Official OCR A2 Criminal Law 2016 Thread

Lmao! Why are you so bitter?

I am not being bitter. What I will not tolerate is people who talk big but have no substance. Take a look at this thread. I typed out criminal law exam questions, word for word. All I got was two blokes where one chose to identify offences in the various questions and another telling us how he cannot understand CIE students being able to cram everything in for the CIE law exams.

Till now, no one has even bothered to answer the questions. That says a lot doesn't it? Why don't you give it a try? Go on then. Don't disappear. I'm waiting.

Merely stating a question provides no evidence as to the amount of detail one should go into in order to answer it fully to the standard required by CIE. Making a claim that A2 CIE law is "similar to undergraduate standards" is unacceptable since you are only given 45 minutes to answer a question with so many different offences, possibilities for defences etc. that going into a reasonable amount of detail would take you several hours to do it. All your questions show, given that you would be required to do one in 45 mins, is that you would be expected to cover those offences incredibly superficially. It is easier to memorise basics of many offences, than it is going in depth into one, so cut your BS as to the "undergraduate level standards".

Woah. Did you not see the justification?!

A TRAINEE SOLICITOR marked her answers! So did a REAL LIFE KCL graduate.

It just doesn't get any better than that does it

Next argument would be that Jesus marked their answers as well.

She's at a German school, so we know which historical figure would be best placed to mark her answers... :fuhrer:

I am not being bitter. What I will not tolerate is people who talk big but have no substance. Take a look at this thread. I typed out criminal law exam questions, word for word. All I got was two blokes where one chose to identify offences in the various questions and another telling us how he cannot understand CIE students being able to cram everything in for the CIE law exams.

Till now, no one has even bothered to answer the questions. That says a lot doesn't it? Why don't you give it a try? Go on then. Don't disappear. I'm waiting.

Merely stating a question provides no evidence as to the amount of detail one should go into in order to answer it fully to the standard required by CIE. Making a claim that A2 CIE law is "similar to undergraduate standards" is unacceptable since you are only given 45 minutes to answer a question with so many different offences, possibilities for defences etc. that going into a reasonable amount of detail would take you several hours to do it. All your questions show, given that you would be required to do one in 45 mins, is that you would be expected to cover those offences incredibly superficially. It is easier to memorise basics of many offences, than it is going in depth into one, so cut your BS as to the "undergraduate level standards".

Woah. Did you not see the justification?!
A TRAINEE SOLICITOR marked her answers! So did a REAL LIFE KCL graduate.
It just doesn't get any better than that does it

I would love to see the conversation between them. Like, "Hey, trainee solicitor who graduated from LSE, could you mark 4 essays for some odd reason since you must have loaaaads of free time being lawyer and don't mind spending it marking some papers to satisfy my superiority complex and arrogance?"
Next argument would be that Jesus marked their answers as well.

She's at a German school, so we know which historical figure would be best placed to mark her answers... :fuhrer:

Why do you want me to answer the questions so much? You can wait all you want, you seem to have a lot of time on your hands.

All of you need to understand one thing. This is a forum. A forum is where there is an exchange of ideas. You will learn new things everyday such as systems in different countries etc. Some of it will be painful to digest as can be seen from this thread. You need to have an open mind. Only then can you progress as a human being.

I am a candidate with the Cambridge International Exam (CIE) board. Am I pleased about it? No! Because the failing rate is very high. I sincerely wish OCR, WJEC and AQA were offered in my country but it's not. These exam boards are way easier to score high grades in. Instead I have to make do with CIE. Do I have a choice? No! Am I being arrogant about being with a tough exam board? No!



You and the other two appear to have issues with comprehending large chunks of data so I shall break it down into smaller pieces for you to chew so you won't choke on these nuggets of info. Afterall, isn't it an open secret? We all know about the failures of the NHS 111 hotline.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/26/nhs-111-helpline-broken-says-mother-of-william-mead-sepsis
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/melissa-mead-baby-william-s-fate-was-sealed-after-report-reveals-there-were-16-missed-chances-to-a6834131.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-111-doctors-fell-asleep-on-hotline-service-that-failed-baby-william-mead-a6874481.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11898118/NHS-111-helpline-crisis-Just-one-nurse-to-serve-more-than-2-million-people.html

Depending on which British university you go to for law, the better ones require students toCambridge International Exams follows the same format. Only difference is we answer 2 out of 5 questions in 90 mins therefore we spend 45 mins per question.

