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

Gunslinger92

Troels Hartmann wrote: »

Being honest I think you'd find it difficult. Then again, stranger things have happened! I know people who have passed 5/6 at a time while holding down 2 jobs.

My main fear for you is that you would damage the quality of your thesis by attempting FE1s at the same time, and believe me that is SO not worth it.

That said, any 3 of Contract, Equity, Property or Criminal is doable if you're under pressure. There's a fair amount of crossover between the first 3, and Criminal is definitely of the "easier" ones to pass (easy is very much a relative term when it comes to the FE1s......)

Thanks for your reply! I think you're right about the thesis suffering, it's a concern alright. I'll think about it for another couple of weeks but at the moment I don't think I'll try it.

FEar1

Troels Hartmann wrote: »

Very difficult to advise on Constitutional because the course is so vast and he could ask literally anything. But:-

ESSENTIALS:-
1) Separation of powers
2) Trial in due course of law & due process (incl are Haughey, and all the administrative law stuff)

If you don't cover both of these then don't bother turning up on the day.

After that it is honestly quite tricky to advise! There is very little that you can safely leave out and absolutely say that it won't come up.

Personally I would never leave out the following:-

3) Property rights (no question for the last 2 papers which seems ridiculous)
4) Constitutiinal interpretation (asked reasonably regularly but not much recently - and its not difficult)
5) Judicial review - locus standi, justiciability (eg the Callely v Moylan question on last paper which probably allowed me to scrape a pass!), and the effects of findings of unconstitutionality.

After that it really is pot luck. I would advise people to cover as much as they possibly can because the course is so broad and all of it could potentially show up.

I also did religion, education, marriage, and outlines on the AG, assembly & association, withdrawal of life support, etc. I didn't put much focus on the Dail seanad President or Courts but other people swear by them.

Be sure to read up on recent cases - Fleming, Gormley & White, the recent overturning of the Kenny exclusionary rule (name of the case is gone from my head!), and the appalling PP v HSE case last Christmas.

Worth noting though that the examiner doesn't seem to pose questions based on the controversial issues of the day. No questions last year on marriage, abortion or life support despite the various legal train-wrecks which have taken place on these issues in the last 2 years.

Also worth noting that he seems to have some kind of lurid and almost sexual obsession with questions on referenda and the referendum process. YET ANOTHER question on it in March after several last year. And this despite the fact that this is something which would never, ever, ever arise in practice. It's similar to Noel Travers' perverse obsession with the Pringle/ESM case in EU law, again despite it being a ridiculously obscure topic.

I say this just because it might be no harm to bone up on the referendum material just in case .....


Sorry for the long post

Don't apologise for that Troels! Couldn't have asked for a more comprehensive answer! Thanks a million!

Bayley1

So excited!! Got 43 in Company, got it rechecked and passed only 3 more to go

Troels Hartmann

Bayley1 wrote: »

So excited!! Got 43 in Company, got it rechecked and passed only 3 more to go

Wow, that's great. Congrats! That's a really big bump. Never heard of anyone coming up that far in a recheck

Bayley1

Troels Hartmann wrote: »

Wow, that's great. Congrats! That's a really big bump. Never heard of anyone coming up that far in a recheck

I know it was a total long shot, I read it happened to someone here so chanced it. Imagine the amount of people who thought 43 was too far out and didn't bother with the recheck.

Troels Hartmann

Bayley1 wrote: »

I know it was a total long shot, I read it happened to someone here so chanced it. Imagine the amount of people who thought 43 was too far out and didn't bother with the recheck.

As a rule anyone with 45 or over should get a recheck IMHO but maybe you've proved that 42/43 upwards should get a recheck!

