A theory of sorts

Blawgin' asks a question that I've been thinking about a lot lately:

I think February is harder. It's not as straightforward. Does it make a difference that it's mostly repeaters when it comes to grading, do you think?

I don't think there's any question that today's exam was significantly more difficult than the first day last July. After failing, I couldn't shake the feeling that the July bar was probably the most strait forward exam I would ever see. The cross-overs were virtually non-existent, and the fact patterns weren't as bad as they could have been. I think today's exam confirmed this impression. It was not strait forward (except for crim law - unless I'm missing something) and if today is any indication, I would imagine that we haven't seen the last of the cross-over's.

I think that in some ways a more difficult exam is to our advantage. Yeah, it sucked pretty bad, but judging from the chatter around me, I don't think anyone felt particularly good about any of it. In contrast, last summer the general consensus seemed to be more of relief than a general sense of horror. I didn't feel particularly good coming out of the summer exam, but many people did. In the end I think that the more difficult the exam, the greater margin of error there is for us. If you couldn't remember the rules for shareholder agreements, keep in mind that most people couldn't either, whereas everyone more or less had negligence down so missing a minor issue in July could have been fatal. In other words, a more difficult exam gives us more latitude relative to our fellow test takers.

Anyway, I have no idea if this is actually true, just a couple of thoughts, I'm pretty beat so pardon the typos and run on sentences.