[smarton]

I'm about to start studying law at university, but I have never studied it before so I wanted to know more about what it involves - specifically, what the exams are like. I've done English literature and History in sixth form. Will it be anything like that? I'm wondering if the exams are in essay format, or multiple choice, or something else. If it is essays, what are the questions usually like: 'To what extent...', 'Explain how...' or something totally different? I don't know much about law yet but I'd appreciate it if you had an example exam question you could give me so I can see what kind of thing I'm up for.

Thanks!

[roh]

(Original post by smarton)
I'm about to start studying law at university, but I have never studied it before so I wanted to know more about what it involves - specifically, what the exams are like. I've done English literature and History in sixth form. Will it be anything like that? I'm wondering if the exams are in essay format, or multiple choice, or something else. If it is essays, what are the questions usually like: 'To what extent...', 'Explain how...' or something totally different? I don't know much about law yet but I'd appreciate it if you had an example exam question you could give me so I can see what kind of thing I'm up for.

Thanks!

The exams are likely to be long and worth more than those of your friends in other subjects, this seems to be particularly true for the 7 Qualifying subjects which at my uni (and I think most others) come down to one big exam in the summer session.

You will get a mixture of the sort of essay qs you know from A Level, 'explain how', 'Prof. Z says '...', comment upon this' etc., and something called problem questions.

Problem Qs are a lot longer, they are basically a fake real life scenario in which there just happens to be a load of incidents which bring up current areas of law over which there is debate. Unlike essay questions you don't have to come up with your own structure, you simply work through it as it appears in the question.

Personally, I prefer essays as I find them easier to score highly on but most law students will do a mix of the 2 in exams.

Some subjects may be pure essay, Jurisprudence for example, but most do use both forms of question.

[G8D]

Exams are pretty much exclusively a memory exercise for the lower leveled subjects. Apparently it becomes more of a critical thing later on but I've yet to experience that for myself.

[thecrimsonidol]

Long.