FE1 Exam Thread (Read 1st post!) NOTICE: YOU MAY SWAP EXAM GRIDS

lawbear

Anyone know where I could get a sale of goods act? or anyone have one I could borrow/buy for weds?

Arcturus2112

sunshine and showers wrote: »

What do you guys reckon about EU? It's such a big course!

EU gives me bad vibes more than any other

Arcturus2112

lawbear wrote: »

Anyone know where I could get a sale of goods act? or anyone have one I could borrow/buy for weds?

I didn't use the act in my Contract exam and I was fine. There are just a few relevant sections if I recall correctly. In my opinion your time would nearly be better just memorising the key points of those sections and focusing on getting the topics covered. Chasing a copy of the Act could become time consuming and less productive, ultimately. But if someone knows of where you might get one, well and good. I don't know if you are a member of your local library but perhaps they might have one?

smeal

MissM89 wrote: »

Just out of interest - what did you think of the Constitutional paper?!

I thought it lacked a lot of the big topics that people, like myself, put a considerable amount of time into like due process for example. Then for the JR question I felt he really tried to catch us out but I had to attempt it anyways- just tried to throw as much about SOP in as possible!

The Church State relationship question was awful. I'm not one who put any major time into past papers but I assume a question like that doesn't come up too often?!

I couldn't decipher what that question on the Fishing order was about at all...

The unenumerated rights question was ok but I felt like my essay lacked structure and in the end I just word vomited everywhere!

Did the pre trial publicity question.. Maybe i'm wrong but I felt like there wasn't much to talk about? I answered the question in a page and a half and then was kind of like hmmmm what will i talk about now so just threw in bits about FoE and ECHR stuff becos I know he likes that but I'm not sure it had much direct relevance!

Had to end up doing the case note question and I have NO idea what he looks for in that! Got a great bit out of the Damache q and knew Buckley well but had to word vomit a bit on the impact its had on law since

The McCrystal question was the only q i can honestly say I was really happy with!

Dammit these exams are soul crushing!! Have barely looked at Equity becos I'm just so exhausted! Ended up going for a few drinks last night because I couldn't physically or mentally stare at pages for any longer! All i can say is fair play to anyone who is attempting more than 3 because I don't think I could do it!

TinkledPink

Arcturus2112 wrote: »

EU gives me bad vibes more than any other

I've given up on EU, almost. I haven't had a chance to look at it properly in ages and it'll be Thursday afternoon before I get to look at it again by which time it's the oh so common - "I recognise this, but I sure don't know this".

It pisses me off actually because I did quite a bit of work on it back in January but that means nothing here. If I'd a full day or two beforehand, no bother, but as it stands right now, not really.

The plan is: Institutions Q, Direct Effect Q, FMG Q, Competition Q & have a 20 minute go at Citizenship or JR or the Note Q, whichever just to pick up a few marks.

I've always thought as much as people dislike it, it's actually an interesting subject once you've the basics down on the history of the Treaties and the renumberings. That being said - the only way I'll pass it is if my relentless desire never to have to look at it again takes over. And sure, seeing as it's the last one why not have a lash at it.

Arcturus2112

TinkledPink wrote: »

I've given up on EU, almost. I haven't had a chance to look at it properly in ages and it'll be Thursday afternoon before I get to look at it again by which time it's the oh so common - "I recognise this, but I sure don't know this".

It pisses me off actually because I did quite a bit of work on it back in January but that means nothing here. If I'd a full day or two beforehand, no bother, but as it stands right now, not really.

The plan is: Institutions Q, Direct Effect Q, FMG Q, Competition Q & have a 20 minute go at Citizenship or JR or the Note Q, whichever just to pick up a few marks.

I've always thought as much as people dislike it, it's actually an interesting subject once you've the basics down on the history of the Treaties and the renumberings. That being said - the only way I'll pass it is if my relentless desire never to have to look at it again takes over. And sure, seeing as it's the last one why not have a lash at it.