As far as CIE law exam paper goes, you do not get marks for covering the basics. It's stated very clearly in the examiner booklet. You have to cover all the offences in its entirety. For example, somewhere along the chronology of events in the question, it doesn't shed light on whether the defendant was an automaton or suffering from a disease of the mind. Clearly the examiner wants me to explore both pathways. So I will and I must cover them.

With regular practice, I am now able to cover loads in 35 mins flat with 10 mins to spare.



You need to understand something and understand this fast. We Germans are very helpful to one another. Also perhaps I may have given you the impression that LSE or KCL are high and mighty unis. That is incorrect. In my previous posts on other threads, I have made it very clear that I am not interested in rankings and reputations of universities. What I am looking for is the standard of teaching quality. Also I must be able to understand the lecturer's accent.

My parents will be paying a lot of money for me to study at a British university. I do not have the luxury that you have, of taking up student loans and then totally disappearing later on while leaving it to the government to write off those loans. This is why my two concerns as highlighted in the previous paragraph are pretty straightforward and are of paramount importance to me.



Every student in my country that goes to another country to study is tracked by the High Commission. From there they will inform us via email and facebook of career talks, seminars, exhibitions, study & work fairs, talks by alumni from the various British universities etc. Perhaps your High Commission doesn't have such an infrastructure in place which is why you're so ignorant that my country has one. How then is that any fault of mine? Take it up with your High Commission. Don't throw a fit at me or worse, belittle me as to whether my country really has such a system in place.

Anyways, it is during one of those alumni talks that I got to know the the trainee lawyer. She was very helpful in educating us on so many negative and one or two positives about the UK, how there are so many universities in the UK but only a handful of them are worth studying at and loads more. She is part of a team of other helpful volunteers which gives loads of help to not only students who're doing law at either A-level or at university but those who're in other fields as well.



I will need to correct you. It's not just any German school. It's the German International School. Fees are £8,000 per annum exclusive of books, uniform and exam fees (£1,700 for AS + A2 papers in 4 subjects). Unlike you and those like you, in my country, we cannot be like Oliver Twist and go to the state with the begging bowl in hand to beg for money. It doesn't work that way. My government doesn't give out money to us so that we can go to the licence store, splurge it on alcohol and cigarettes or try our hand at the Lotto, EuroMillions, Thunderball lottery draw. We also can't borrow from banks and then conveniently choose not to pay by disappearing later on. We pay upfront with real cash.



It's a given. 3 of you are on easier boards which are nowhere as intellectually stimulating as compared to the CIE board. I will take it that none of you possess the intellect to answer the questions I have so kindly provided to you. The least you could have done was to attempt to do the questions. On hindsight, I would have even accepted an outline answer of sorts.

I shall ask you three once again. Will any of you attempt these questions that appeared in past year papers of the Cambridge International A-level law exam? A simple yes or no will suffice.

You 3 may be on different exam board but surely the content is similar? Are you then saying that OCR and WJEC do not really go in-depth into the syllabus which is why you shiver at the sight of the CIE law exam questions?? I do not need any of you heroes identifying the offences. As I've said before, any imbecile that pays attention in class but hasn't done any form of studying right up to a week before the start of the law exam, will be able to identify possible offences in exam questions. The questions are :

(1) Ali’s mother was dying from a cancerous brain tumour. Caring for her and watching her dying in this way caused Ali to suffer from severe stress and depression. Unable to watch her suffering any longer, he decides to put her out of her misery by poisoning the cup of cocoa that she drinks before going to sleep. Ali slips some surgical spirit into her cocoa, believing that this is poisonous, although it is, in fact, harmless. His mother drinksthe cocoa, but dies during that night of a brain hemorrhage caused by her tumour. Discuss Ali’s liability, if any, for his mother’s death.

