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(Last updated: 18 October 2007 )
Administrative information for the midterm quizzes
Administrative information for the final exam
Administrative information for the midterm quizzes. In order for you to get to the point where you can exercise the higher–order skills that are the point of the course, you must first have under your belt a significant amount of relatively technical but straightforward doctrinal material. Accordingly, as indicated in the registration materials and in the syllabus, there will be two in-class quizzes, which in combination are worth one-third of your final grade. These are scheduled for Wednesday, February 21 and Wednesday, April 11.
These quizzes will be open-book, in true/false format and machine-graded. (Laptop computers may not be used, however; any notes that you wish to use must be printed out in hard copy.) Its purpose is to test you and to give you feedback on your command of basic statutory provisions. Accordingly, I try to make the quiz questions straightforward; I do not ask about provisions that are ambiguous or that present close interpretative questions, and do not give credit for answers other than true or false.
In my experience, the quizzes are very effective in helping students to learn the basic material and to prepare for class; students regularly score well and the variance of the scores is substantially lower than on essay exams (so that in practice, they wind up counting somewhat less than one-third of the final grade for most students).
In order to make a true/false exam as fair and accurate as possible, it is necessary to re–use questions in successive semesters. This allows me to remove or reword ambiguous questions, as well as to check statistically to see whether the questions are a good predictor of students' overall grasp of the material. This method requires, however, that the quizzes be administered on a security basis, in order to prevent unauthorized circulation of the questions before or afterwards. Similarly, it will not be possible to circulate a set of official answers. Instead, I will post the numerical scores by exam ticket number, along with statistical information about the distribution of scores. While I expect this information will be adequate feedback for most students, I will be happy to schedule an individual conference for anyone who wishes a more detailed assessment of their performance.
As a guide to the format of the midterm and the kinds of questions that might be asked, you should look at the sample questions posted below.
Administrative information for the final exam. The final examination will be an proctored in-class exam, to be given on a date and time to be announced. For more details, see the official examination information published by Registration Services.
The exam will cover all the material in the course, including the statutory material covered on the quizzes. It will contain either two or three questions, more likely three. At least one question will be a conventional issue-spotter. You should also plan on being asked to interpret statutory text, as well as applying it. There may also be a question, or part of a question, that asks you to evaluate an actual or proposed rule of law in policy terms, or that asks you to advise parties planning a transaction.
Remember also that the midterm quizzes are worth one-third of your final grade, and that class participation (or lack thereof) also enters into grading on the margin.
Old exams with answers. Here are copies of previous years' exams, along with a feedback memo for each exam that sketches out my view of a good answer. The exams and memos are in HTML format, although in some cases the HTML code was produced using WordPerfect's translator and hence is formatted somewhat sketchily.Some of these exams are from courses that covered secured transactions alone, or payments alone. Obviously, you are not responsible for detailed material on secured transactions or payments that are not covered in the survey course. Conversely, you are responsible for material that we covered in this class but that were not covered on some of these past exams.
Sample quiz questions
Essay exams