Absolutely. Each of those topics should be guaranteed (though I'm excluding Institutions myself, which could well be a bad call on my part!), so just persevere with it on Thursday evening and with a little luck you'll pull it off.

Lily Belle

missindigo123 wrote: »

I am the exact same, I studied really hard for constitutional, u honestly thought it would be my best paper, I do a revision course and never had any issues with work handed up etc but this paper really wasn't great.

I had a question enough to kinda answer the paper. I mean the church and state question, that reminded me of something from leaving cert history. In his papers he always says that students need to keep up with legal developments and yet when we do by taking an interest in what's happening in te news etc he moans and says that students shouldn't try predict the exam. I mean when will a client ever say, us the constitution influenced by the church?! I took a stab at that question but could have answered that without study and by kinda guessing

I thought it was a very unfair paper. It was the one subject I had been tipping away at consistently to give a solid understanding of and ended up covering about 90% of the syllabus (ended up leaving out the Oireachtas so I couldn't believe it when I saw those two questions on it!). Out of all the study, I really feel like there was no opportunity for people to show what they knew, it was completely just trying to catch people out. Used actual proper stuff that I had learned for two questions, the other 3 were thrown together. Disappointing.

Lily Belle

TinkledPink wrote: »

I've given up on EU, almost. I haven't had a chance to look at it properly in ages and it'll be Thursday afternoon before I get to look at it again by which time it's the oh so common - "I recognise this, but I sure don't know this".

It pisses me off actually because I did quite a bit of work on it back in January but that means nothing here. If I'd a full day or two beforehand, no bother, but as it stands right now, not really.

The plan is: Institutions Q, Direct Effect Q, FMG Q, Competition Q & have a 20 minute go at Citizenship or JR or the Note Q, whichever just to pick up a few marks.

I've always thought as much as people dislike it, it's actually an interesting subject once you've the basics down on the history of the Treaties and the renumberings. That being said - the only way I'll pass it is if my relentless desire never to have to look at it again takes over. And sure, seeing as it's the last one why not have a lash at it.

Same as you, but I'm doing the case note (hopefully, if my cases come up!) instead of competition, just couldn't get my head around it. I'm hoping for 3 solid questions and then two spoof-ish ones supplemented by the Treaties.

marky200ie

Lily Belle wrote: »

I thought it was a very unfair paper. It was the one subject I had been tipping away at consistently to give a solid understanding of and ended up covering about 90% of the syllabus (ended up leaving out the Oireachtas so I couldn't believe it when I saw those two questions on it!). Out of all the study, I really feel like there was no opportunity for people to show what they knew, it was completely just trying to catch people out. Used actual proper stuff that I had learned for two questions, the other 3 were thrown together. Disappointing.

Did the same, twice as long studying it as to others to make sure I was covered and then the examiner throws out an absolute shocker - it's one thing to have a challenging paper but I feel that was unfair irrespective of how much you could have studied..hope a saving grace may be if everyone found it unfair that it may be reflected in the marking - doubtful though!

spaz_hawk

missindigo123 wrote: »

Can anyone help with charitable trusts? The legislation has been enacted so (I think !) so do we still need those cases like for poverty should I be using the likes of Re Gardom and Brett v AG etc etc or just focusing on the act. My manual is 2013 so worried it's not in date

Your manual probably refers to the proposed enactments so take it that they are now implemented. The most important part of the Act for the purposes of the FE1s is section 3. It pretty much adopts the distinction of trusts for charitable purposes as set out in Pemsel's case and also provides that gifts for the advancement of religion are deemed to be of public benefit unless the contrary can be shown. However, it seems that gifts to the poor relatives and poor employees classes will not be deemed to have a public benefit and will therefore be held not to be charitable.

Hope that makes sense and I'm not just raving.

