Wednesday, January 28, 1998
Law students perturbed as some had advantage on test
LAW SCHOOL Few knew about earlier exam left at LuValle copy
center
By Emi Kojima
Daily Bruin Contributor
The UCLA Law School is busy trying to compensate students for a
final from hell.
Last semester, 93 first-year law students took a 3-and-1/4 hour
criminal law final, only to learn that some of their peers had
access to a prior exam on which the 1997 exam was based. They were
angered at their perceived disadvantage and asked for some form of
compensation.
Herbert Morris, professor emeritus who taught criminal law, was
unaware that his 1996 exam was on file at the copy center at
LuValle Commons.
First-year law students are a nervous, competitive lot, in a
field where grades can easily affect one’s internship and
employment opportunities. And they have not responded well.
"The time pressure of the exam was alleviated for people who
found out about the test," said Annette Kazmerski, a first-year law
student in the class. "They could come up with better issues."
The exam had three parts. The first two parts were similar to
those on the old exam, but they had been modified. The last part
was exactly the same as one part of the 1996 exam.
"It was an unhappy situation," Morris said. "I felt sad … I
had a very good experience teaching this class and I didn’t want
anything to undermine the (students’) experience," he said.
The Law School administration has tried to compensate the
students.
"We have to make sure that the remedy is fair, and make sure
that the students are being treated fairly," said Liz Cheadle,
Assistant Dean of Students. "People are quite anxious about their
performance."
The strict curve the Law School adheres to was loosened to
alleviate distress. Normally the professor must give A’s to 20
percent of a class, B’s to 60 percent, and C’s to 20 percent.
Instead, this criminal law class ended up with 85 percent A’s and
B’s.
"The grades given in the end took into account the possible
unfair advantage some students may have had," Morris said.
"The modification to the curve may have helped students at a
disadvantage more than if this (incident) hadn’t happened," he
said.
Kazmerski, however, does not think that the loosening of the
curve is sufficient.
"Relaxing the curve didn’t help my position," Kazmerski said.
"It was a hard test. I had no shot at the A, even under the best
circumstances."
Walter Brown, also a first-year law school student who took the
exam, agreed.
"Loosening of the curve is inadequate, because we don’t know who
had the exam," Brown said.
Both Cheadle and Morris said that not everyone will be happy
with the remedy.
"How do you un-ring a bell?" Cheadle asked.
The student-faculty committee is discussing additional remedies.
They might let students choose to have a "pass" appear on their
transcripts instead of a letter grade. But some students don’t like
this option because they say a "pass" looks bad on a
transcript.
"My grade was a B-," Kazmerski said. "A ‘pass’ basically stands
for a C or below. This is not a grade I feel I earned. I think that
the grade shouldn’t figure into my GPA."
The Law School administration decided against giving a retake of
the test because of the time involved – the students would have to
study, and all the tests would have to be regraded.
Morris, who has taught at UCLA since 1950, has reused an old
test once before. He said he reused elements of the 1996 test
because "it was a remarkably good exam" that addressed a range of
issues.
"Even if a student had access to it beforehand, it was such a
complicated exam that it still would be hard to organize their
thoughts," Morris said.
Cheadle agreed that if a weak student had a copy of the 1996
exam, access may have hurt him because "two questions had
significant differences."
Although Morris found no differences between the performance of
this year’s class and other classes that he has taught, some
students said that having the exam would have helped them
significantly in their preparation.
"I put the most effort into the criminal law class (rather) than
my other classes," Kazmerski said. "Students with the test had a
knowledge of the fact pattern of the test."
Brown said the best way to prepare for a final is to study with
old exams.
He worried more about the psychological effects of the exam than
the resulting grades.
"The grades might demoralize students who might think that they
are the grade and internalize it," he said.
The grade from this class comprises one-third of the semester
grades, which is "one grade out of 3 years and will not damage
future careers," Cheadle said.
Morris scheduled a review session after the final exam. Five
students showed up at the session and were more interested in
talking about the content of the questions than the fact that some
students had a copy of the previous exam, said Morris.
Although several students talked to Cheadle about the incident,
they never mentioned it to Morris.
"The remarkable thing is that I haven’t had one single student
come to my office to talk about it," he said. "If there is a
significant amount of chagrin about access to the test, I haven’t
heard about it."