What do I need to do to not be at the bottom of my class?

1L first exam tomorrow. What separates being in the bottom of your class to around the average? I only want to try my best and not be at the very bottom, those are my goals. So I am asking, does someone at the bottom of the curve not spot all issues and analyze wrong, while the person in the middle spotted all the issues but just didn’t analyze as well as those at the top? How bad do you need to do to be at the bottom of the curve?