Exams; grades

Grades are a hot topic on everyone's mind these days. Just about everyone has gotten their full set of grades by now. There's rampant speculation going on, naturally, on the order of whispered questions in the hallways like "what do you think X got in Y?" as X walks by unaware. The speculation is fun, but when you actually find out, it's even juicier. No way! He got an A in torts? He's never struck me as particularly bright...or Wow, a Hamilton Scholar got a B-? Just goes to show you...

etc.

Of course, you can't do this but with your closest of friends, because grades otherwise are taboo. That is, unless you're one of the lucky few with multiple A's, in which case grades are not a taboo topic in any situation, around anyone, lest you miss a chance to drop a not-so-subtle "Yea, I did pretty well..." just so everyone knows.

I didn't really have a set strategy going into law school exams, and I think that hurt me. Someone once told me that grades on law school exams correlate roughly to how much you write--the more you write, the better your grade will be. This also appears to be the general consensus on law school discussion boards. As a result, I basically carpet-bombed my exams with words, words, words. Fuck answering the question, man, I'll just toss some more words in there. Erie problem? There's no Erie problem, I'll just throw some more words at it.

I imagine the result was a huge, incomprehensible jumble of typo-ridden sentences and questionable legal analysis. Consequently, my grades were nothing to write home about. Somebody should have reminded me that correlation does not indicate causation.