2) ‘The common law doctrine of joint enterprise liability is not fit for purpose. Despite the best efforts of the judges to clarify the law, statutory reform is required.’ Discuss.

3) Billal, a drug addict, asks Labilah, his wife, to inject him with heroin. She protests but, knowing he will do it himself if she refuses, complies with his request. A few minutes later Billal falls unconscious. Labilah feels his pulse, which is faint. She panics and runs out of the house. Although she knows Billal is very ill, she fails to call the emergency services, fearful that she will be held responsible for his condition. After two hours, she calls an ambulance. It takes a further hour for it to arrive because the ambulance workers decided to finish a game of cards. When they eventually arrive, they find Billal dead. If Billal had received medical attention within an hour of his collapse, his death would have been prevented.Discuss.

4) Chokri, who suffered from a delusion that he was God’s cousin, had been told by the spirit that lived in his washing machine that the devil was looking for him. He was very frightened by this. When Chokri saw his neighbour Pakiza’s cat staring at him, he became convinced that it was the devil. Although he knew it was wrong to harm animals, he killed the cat. He then set fire to his garden shed in case any other devils were lurking in there.The spirit which had followed him outside, told him he must now go into Pakiza’s house and meditate. Chokri found an open window and entered Pakiza’s house. Thinking Pakiza would not mind, he helped himself to a glass of milk and a biscuit, said hello to the spirit that lived in the biscuit tin and began to meditate.

While he was meditating, it occurred to him that Pakiza had rather a lot of ornaments in her house and he thought she would be happier without them. He put them all in a suitcase he found in a cupboard so that he could give them to the local charity shop. As he was about to leave the house. He saw one that he had missed and picked it up to put it in the suitcase. Just then, Pakiza arrived home. Thinking that she would try to stop him, he hit her with the ornament and ran out of the house. Chokri’s other neighbour, Jamil, had a narrow escape when the fire from Chokri's garden shed spread to Jamil’s shed in which Jamil was working. Although Jamil managed to escape unhurt, the shed was destroyed. Advise Chokri.

That's a lot of writing, I now looked at different exam boards for law, including OCR, WJEC, AQA and CIE. Never thought that the level of difficulty could vary so much, but we OCR students don't have it easy either, as if you look at our crim law papers are very similar to ones of CIE. You are simply given a question and you are expected to write an answer, but with AQA they list all the offences and what they want you to discuss, therefore making it easier. Yet, you can't compare an a-level to the university level whatever difficulty it seems at the moment, this is totally different.
Btw, what are the best universities for understandability of lecturer's accent and quality of teaching, in your opinion? I am genuinely curious, it's quite refreshing seeing a person not obsessed with prestige on tsr.

On several occasions in the past, I've been told through private message that many of them agree with my views and that my contributions are very much appreciated. For example, you only need to take a look at my posts on the migrant issue.

I'm German and a long time lurker on this forum. Many, many, many people on this forum got banned for merely questioning the policy decision made by my Chancellor to allow all these migrants into my country
1) without checking if they are holding genuine passports
2) without checking if they have links to terrorist groups
3) without checking if they have criminal records in their home countries
4) without checking if they have HIV/AIDS

Now these migrants have turned Europe upside down. I hope all of you reading my post, bears this in mind. A country's sovereignty, security and safety of its citizens is so so important. With Merkel's blunder, we have become a carbon copy of UK & the rest of EU and their set of problems.

But back to the agenda at hand. I study in an international school. Most of my classmates are not interested in studying. Many of them are from rich families. Their parents will get them jobs in their family business or in some company of one of their associates. To add to the misery, my teachers are not exactly very good as well. Most of them are foreigners who left their countries because they know their countries of origin are beyond hope.

So the best thing to do is to take the easy way out by becoming a teacher, travel abroad, get paid a decent wage, be given a slew of benefits and then do some work i.e. teach (which most of the time they can't even do a good job of and they're just useless at it I rather learn the topics on my own which I have done and continue to do so. I'm learning Joint Enterprise on my own right now). Also many of my teachers can't speak good English, let alone teach properly.

