this blog. But no one on the internet is full of judgment, from my understanding.

No comments:

Post a Comment