TheCrutzer

With regards to Injunctions what's everyone focusing on? Mareva and Anton Pillar? Or am I way off?

spaz_hawk

missindigo123 wrote: »

Can anyone help with charitable trusts? The legislation has been enacted so (I think !) so do we still need those cases like for poverty should I be using the likes of Re Gardom and Brett v AG etc etc or just focusing on the act. My manual is 2013 so worried it's not in date

Your manual probably refers to the proposed enactments so take it that they are now implemented. The most important part of the Act for the purposes of the FE1s is section 3. It pretty much adopts the distinction of trusts for charitable purposes as set out in Pemsel's case and also provides that gifts for the advancement of religion are deemed to be of public benefit unless the contrary can be shown. However, it seems that gifts to the poor relatives and poor employees classes will not be deemed to have a public benefit and will therefore be held not to be charitable.

Hope that makes sense and I'm not just raving.

Edit: Forgot to say, as the new Act adopts the distinction in Pemsel all of the previous case law in relation to this is still applicable, save the new position of the poor relatives and poor employees etc.

d-is-4-dunners

Hey all, just a word I gave constitutional a go twice the first time I deserved to fail it was an extra subject and I didn't give it a fair go the second time I sat it last September I actually laughed when I saw the paper it was that ridiculous i was sickend with the amount of work id done but I stayed till the end got three q's and two absolutely atrocious pieces of word vomit that i would've felt bad making anyone read without cases or any real relevant points.....and I got 51.

My point is you don't know how they're going to go marks wise but you can't let these things get on top of you while you still have some to go it's counterproductive not only for the rest of the exams but also your own sanity once they're over. I do think it's an unfair paper in terms of scope and lack of clarity with reports but worrying about it now is just a waste of precious energy in my opinion.

Basically chin up guys forget about it until the morning the results are out and definitely don't let an exam you may have passed scupper your chances at the remaining ones.

Lily Belle

EU institutions. Am I completely missing something or isn't the bulk of what we need just laid out for us in the Treaty? Aside from an understanding of the actual relationship between them, but in terms of the technical powers, composition, procedures?

missindigo123

spaz_hawk wrote: »

Your manual probably refers to the proposed enactments so take it that they are now implemented. The most important part of the Act for the purposes of the FE1s is section 3. It pretty much adopts the distinction of trusts for charitable purposes as set out in Pemsel's case and also provides that gifts for the advancement of religion are deemed to be of public benefit unless the contrary can be shown. However, it seems that gifts to the poor relatives and poor employees classes will not be deemed to have a public benefit and will therefore be held not to be charitable.

Hope that makes sense and I'm not just raving.

Edit: Forgot to say, as the new Act adopts the distinction in Pemsel all of the previous case law in relation to this is still applicable, save the new position of the poor relatives and poor employees etc.

Thank you so much! You are amazing!

Troels Hartmann

Lily Belle wrote: »

EU institutions. Am I completely missing something or isn't the bulk of what we need just laid out for us in the Treaty? Aside from an understanding of the actual relationship between them, but in terms of the technical powers, composition, procedures?

Pretty much correct. Theres some case law on the interplay between them as well but it's a limited area in terms of the amount of crap outside of the treaties which you have to memorise

Troels Hartmann

Best of luck to those getting ready for Equity and Contract. They are generally among the more fair and reasonable ones in terms of marking and papers (contract especially I think) so keep the chins up!

I wonder if anyone has put any thought into the dreaded "Case Notes" question for EU?

In a moment of time-wasting today I went through the papers from Oct 2008 (first time it appeared), all of 2009, 2010 and 2011, and all three papers from 2014. Some interesting conclusions but not sure what use (If any) they are:-

Microsoft v Commission, Zambrano, and Doherty v Gov of Ireland all came up on all 3 papers in 2014.

Cumulatively I all 10 papers listed above, Microsoft has appeared 5 times, with Van Gend en Loos, Simmenthal, Zu Chen, ERTA, Kobler and Airtours v Commission all appearing 3 times over the 10 sittings.

Disturbingly, 22 cases appeared just ONCE each over those 10 papers, including Costa v Enel which has appeared only once but you'd think ought to have deserved a spin or two more iverr that time.

(Just to note that I didn't include the 2012 or 2013 papers in this mini-analysis so maybe someone might be avle to say whether they shed any further light on this)

I'm not sure how this helps me or anyone else to prepare for this god-awful question.