That is why I came to this forum so that I can learn from others and also share what I know with others. Take this thread for example. Till now, none of you have made any genuine attempt to answer any of the criminal law questions from past year Cambridge International Exam A-level papers that I had to type out word for word since it has not been made available electronically.

The academic rigour of CIE law papers are similar to what is required of a student at university. I have compared the CIE law model answer to that of the so called 'top' universities' model answers. They are scarily similar. I wanted at least one of you to attempt the questions so that I can post the model answer afterwards. Why should I post the answers straightaway? That would defeat the entire purpose. Yes?

I was and still am disappointed with you because you belittled and ridiculed us CIE students for the simple reason that you cannot believe that we are required to actually write out everything in the actual exam. I have all the model answers and structures. So I know what I am talking about.

Anyways since none of you are interested in attempting any of the 4 law questions from the Cambridge International Board, I will drop this matter here and now.

On your question about reputation and prestige, well I've had to serve the hard cold truth to many of the people on this forum.

Just so you know, the quality of lecturers and level of teaching quality in the London unis are actually bad. If you think you are going to get good lecturers that will keep you in awe with their knowledge, you are wrong. If you think that the teaching quality is anything to shout about, you're also wrong. In fact, it doesn't matter which uni you go to nowadays because you have to do about 90% of independent study.

Of course Oxbridge and Durham are exempt from this because they operate under a collegiate system. What this means is that each college on average has about 8 students so there's a lot more room for the lecturer/supervisor to focus on the students and help with their questions and these students will obviously fare better than say students from unis where the cohort is like some 300+ students for law.

Watch this from 9:55 to 13:31 to understand my point.
[video="youtube;o122GkaVuhU"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o122GkaVuhU[/video]

Birbeck is a wonderful uni headed by quality lecturers who breathe and live the English Common law. They're great at constitutional and administrative law and also jurisprudence. To me, they're better than Kings and LSE in this area. I may be German but I have tremendous respect for the British Common law system. When I decided to apply to study in UK, I told myself that, unlike many other EU and International students, I should put my ego and pride aside and immerse myself with the pristine british legal system. Sunderland is known for its corporate law component.

Thanks to my friends, I have listened to all the video recordings of law lectures from Kings, UCL, LSE, Queen Mary and SOAS. Kings was by far the best in terms of accent, lecture delivery, lecturer's ability to engage with the students from time to time, timely breaks and much more.

I don't have any friends in Durham. So i can't say unless i watch or listen to the video recordings of the lectures. but i think Durham tries to be like oxbridge with its collegiate system. Anyways the problem with this forum is that when it comes to law everyone is hung up about rankings and reputation but no one talks about the low level of teaching quality where
1) the number of foreign law lecturers who have difficulty speaking English
2) the number of foreign law lecturers who have difficulty expressing themselves in English
3) the number of foreign law lecturers who are biased in their views when teaching European Union law. You know why?

If UK pulls out of the EU, all these foreign law lecturers teaching in UK unis now will have to return back to their home countries and apply for work permits to work in UK as lecturers. That is not all. They will have to compete with better spoken, knowledgeable and smarter lecturers from the Commonwealth who breath and live the English Common law.

People on this forum will have to learn the difficult way but by then it will be too late because you'll be stuck in the uni where the lecturers are hopeless and you will be wondering how to score those crucial marks for exams.

The hiring process at UK unis is just one of the many scandals waiting to hit the ceiling fan in time to come. you see, if the recruiting officer for a particular University is from Country X, he will only shortlist Candidates from Country X and therefore the person to fill up the vacant teaching position will eventually be from Country X. it's a very biased recruiting process.

I've never trusted the opinions of the members on this forum because many of them are college students who are naive, bound to listen to people who give them false info and as a result, these college students perpetuate these false info and after sometime, they believe it to be true. Cue the recent migrant fiasco. Many of these college kids said on this forum that it was right to let all this migrants in. When the wrongdoings of these migrants were reported in the news, these college kids disappeared.

