Section A: 10 marks

 

 

These questions are about revision technique. In a series of tweets, @garyslapper has been mentioning brief ‘tips for success’. For each issue, select ONE of the statements which best replicates one of these tweets.

 

 

1               The opening sentence in a paragraph is important.

 

A         ‘In writing essay answers, use paragraph openers showing the examiner how your material pertains to the question, versus notes recitation’.

 

B          ‘In writing essay answers, always repeat the question verbatim in the first sentence.’

 

C          ‘In writing essay answers, use a well-known phrase from #MadeinChelsea to illustrate your point’.

 

D          ‘In writing essay answers, I recommend “Yorkshire Tea”.’

 

(3 marks)

 

2               Good presentation is desirable.

 

A         ‘EXAM TIP: You don’t need to underline cases. But if you do, skip ruler. Like accents, handwriting style is irrelevant; criterion: understandable’.

 

B          ‘EXAM TIP: I recommend an Osmiroid calligraphy pen with a Gothic nib.’

 

C          ‘EXAM TIP: Spend about 90% of the time drawing a beautiful diagram. You can miss out some of the key parties in any problem case.’

 

D          ‘EXAM TIP: Limit yourself to 3 words per page, maximum.’

 

(7 marks)

 

 

 

(Total 10 marks for Section A)

 

 

Section B: 40 marks

 

These questions relate to blogposts on ‘Legal Aware’ during the year. You are only required to answer TWO questions.

 

Question 1

 

“Today’s Queen’s Speech has again shown that the Liberal Democrats are punching way above their weight – and we can be proud of that.” (Nick Clegg, 9 May 2012).

 

The Queen’s Speech 2012 contained a number of proposals for legislation, including criminal litigation, financial regulation, and defamation. Explain the background to these Bills, and evaluate critically the statement above.

 

Question 2

 

In an event called ‘Do lawyers need to be scholars?’ hosted at UCL last year, various academics and practitioners proposed different ideas. For example, @BexHuxBinns from the Centre for Legal Education emphasised the need for a “value-driven curriculum”, @RichardMoorhead emphasised that there was a close link between academics and practitioners in a number of areas, but @StephenMayson noted the “lighthouse in the desert syndrome”. @JohnAFlood had some general reservations.

 

To what extent can these views be reconciled?

 

Question 3

 

“There are really two types of people. Academic and non academic. Smart people and non smart people. And the consequence of that is that many brilliant people think they are not, because they’ve been judged against this particular view of the mind.”

 

(Sir Ken Robinson FRSA, quoted by @colmmu).

 

Discuss whether a divide between academics and non-academics is to be seen as too ideologically restrictive, in view of the emergence of ‘network theories’ of collaborative innovation, as discussed by @vidalandreas this year on the MBA course.

 

Question 4

 

Compare and contrast the innovative approaches by @Inksters and @legaltrainee in legal recruitment and the provision of legal services by their respective firms.