(1) You can be smart, go to class, know the cases well, and still do poorly on law school exams;
(2) to excel on your exams, you must not only study hard. You must also understand, practice, and master a set of lawyerly skills to apply what you know on the exams (and later in practice); and
(3) if at first you did not do your best, you can, nevertheless, do better. Many students who initially did not do well substantially improved their grades. They learned how to do better by painful "trial and error learning." From experience, you can learn these lawyering skills without suffering and disadvantage inherent in unguided trial and error learning.

The lawyerly skills you need to do well are not genetically acquired. Nor are they mysterious or exotic. These skills can be identified, understood, practiced, and perfected. Once internalized, these skills apply in each law exam you take, with some adjustments for individual courses and professors. Once internalized, these skills enable you to do your best on the exams.