Many of the college kids here have no idea what they're talking about. They pass sweeping statements without even having had a listen to the audio recordings of the lectures delivered by these so called 'top' unis. People should stop talking about rankings and reputation. Talk instead about the level of teaching quality. Many of the lecturers in the 'top' unis are from Europe, Africa and Asia where English is not their first subject.

So their accent will be a lot harder to understand. Lectures are perhaps once a week for 3 hours and most of the time people will be asleep cos they can't understand what the lecturer is saying. On the other hand, your tutors are PHD or Master in law candidates at the same uni. They will be crucial in helping you to answer your questions.

If you ask me this is the order of the london unis in terms of teaching quality for law. Kings > UCL >LSE > Queen Mary > SOAS. How i arrived at this was based on the videos of lectures that my friends in those unis had recorded and kindly sent to me.

Anyways returning to law unis, like i've mentioned before I don't give a damn about rankings and reputation of the uni. what I want to know is if
1) I can understand the lecturer's accent
2) Is the lecturer any good or is he/she just talking gibberish for 3 hours at a stretch?
3) Is the lecturer able to teach and lengthen my attention span with his/her lecture content?
4) Is the lecturer able to answer questions and not say 'oh, can I get back to you later on this as I will need to check the info/I have forgotten' but guess what? Later never comes!

International students from outside of Europe will definitely value my output when wanting to firm their 1st and 2nd uni choices. I'm certain they don't want to get into some uni based on rankings and reputation (as many on this forum only seem to be greatly interested in) only to find that they cannot make sense of what the lecturers are saying

How can these college kids then go on to say that LSE has better teaching overall when they haven't heard or seen the audio/video law lectures from UCL, Queen Mary, SOAS and Kings? I have and Kings lectures were by far the best because of the better spoken English, the depth in lecture content, the wonderful usage of the English language, the lecturers' ability to sustain my attention span and so much more.

I don't care what one or two other fellow european bum hurt students have to say regarding my point on lecturers with low English proficiency, low depth in lecture content, inability to use a wider vocabulary, inability to motivate my interest in the dry subjects such as constitutional and administrative law and so much more.

There are thousands of international students who apply to UK unis every year and many of them are on this forum. Most of them have double or triple A*s at A-levels or 40 to 45 points in the International Baccalaureate. They too like me, think on the same wavelength.

Unlike many of the college kids here, we are not interested in law rankings and reputation. We are more interested in the level of teaching quality.

They harp on uni rankings and reputation. I am more concerned with the level of teaching quality.

Fyi, I applied to Bath for politics with economics & law at York, Birbeck, Sussex and Sunderland. What about you?

That's a lot of writing, I now looked at different exam boards for law, including OCR, WJEC, AQA and CIE. Never thought that the level of difficulty could vary so much, but we OCR students don't have it easy either, as if you look at our crim law papers are very similar to ones of CIE. You are simply given a question and you are expected to write an answer, but with AQA they list all the offences and what they want you to discuss, therefore making it easier. Yet, you can't compare an a-level to the university level whatever difficulty it seems at the moment, this is totally different.
Btw, what are the best universities for understandability of lecturer's accent and quality of teaching, in your opinion? I am genuinely curious, it's quite refreshing seeing a person not obsessed with prestige on tsr.

It's a given. 3 of you are on easier boards which are nowhere as intellectually stimulating as compared to the CIE board. I will take it that none of you possess the intellect to answer the questions I have so kindly provided to you. The least you could have done was to attempt to do the questions. On hindsight, I would have even accepted an outline answer of sorts.

I shall ask you three once again. Will any of you attempt these questions that appeared in past year papers of the Cambridge International A-level law exam? A simple yes or no will suffice.