Yes it costs a fortune but I think people may as well throw good money after bad if it means getting another one of these off your back

sunshine and showers

Ugh, no recheck joy for me. Actually went down in one of them! :mad:

Suppose it was worth a shot, but what a money spinner for them. :rolleyes:

Bayley1

sunshine and showers wrote: »

Ugh, no recheck joy for me. Actually went down in one of them! :mad:

Suppose it was worth a shot, but what a money spinner for them. :rolleyes:

Aw sorry to hear that. I was unlucky last time with company got 46 got it rechecked and it stayed the same. It's definitely a money racket

Troels Hartmann

sunshine and showers wrote: »

Ugh, no recheck joy for me. Actually went down in one of them! :mad:

Suppose it was worth a shot, but what a money spinner for them. :rolleyes:

Would you mind telling us which you got checked? And what the "before and after" figures were? Just out of curiosity (particularly after the huge upgrade that our friend here got in company)

sunshine and showers

Troels Hartmann wrote: »

Would you mind telling us which you got checked? And what the "before and after" figures were? Just out of curiosity (particularly after the huge upgrade that our friend here got in company)

EU - 46 stayed the same. Contract - 41 stayed the same. Criminal - 43 down to 41.

Troels Hartmann

sunshine and showers wrote: »

EU - 46 stayed the same. Contract - 41 stayed the same. Criminal - 43 down to 41.

Hard luck. Still though it was worth getting them rechecked

Id seriously love to know what kind of A-hole looked at the Criminal one, that he actually downgraded you by a measley 2 marks....

Where do you stand overall? Have you passes your Magic three? How many did you sit at the last sitting?

sunshine and showers

Troels Hartmann wrote: »

Hard luck. Still though it was worth getting them rechecked

Id seriously love to know what kind of A-hole looked at the Criminal one, that he actually downgraded you by a measley 2 marks....

Where do you stand overall? Have you passes your Magic three? How many did you sit at the last sitting?

Yeah, I got my three. Sat all eight of the feckers, so was super annoyed to get four fails that were close enough to a pass (in the forties) and not get any over in the rechecks!

Troels Hartmann

sunshine and showers wrote: »

Yeah, I got my three. Sat all eight of the feckers, so was super annoyed to get four fails that were close enough to a pass (in the forties) and not get any over in the rechecks!

Sitting all 8 is a huge undertaking so you've nothing to be ashamed of! Id guess that most people (by which I mean normal humans) who sit all 8 only pass 4 or 5 of them.

Also I take it that means constitutional was among the ones you passed? That's great! Major load off your mind for the next sitting to get one of the Big 2 off the list

Troels Hartmann

On Constitutional: make of this what you will, but I did my own little study of the last 5/6 years of past papers and came to the following conclusions on how often topics come up, in order of frequency:

1) Separation of powers
2) Trial in due course of law
3) Equality
4) Fair procedures
5) Property
6) Privacy
7) Constitutional interpretation
8) Judicial review
9) Religion
10) Bodily integrity etc
11) Freedoms of expression, assembly, association
12) Article 26
13) Findings of unconstitutionality/retroactivity
14) Family/marriage
15) right to earn a livelihood

Then beyond all of that you have some things that get asked every so often - emergency powers, the Attorney General, the presidency, referendum procedure (a common one recently), sovereignty and international agreements, cabinet confidentiality, the ECHR.

It's very hard to know what to leave out, and it's really just a matter of grinding your way through IT all and covering as much as possible. Being honest I think anyone who doesn't have the first 10 topics above done well is going to be in trouble on the day, but if at all possible Id cover everything in some amount of detail (that's what I did and just scraped a pass)

Galw2014

Hi guys, just wondering if anyone could recommend a course for EU. I've done courses for contract, criminal and Tort with Griffith and found them quite good. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Bayley1

sunshine and showers wrote: »

Yeah, I got my three. Sat all eight of the feckers, so was super annoyed to get four fails that were close enough to a pass (in the forties) and not get any over in the rechecks!

Fair dues, i honestly don't know how you attempted all eight!

Billetdoux

Well done for trying all 8 sunshine and showers - insane! But fair dues!

Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on contract.

I've always thought that it was one of the easier ones to bank on, and now that I'm looking at the papers for the first time, seems fairly comprehensive and my grids are not helping me at all!

I'm going to cover a little about a lot, but would be grateful for others' experiences with studying for it!