But there might be something to be said for preparing (say) notes on Microsoft, Van Gend, Zambrano, and hope that 2 of these come up and then wing it on the third? And that's only if the paper is a disaster and you need to do this question in the first place!!

Any thoughts appreciated!

Also this question (and the comments on it in the examiners reports) shows a serious delusion on the part of the examiner in relation to this. As the above shows, the case note question covers a VAST spread of cases and often 2/3 of the 7 are very recent - and I mean VERY recent as in the last 12 months. To expect the average FE-1 candidate to have the time to do the amount of ridiculous reading and research necessary to do a good answer to the notes question. You would need to devote vast amounts of time to it and anyone doing more than EU on its own simply doesn't have that amount of time

EthanSS

Has the Charities Act definitely been commenced???? Thanks.

XxMCRxBabyxX

EthanSS wrote: »

Has the Charities Act definitely been commenced???? Thanks.

Yes. As of October/November

marky200ie

Troels Hartmann wrote: »

Best of luck to those getting ready for Equity and Contract. They are generally among the more fair and reasonable ones in terms of marking and papers (contract especially I think) so keep the chins up!

I wonder if anyone has put any thought into the dreaded "Case Notes" question for EU?

In a moment of time-wasting today I went through the papers from Oct 2008 (first time it appeared), all of 2009, 2010 and 2011, and all three papers from 2014. Some interesting conclusions but not sure what use (If any) they are:-

Microsoft v Commission, Zambrano, and Doherty v Gov of Ireland all came up on all 3 papers in 2014.

Cumulatively I all 10 papers listed above, Microsoft has appeared 5 times, with Van Gend en Loos, Simmenthal, Zu Chen, ERTA, Kobler and Airtours v Commission all appearing 3 times over the 10 sittings.

Disturbingly, 22 cases appeared just ONCE each over those 10 papers, including Costa v Enel which has appeared only once but you'd think ought to have deserved a spin or two more iverr that time.

(Just to note that I didn't include the 2012 or 2013 papers in this mini-analysis so maybe someone might be avle to say whether they shed any further light on this)

I'm not sure how this helps me or anyone else to prepare for this god-awful question.

But there might be something to be said for preparing (say) notes on Microsoft, Van Gend, Zambrano, and hope that 2 of these come up and then wing it on the third? And that's only if the paper is a disaster and you need to do this question in the first place!!

Any thoughts appreciated!

Also this question (and the comments on it in the examiners reports) shows a serious delusion on the part of the examiner in relation to this. As the above shows, the case note question covers a VAST spread of cases and often 2/3 of the 7 are very recent - and I mean VERY recent as in the last 12 months. To expect the average FE-1 candidate to have the time to do the amount of ridiculous reading and research necessary to do a good answer to the notes question. You would need to devote vast amounts of time to it and anyone doing more than EU on its own simply doesn't have that amount of time

Having done EU last sitting (67), I would definitely recommend the case note to anyone doing the exam!! What a lot of people don't realise is that if you were to cover the 10 most popular cases across the exams you would have been guaranteed of 3 of them coming up out of the list of 8 each time!

Personally, I covered about 12 cases (taking 2 of the newer ones - consumer group Belgium one/ and Ryanair v Com) to be really safe (had a choice of 5 on the paper!!) - literally memorized an A4 page for each with the "facts/ issue/ court ruling/ application", structure - and as soon as I got the paper, spat it out for each case and had that question done in about 15min!

The examiner puts people off with criticism of the quality of answers to the case note but I think that's more down to people winging it as a last resort. If you have the time to prepare the 10 or so cases it's the easiest question on the whole Fe1 program - IMHO!

Hope that helps!

Troels Hartmann

marky200ie wrote: »

Having done EU last sitting (67), I would definitely recommend the case note to anyone doing the exam!! What a lot of people don't realise is that if you were to cover the 10 most popular cases across the exams you would have been guaranteed of 3 of them coming up out of the list of 8 each time!

