Preparing for Exams

• Author: Ramsey All/Daniel Batista/Koker Christensen/Ian Cooper
• Pages: 73-98

PREPARING

for

Exams

HINK

back

to the

basketball analogy

in the

last

chapter.

We

saw

how our

characters

go

about

developing

their

overall

basketball

skills. Suppose

now

that

it is a

couple

of

weeks

before

tryouts.

How do you

think each

of our

three characters pre-

pares?

Who do you

think

has the

most

fun

getting ready

for the

"bas-

ketball

exam"? Who, moreover,

has the

best chance

of

doing well

at

the

tryout

and

making

the

team?

Billie,

not

surprisingly, changes nothing

in the

face

of the

impend-

ing

tryout, except

of

course

to do

more

of the

same thing

he has

done

all

along. Instead

of

100

laps

around

the

court

and 200 free

throws,

he

does

200

laps

and

shoots

400

free

throws. Instead

of

eight

sets

of

calf

raises,

he

does sixteen

sets.

Make

no

mistake:

all

this

will

leave

Billie

in an

enviable state

of

physical

fitness.

His

body

fat

will

be 5

percent,

and his

heart rate

at

rest

can be

expected

to be in the

mid-5os. Billie

may be

ready

to run a

marathon,

but

unfortunately

it's

a

basketball tryout

he

will

be

confronted with.

No

doubt

he has a

42-inch

vertical

and can

shoot

free

throws

with

90

percent

accuracy,

but

everything changes

in a

game situation. Shooting

free

throws

in

an

empty

gym is not at all

like putting

up a

12-foot

jumper

with

someone's

hand

in

your

face

and

under

the

watchful

scrutiny

of a

critical

coach. Moreover, Billie

is ill

equipped

to

adapt

to the ebb and

flow of the

game

itself,

to

deal with

its

situational dynamics. Indeed,

73

three

T

THE

ABCs

OF LAW

SCHOOL

every situation that

arises

on the

court

is

bound

to

seem entirely

new

and

unfamiliar

to

him.

Charlie also approaches

the

upcoming tryout true

to

form. Seeing

Billie

step

up the

intensity

of his own

workouts,

Charlie

decides

he

had

better give

the gym

another shot. Unfortunately,

the

experience

reminds

him of why he

gave

up

going

to the gym

months ago.

He

spends

one day

lifting

weights

but

awakens

the

next morning

stiff

and

sore.

Rather

than continue

to

submit

to the

agony,

he

reassures

himself that strength

and flexibility

won't

make much

difference

come tryout day.

In

fact,

he has

heard from

a

veteran member

of the

team that

on

tryout

day

it's

all a

question

of

whether

or not you get

lucky

and

make your shots.

So

Charlie

fritters

his

time away playing

video

games

and

sleeping late.

The

night before

the big

tryout,

in a

fit of

anxiety, Charlie realizes that

he is

woefully unprepared.

He

stays

up

late

into

the

night

trying

to

make

up for

lost

time

by

doing

pushups

and

calf raises

and

shooting

free

throws until

he

gets thrown

out of the

gym. Fearing that this still isn't enough,

Charlie

watches

the

last half

of the

Lakers-Clippers game

on TV.

Just before going

to

bed

that night

he

realizes that

he may

need high-tops

and

calls

up

Bobbie

to see if he can

borrow

a

pair.

After

a

couple

of

hours

of

fitful

sleep

he

wakes

in

time

(or so he

thinks)

to

make

a

failed

attempt

at

braiding

his

hair into

cornrows.

Breakfast

gets

cut

short

because

he has to

swing

by

Bobbie's place

to

pick

up the

high-tops.

Unfortunately,

this takes more time than

he

anticipated,

and he

shows

up at the

tryout just late enough

for the

coach

to

make

a

mental

note

of his

tardiness.

On top of his

lateness, general fatigue

from

lack

of

sleep,

a

skipped

breakfast,

and the

stiffness

and

soreness

from

the

hardest

workout

since

the

night

before last year's tryout

leave

Charlie with little prospect

of

making

the

team. Luckily,

the

inevitable

disappointment

will

not

last

long:

by

tomorrow

Charlie

will already have convinced himself that basketball

is a

ridiculous

pursuit that

he

never really cared about anyway.

Unlike

her two

counterparts, Andie understands that

success

on

tryout

day

will

not

strictly depend

on her

level

of

fitness,

but

also

on

her

ability

to

scrimmage.

As we

mentioned

in the

last

chapter, this

includes,

among other things,

her

ability

to see the

overall develop-

ment

of the

play,

her

awareness

of

which

plays

will

work

in

different

situations,

and in

general

her

"understanding"

of the

game.

She

con-

tinues

to

develop

all

these skills

by

playing basketball

with

a

group

of

74