Bayley1

Billetdoux wrote: »

Well done for trying all 8 sunshine and showers - insane! But fair dues!

Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on contract.

I've always thought that it was one of the easier ones to bank on, and now that I'm looking at the papers for the first time, seems fairly comprehensive and my grids are not helping me at all!

I'm going to cover a little about a lot, but would be grateful for others' experiences with studying for it!

You will see there's always four Essay and four problem questions. I prefer problems but prep course advise you to do the problems because they are straight forward and you don't have to waste the time reading the question and trying to find the topics which are very mixed.

If you look through the essays you will see she asks the same type of ones so you could have a few prepared. I think the main topics I did were

Offer, acceptance
Consideration, estoppel
Exclusion clauses
Misrepresention
Mistake
Damages
Frustration

I know I covered more but can't think without checking my notes.

I'm pretty sure she wrote a paper on privity and she does seem to pop in sale of goods into problem questions too - I think last two sittings it was in the middle of a question - assuming I answered it correctly 😳 I got 46 first time and 50 second time.

Sorry I haven't really narrowed things down for you.

Billetdoux

Thanks Bayley1 that's brilliant!

Dsalmon91

I am sitting Property for the first time this next sitting and just wondering would anyone have any advice on how to approach it e.g. most important topics and maybe some of the less important topics which I could afford to leave out in my study plan. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

XxMCRxBabyxX

Does anyone know if studying for the FE1s would get me an exemption from jury service? Got the letter today!

jenspondolik

XxMCRxBabyxX wrote: »

Does anyone know if studying for the FE1s would get me an exemption from jury service? Got the letter today!

I got out of mine by saying i was training to be a solicitor and in the middle of studying for law socs entry exams.

Troels Hartmann

XxMCRxBabyxX wrote: »

Does anyone know if studying for the FE1s would get me an exemption from jury service? Got the letter today!

Have you a law degree? That alone would be enough to exclude you.

If not then a polite and well written letter saying basically anything at all is usually enough to get you off the hook. (The jury service system is an utter joke and results in juries mainly comprised of retired people, unemployed people, and Helen Lovejoy/Norris Cole types)

XxMCRxBabyxX

Troels Hartmann wrote: »

Have you a law degree? That alone would be enough to exclude you.

If not then a polite and well written letter saying basically anything at all is usually enough to get you off the hook. (The jury service system is an utter joke and results in juries mainly comprised of retired people, unemployed people, and Helen Lovejoy/Norris Cole types)

Yea I have a law degree. I haven't actually gotten home to read the letter yet, just know that I have it. I'll check it out and see if that'll do it.

hullaballoo

I would have thought a qualified lawyer (i.e., one with an undergrad but not professional degree) was ineligible for jury duty. Anyway, I'd assume that you come under the "full-time student" exemption so contact the county registrar in the county you were called to confirm the position. I wouldn't get into the details in relation to the fact that you're technically not enrolled in any college because it will obfuscate matters and you just need the exemption.

WhiteWalls

How much are the manuals per subject can anybody tell me? Thanks

Troels Hartmann

WhiteWalls wrote: »

How much are the manuals per subject can anybody tell me? Thanks

Not trying to be smart, but it really depends on where you get them from second hand

WhiteWalls

Troels Hartmann wrote: »

Not trying to be smart, but it really depends on where you get them from second hand

Are the second hand ones not outdated though is what I mean? Do you not have to buy them from city or griffiths or one of them?

Troels Hartmann

WhiteWalls wrote: »

Are the second hand ones not outdated though is what I mean? Do you not have to buy them from city or griffiths or one of them?

You can only get the updates manuals if you're doing one of their preparatory courses. They don't sell them to just anyone, unfortunately.

There is, however, a substantial black market in second-hand manuals. Personally I think any manuals from the last 3 years are perfectly fine.

I passed EU and Constitutional at the most recent sitting with 2011 manuals (City and Independent respectively) - but you do have to supplement both of those subjects with a bit of study on the recent case law. No manual for those two subjects will ever be entirely up to date

thestar

So basically its not that expensive to sit these exams?