Personally, I covered about 12 cases (taking 2 of the newer ones - consumer group Belgium one/ and Ryanair v Com) to be really safe (had a choice of 5 on the paper!!) - literally memorized an A4 page for each with the "facts/ issue/ court ruling/ application", structure - and as soon as I got the paper, spat it out for each case and had that question done in about 15min!

The examiner puts people off with criticism of the quality of answers to the case note but I think that's more down to people winging it as a last resort. If you have the time to prepare the 10 or so cases it's the easiest question on the whole Fe1 program - IMHO!

Hope that helps!

Thanks that's useful and heartening to know! The problem is which 12 to try to cover!

jenspondolik

OK EU really scaring me now but no point in panicking I had study done for exams that went atrociously regardless so I'll just give it a shot I took yesterday off to clear the head and did nothing feelong guilty now after opening the book. Hopefully four days enough to do it completely from scratch.

RCFE15

TheCrutzer wrote: »

With regards to Injunctions what's evedintryone focusing on? Mareva and Anton Pillar? Or am I way off?

I think it maybe mandatory and mareva... anyone studying 4 maxims, was there a question on them in the last few sittings?

Arcturus2112

RCFE15 wrote: »

I think it maybe mandatory and mareva... anyone studying 4 maxims, was there a question on them in the last few sittings?

Nope. Maxims haven't appeared since Spring 2010.

lawbear

Anyone know an example of what a mere power is in an express trust, as opposed to fixed trust and discretionary trust? I can't wrap my head around why the holder of the power would not have to exercise it if they didn't want to?

amyeee

lawbear wrote: »

Anyone know an example of what a mere power is in an express trust, as opposed to fixed trust and discretionary trust? I can't wrap my head around why the holder of the power would not have to exercise it if they didn't want to?

I think that the idea to keep in mind is that the trustee with a mere power can decide (a) when to distribute and (b) whether or not to distribute at all, BUT if he decides against distributing at all, he can't keep the property for himself. The property has to go somewhere, eventually.

So e.g. if the trust says that he MAY give it to certain kinds of people (like in Re Gulbenkian, people who the son lived with or was employed with), he doesn't HAVE to give it to them. BUT if he doesn't it'll just revert to whoever else is named in the trust as an object.

Importantly those other people named in the trust (who would benefit if the trustee decides outright not to exercise the mere power) can't force the trustee to not exercise the mere power so that they would get a bigger share of the trust property.

Does that help at all?

Bayley1

I think I'm going to pull out of Equity tomorrow. Have had the last four days free from exams but just cannot concentrate, ive no motivation. So annoyed with myself. Nothing is going in.

Pepp1989

Hey. Can someone with experience tell me on average how long it takes for you to get your treaties handed back to you if you only hand it up the morning of the exam? I've only eu next wk and i can't hand it in the day before. If I had the treaties back within 30-40 mins I could be doing another question but anything longer and I'll have to consider going up early the day before. Thanks in advance. Hope everyone is hanging in there. Marathon.

lawbear

Bayley1 wrote: »

I think I'm going to pull out of Equity tomorrow. Have had the last four days free from exams but just cannot concentrate, ive no motivation. So annoyed with myself. Nothing is going in.

I don't think you should pull out. You would be amazed what comes back to you when you see the paper. And even if you fail it's not the end of the world. I was going to pull out of the last set of exams in sep/october because I had been to electric picnic and I was working too. I really thought I had no chance of passing, I also felt really down the day I finished, just felt really disheartened by the whole thing and after loads of work felt there was no way I could pass. I didn't even answer 5 questions properly. I had like 3 goodish answers, 1 kinda dodge question, no case law and then a paragraph or like 6 lines for a 5th question. I ended up passing all three, so you really never know with these. Go in, give it your best shot, main thing is, these exams are extremely hard, not the end of the world if you don't pass this time

spaz_hawk

Any sign of city college's night before notes for equity? Saw last year that they tipped the liability of a stranger as a constructive trustee and also how the question on undue influence was going to arise.