Previous FE-1ers: any advice?

Snapper1

Hey folks,

I'm starting on my preparation for my first sitting of the FE1's in late September. I'm gonna do 5 (contract, crim, comp, tort and equity).

Just wondering could anyone out there who has been through the whole experience before offer any practical advice as to the best way to get through it?

I planning to cover a wide range of topics rather than a few in-depth. I figure given it's a 3 hour exam with a half-hour taken up by reading q's and planning answers, that only leaves a half-hour per each of the 5 questions required. Am I on the right track?

Anyway, I'm not looking for anything in particular, I'd just be interested to hear from anyone who managed to master the whole experience!
Thanks for reading,
S

dK1NG

Snapper1 wrote:

Just wondering could anyone out there who has been through the whole experience before offer any practical advice as to the best way to get through it?

Turn back now - they will eat your very soul!!!!!!:D

Seriously tho, ya gotta work like a horse the next few months, treat them more than a job in themselves. If you are working part-time etc, it will make the fe1s much more difficult.

You're on the right track with your timing as well - my first exam (company) taught me an awful lesson - I left myself with only an hour to answer the last three questions:eek: , but I duly learned and never made that mistake again. (thank christ my first two answers were great, cos my last three were totally illiterate! i dunno how they managed to correct them tbh)

On ebit of practical advice that I would say is to try geta smal group of say 3-5 people with whom you can discuss past exams, hints, problem areas etc etc - that worked a treat for me, and was a saviour!

Best of luck with them!

bsward

Try and get a copy of the griffith college notes and use them, good guide if nothing else. Its not a law exam really it's more of a write all you know about each subject exam rather than actual problem solving or giving advice. You have chosen area's with huge courses so get the head down, kiss goodbye to your social life for the next few months!

mountainyman

How about
Contract, Equity, Land
Tort, Constitutional?

MM

tombren

you're on the right track with the wide variety of topics rather than the in depth stuff, have a great overview of everything, you dont need very detailed info for the exam. also the most important thing is the exam timing, u must get 5 questions done, very hard but not impossible to get thru answering four, if u get five done u give yourself a great chance,
would slightly disagree with one of the other posters, its not an all you can write about a topic exam, you are asked specific things and they must be addressed, examiners reports are full of warnings against people just churning out whatever they learned rather than answering the specific question asked.
u dont give any info about whether you're a law grad or whether you've been going to griffith but you say that you're just starting your preparation now, dont wanna scare you but unless you've just finished a law degree or are attending griffith and at least doing homework i think you're leaving yourself abit short on time to do five, i've got one left - eu and im starting back studying next week. it's ten weeks to the exams and if you're just starting 5 subjects from scratch, well i think u can do the maths yourself,
as the other posters said, say goodbye to your social life and hello to an unbelievable amount of study, talking to other fe-1ers/getting a little study group is a great help, as is trawling thru past papers and examiners reports,
if you're working from griffith manuals and then doing your own notes, dont fall into the trap of just transcribing the manuals, everything in the manuals can be condensed.

Snapper1

Thanks for the replies. tombren, good luck with EU, it's one of the ones I dread so decided against it at this sitting

yeah i wondered about the 'churn out everything you know' aswell. surely advising the person in the problem and covering the different issues (a lot of the time the issues cover a multitude of topics) would be better.

With regards to the study, I did a one-year legal course in DIT (covering the FE1 subjects) which finished a few months ago so hopefully most of the info is still in my head.

I guess, like anything, hard work is the key. Inspiring eh?

Thanks again