You 3 may be on different exam board but surely the content is similar? Are you then saying that OCR and WJEC do not really go in-depth into the syllabus which is why you shiver at the sight of the CIE law exam questions?? I do not need any of you heroes identifying the offences. As I've said before, any imbecile that pays attention in class but hasn't done any form of studying right up to a week before the start of the law exam, will be able to identify possible offences in exam questions. The questions are :

(1) Ali’s mother was dying from a cancerous brain tumour. Caring for her and watching her dying in this way caused Ali to suffer from severe stress and depression. Unable to watch her suffering any longer, he decides to put her out of her misery by poisoning the cup of cocoa that she drinks before going to sleep. Ali slips some surgical spirit into her cocoa, believing that this is poisonous, although it is, in fact, harmless. His mother drinksthe cocoa, but dies during that night of a brain hemorrhage caused by her tumour. Discuss Ali’s liability, if any, for his mother’s death.

2) ‘The common law doctrine of joint enterprise liability is not fit for purpose. Despite the best efforts of the judges to clarify the law, statutory reform is required.’ Discuss.

3) Billal, a drug addict, asks Labilah, his wife, to inject him with heroin. She protests but, knowing he will do it himself if she refuses, complies with his request. A few minutes later Billal falls unconscious. Labilah feels his pulse, which is faint. She panics and runs out of the house. Although she knows Billal is very ill, she fails to call the emergency services, fearful that she will be held responsible for his condition. After two hours, she calls an ambulance. It takes a further hour for it to arrive because the ambulance workers decided to finish a game of cards. When they eventually arrive, they find Billal dead. If Billal had received medical attention within an hour of his collapse, his death would have been prevented.Discuss.

4) Chokri, who suffered from a delusion that he was God’s cousin, had been told by the spirit that lived in his washing machine that the devil was looking for him. He was very frightened by this. When Chokri saw his neighbour Pakiza’s cat staring at him, he became convinced that it was the devil. Although he knew it was wrong to harm animals, he killed the cat. He then set fire to his garden shed in case any other devils were lurking in there.The spirit which had followed him outside, told him he must now go into Pakiza’s house and meditate. Chokri found an open window and entered Pakiza’s house. Thinking Pakiza would not mind, he helped himself to a glass of milk and a biscuit, said hello to the spirit that lived in the biscuit tin and began to meditate.

While he was meditating, it occurred to him that Pakiza had rather a lot of ornaments in her house and he thought she would be happier without them. He put them all in a suitcase he found in a cupboard so that he could give them to the local charity shop. As he was about to leave the house. He saw one that he had missed and picked it up to put it in the suitcase. Just then, Pakiza arrived home. Thinking that she would try to stop him, he hit her with the ornament and ran out of the house. Chokri’s other neighbour, Jamil, had a narrow escape when the fire from Chokri's garden shed spread to Jamil’s shed in which Jamil was working. Although Jamil managed to escape unhurt, the shed was destroyed. Advise Chokri.

Thanks for your input,based on just the amount of text you wrote this post deserves some rep. I have also noticed when visiting a university, not going to say which, that in fact quite a lot of lecturers were from outside the UK, or even EU. However, even though some did have painfully strong accents, I can't say that it is fair to say that all of them aren't particularly good at teaching. In fact, the lecturer I have had a very nice conversation with, who seemed to be really passionate about the job he is doing and he actually came from Poland. The accent wasn't too bad, since I got used to it having spoken to him for less than a minute.

I actually got offers from Warwick, Leeds, Liverpool, Exeter and Newcastle. As you can probably see I have based my decision while considering some elements of prestige. Only after visiting all of them I genuinely discovered how important the quality of teaching element is. I don't want to specify the uni, but one of them had such a tediously generic law course, that despite its 'prestige' I refused to even consider it. Firmed New and insured Liv. Btw I heard that Northumbria has an incredible course and on graduation you get LLB, Mlaw and either LPC or BPTC qualification (4 year course), but I have only found out about it after applying and getting offers.

could someone help me with the structure of a Section B question in terms of how much application you need etc. my law teacher is not helpful at all and i can't find anything online

What is this question on?

Currently doing Question 5 June 2009 but it isn't available on OCR website. The question is asking for any offences they'll be guilty of which are battery, s.47 ABH, s.20 GBH, s.18 GBH, and potential defences which are intoxication and self-defence