Oxbridge Law graduates with first class degree?

Scroll to see replies

i heard somesone said he can write 22-27 pages' of answers in 3 hrs?

My God! Is this done by leaving a line blank after each written line? Seriously! I did a dry run a few days ago with a past year exam paper. I managed 5.5 pages (no blank line in between) in 1.5 hrs only. Oh dear...

This was me

22 pages is about 8 minutes per page, I don't think its an enormous amount and didn't write much less for GCSE/A-level essay exams. Basically I'm writing quite fast nearly the whole time (a few mins at start of each q to plan and draw a spider diagram or whatever) and would expect my hand to feel very tired at the end of the paper. My writing is quite big but I don't leave a space after each line.

You do need to know your stuff to achieve this.... if you only write 4 pages in an hour that is not very much unless your writing is really very small

Reply 41

eve_22

I wrote approximately 15-18 pages for each 3-hour long, 4-question paper in my exams. I found that to be enough although I didn't manage to say everything that I wanted to say...

Reply 42

Tsaza

Original post by euphoric11

How many pages do normal, good students usually write? Because of time limit, I'd like to know when you should stop & start on the next question

Why don't you just test it. I timed myself how much i could write max in 3hrs. And then broke that down by 4, which is the number of questions i;m going to have and worked out that i will have time to write about 700words per question, which is about 4/5 pages of A4. I have small handwriting. So i know once i've reached about that much, even if i haven't said everyone i want to say, i know it's time to move on.

You might be slower/faster. Don't judge it by what other people can do.

(edited 13 years ago)

Impressive!

Original post by euphoric11

How many pages do normal, good students usually write? Because of time limit, I'd like to know when you should stop & start on the next question

I used to get in about 4 sides per question, i.e. 16 pages over all for a four-question paper. My handwriting is fairly medium. For some questions I'd have more, if it was something where I had everything absolutely at my fingertips.

But I used to do stopping and starting not on the amount I had written but on time elapsed, divided between the questions. I would allow myself a little slack at the beginning of the exam because I reckon that taking a couple of minutes at the beginning to choose questions to answer pays dividends later - often I'd find when I reached the third and fourth questions that some ideas had started brewing while I was writing the first and second answers. Also I would always plan my answer before starting, or at least jot down ideas that had come to me (otherwise I'd have a great idea and then forget it when I was halfway down). I don't think you can make up more than about 5 minutes on the second half, though.

It's quality not quantity that matters - you don't want to shove in a load of irrelevant stuff just because you can write about it - make every paragraph relevant to answering the question.

Reply 45

apcycles

All right.

Just did a 2nd dry run. I have improved slightly from 5.5 pages to 6 pages this time (over 1.5 hrs). I think my problem is my speed in writing with the pen. It gets shaky and uncomfy in the beginning and the end (when my hands are tired), but it was pretty smooth in the middle.

I still got a week to do further dry runs. I hope to bunmp it up to 7 pages eventually. :smile:

Just curious, for those who replied with their number of pages written, are you all Oxbridge students? I am asking as i am not. I am from a humble university. :rolleyes:

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 46

Tsaza

Original post by apcycles

All right.

Just did a 2nd dry run. I have improved slightly from 5.5 pages to 6 pages this time (over 1.5 yrs). I think my problem is my speed in writing with the pen. It gets shaky and uncomfy in the beginning and the end (when my hands are tired), but it was pretty smooth in the middle.

I still got a week to do further dry runs. I hope to bunmp it up to 7 pages eventually. :smile:

Just curious, for those who replied with their number of pages written, are you all Oxbridge students? I am asking as i am not. I am from a humble university. :rolleyes:

finger exercises! or do some massage before you start to get the blood flowing! I always find its easier to write when my hands are warmer.

Reply 47

jjarvis

Original post by apcycles

Just curious, for those who replied with their number of pages written, are you all Oxbridge students? I am asking as i am not. I am from a humble university. :rolleyes:

My first degree was not. I'm at Cambridge now, but in first year, so have yet to write any exams here.

Reply 48

oliver2011

Hey , can anyone give me good recommendations for books for tort law , public law and contract law ? I am a first year law student , thanks

Reply 49

eve_22

Original post by oliver2011

Hey , can anyone give me good recommendations for books for tort law , public law and contract law ? I am a first year law student , thanks

Tort Law:I found Markesinis very useful, if somewhat too detailed at times. There are a few casebooks to choose from but nothing particularly great.

Contract Law: McKendrick's Palgrave series book for a very good and thorough introduction, followed by Burrow's casebook and McKendrick's Text, Cases and Materials for a more detailed insight into the theory etc.

Reply 50

jjarvis

Original post by eve_22

Interesting--I didn't like McKendrick much. Burrows's casebook is great, and I really like O'Sullivan and Hilliard and Anson.

As far as Tort, I really liked Street (not a big fan of Markesinis), and Winfield and Jolowicz is a classic.

Reply 51

angelin

This is such a great thread!!

How many pages would you consider "normal" to write for an essay?

Reply 52

Forum User

Original post by angelin

This is such a great thread!!

How many pages would you consider "normal" to write for an essay?

It's an old thread, some of the people who posted in it aren't here much any more.

That said, I think talk of 'pages per hour' is rather fruitless, as it depends so much on how large you write. Surely a better measure would be words/hr (or words/essay, words/problem question). I think somewhere around 900-1100 words for a one hour essay question sounds about right. That's somewhere between 15-18 words per minute over the hour. Of course you can write faster if you're just copying notes, but you need to factor in time to read the question and think about what you're going to write next. So I doubt that many people can sustain over 20 wpm in an exam.

Problem questions will be rather less words, but might fill an equal amount of space as they tend to be more fragmented if you take each legal issue in turn and then start a new paragraph.

Reply 53

Sesshomaru24U

Original post by Forum User

For essay questions how exactly do you go about structuring it? Like PEE? Then where do I include room for my evaluation and analysis? This is something that's been troubling me recently.

As for problem solving questions, I've been told it's as simple as just applying the law and cases to the situation. Considering certain situations depending on specific situations occurring - due to lack of detail from the extract your given.

I also read through tis thread which highlighted raising legal controversy in order to get the higher mark? Could you give an example of an effective one? I can think of some but they are pretty frivolous.