How Do I Earn an A in this Class?
Great question! I usually get a couple of students each semester asking how they can be sure to get an A.
Here is what I always tell them:
Since the weekly quizzes and exercises are about learning, I grade them rather lightly. A weekly quiz answer doesn’t have to be entirely correct to get credit for the question, and, though I mark things wrong on weekly exercises, generally every student who puts effort into an exercise receives over a 90%. That means that many, if not most, students get full credit for that 25% of the class. So, students shouldn’t assume they are headed for an A in the class because they did well on the exercises and quizzes. They should note that the final project is worth 50% of the final grade and the final quiz is worth 25%, and focus efforts there.
The class is graded on the normal law school curve, and this semester, there are 11 students in the class. As you have probably noticed, the subject matter in this class is not exceedingly difficult, so generally final grades are pretty good. Therefore, each semester there aren’t generally too many (if any) students earning Cs or Ds, which would lower the class average and allow more As. So, because of the curve, in a class of 11 students, only 5 or 6 students could get an A or A-.
As I said above, the subject matter of this class is not exceedingly difficult. Based on my observations over the years, the students who earn the higher grades are those who start earlier/work harder on the final quiz and final project. This is not really a class in which some sort of natural brilliance or exceptional memory is going to help that much. It is perhaps not surprising that most students who ask how to get an A usually end up getting an A, presumably just because they focused on it and put more effort into the final project and final quiz.
Your final research project is 50% of your final grade.
If you have any questions about the final research project, you can email me, drop by my office in the library, or set up an appointment to meet in person or on Zoom.
Students sometimes ask me how to make sure they get a good grade on the project, so here is my advice!
You will have 60 minutes (plus a 5 minute grace period) to complete the final quiz. It will be available in D2L.
The quiz is "open book" so you can consult any sources (other than your classmates or other people) you want during the quiz. However, like many open book tests, you should study in advance because you will probably not have time to consult many sources. It is not necessary to actually run any searches on Westlaw to answer the terms and connectors (advanced searching) questions, though you can if you wish. There is no Week 7 weekly quiz, but there will be a few questions on the final quiz from the Week 7 material.
The quiz has 33 questions which are worth 3 points apiece on a 100 point scale.
Many of the questions are open ended, such as, “What is administrative law?” (Not a real question.) Some of the questions from the weekly quizzes are on the final quiz. These questions might have been reworded, or converted to open ended questions, so make sure that you read the questions carefully.
Since the final quiz is worth 25% of your final grade and tests what you have learned about research during the class, the questions are harder and will be graded harder than your weekly quizzes which were very lightly graded. In order to get 3 points for a question, you must answer the whole question fully and correctly. There is no partial credit for questions.
The following are suggestions for how to prepare for the final quiz: