Sample Law School Essay . . .

Facts
OK, where do we start? Student A is having an exam in property. To prepare for the exam he turns to another law student. A 2L. Student says to 2L, "Hey, I've got this exam in property, you had Mather (the professor), do you have anything that might help?" In turn, that person had 16 sample multiple choice problems. Apparently, this 2L had gone to see Mather to look over the exam from last year. That's perfectly "legal." The student then hand copied the questions verbatim. This is not "legal."

The student (not the 2L) realizing she had a great study tool gave them to one friend, that friend gave them to another friend and so on and so forth till a number of students (not sure how many) had a copy of the exam. Long story short, these students has an unfair advantage during the exam even though they themselves had not done anything wrong.

One student who had gotten a hold of this exam went to Mather after the property exam and told her that she/he had studied from a sample exam with the same questions which were on the actual exam.

Taking a Test
Here at school, the way we're taught to attack legal problems is with a method commonly known as IRAC. Issue, rule, analysis, conclusion.

Issue
Students attain a copy of exam we are about to take. They attain it in a way that may or may not have been a violation of the honor code.

Rule (This part is not so simple. Very analogous to the law).
Generally, when a student is taking an exam, they may use whatever resources may be available which many times includes 2L's and 3L's.

If a student realizes when they are taking the exam that the study aid they have attained from another student may have been acquired in a way in violation of the honor code, they should tell their professor.

A student, upon realizing that the exam he or she is taking is the EXACT same test they acquired from a 2L, the student should tell their professor.

Exam is not graded and thrown out.

Analysis
The 2L should not have copied the questions from her previous exam. If the 1L student who attained those questions from the 2L knew they were taken from a previous exam which was unreleased to the class as a whole, that student should have turned them down or immediately spoken to Mather. If the student did not know, they were free to circulate the sample exam as they wished. Any student who received the exam under some sort of suspicion also should have spoken to Mather.

Once a student who had used the sample questions to study realized the answers were the same, they should have immediately gone to Mather (who was proctering the exam) to let her know that the questions on the exam had all ready been circulated among students. No student approached professor Mather during the exam. Someone did however approach her after the exam. I really applaud this person.

Professor Mather, once realizing that the test had been compromised, has several options each of which is not completely fair. First, she may decide to score the exam. This is unfair to the students who didn't have the sample questions in two ways. One group had the answer to the multiple choice portion of the exam and that group in essence had a longer amount of time to work on the essay. This option is probably not best.

Professor Mather may score the exam for those who did not have the sample questions. She may then give those who did have the exam another exam. This is unfair and not wise on a number of levels. First, there is no way to completely know who did and did not have the exam. This would lead to some students who may have had the exam "fly under the radar"so to speak and score very well on the test. Second, the second exam may not be as "fair" as the first exam and subject those who studied with the sample questions, who in reality did not do anything wrong, to be graded on a different scale then those who did not have the exam. This is not the best option.

Professor Mather may choose to not score the exam. This option is unfair to everyone in the class and is what should in fact be done. The students who did not have the sample questions basically wasted their time. Those students denied themselves of sleep and ignored their other classes for nothing. The students who used the sample question studied just as hard, denied themselves of sleep and didn't study for other classes and are also denied their hard work because they had sample questions which they didn't know they weren't allowed to have.

Conclusion
Professor Mather did in fact throw out the test. This isn't a hypothetical. It's what happened over the last three days. In reality, it's Professor Mather's fault for being too lazy to write a new exam but there are good arguments for recycling exam questions.

Have you heard of Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? This was lose/lose.