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Posted here is the form that will be provided during the exam to allow students to report issues with multiple choice questions if desired.
Please bring all three of the course books to the exam.
Posted here on 12/8/2012 is the instruction portion and assignment portion of the final examination.
The actual question portion (which is not included) is 4 pages, double spaced, for the IRAC/Policy portion, and 21 pages for the multiple choice.
I strongly recommend that students read this document before the exam.
The exam is December 11, 2012, at 6:00 p.m., at the place scheduled by the school, for 4 hours: TUII 211.
Q (12/6/12): [W]ill we be able to have scratch paper on the final exam, or alternatively, will we be able to write on the exam document?
A (12/6/12): You can write on either exam document (multiple-choice; IRAC/Policy); you can bring scratch paper. The only thing I ask not be done is un-stapling the multiple-choice document. You can un-staple the IRAC/Policy document, but all pages must be returned.
Near the bottom of this page, the policy portion of the Spring 2012 final exam is posted. After October 26, the composite, anonymous student answer will be posted.
For the Fall 2012 property course, this opportunity is available: (i) students may submit by email to the class teaching assistant, Mr. Vermeer, a written answer for the posted policy problem in the Spring 2012 final; (ii) the submittal must be in a Microsoft Word document, Times New Roman font, 1 inch margins all around, single-spaced, and the file name must have your last name in it; (iii) your Word document must contain no more than 1,250 words, please check the Word limit using Word's ability to count the number of words in a document.
The policy problem will be posted on the evening of October 17, 2012. Mr. Vermeer will accept submittals until the end of the day on October 26. Over the next few weeks after having received your submittal, he will provide you a return email with some nominal remarks in your Word document, where those remarks are given with Word's change tracking capability. His remarks are intended to provide you feedback to help improve the "quality" of your answer in the context of earning points on the final examination. If you submit, Mr. Vermeer will keep your identity confidential, but your submittal and his response is a permission to use without attribution any part of your submittal for class review in this or any future property law course Professor Vetter may teach. Such use includes potentially posting your submittal and/or his response without attribution to the course web pages. Mr. Vermeer will disclose to Professor Vetter the total number of students who submitted, and the timing of those submittals.
Here is a prototype of the exam instructions I anticipate using for a property law final examination. I contemplate that the ultimate exam instructions will be substantially similar to these instructions, however, I reserve the right to change these exam instructions in any way.
Here is a document about how to write answers for my exams and some information about how I evaluate these answers. There may be revisions to this document during the Fall 2012 "exam season."
Here is a video of a presentation I gave about how to prepare for courses and course examinations. To be most useful, one should watch this video sometime during the first third of the course. Here are the slides used in that video.
Here is a video of a presentation I recommend about how to outline for a course. To be most useful, one should watch this video sometime during the first third of the course.
I anticipate three sections on the final examination: (i) multiple-choice questions; (ii) Issue-Spotting Fact-Pattern question(s); and (iii) policy-oriented question(s). No one section will be more than fifty percent or less than fifteen percent.
There is a document linked near the bottom of this web page which provides additional detail and guidance for the multiple choice questions, including some example questions.
I also note that the multiple choice questions are meant to have broad coverage across the entire class. They are, as the examples show, designed to measure whether one knows the information, or has sufficient familiarity with the materials to be able to quickly locate and use the information pertaining to the question.
The policy question(s) are the most difficult to cabin. It is likely that they will have a greater focus on the materials from Perspectives than the Issue-Spotting Fact-Pattern question(s), which will have minimal focus on Perspectives. Policy questions imply different perspectives; issue-spotting questions imply doctrine and its application to fact patterns. This by no means implies that the policy question(s) will not also be based on Casebook materials. The Casebook has much policy content as well.
Here are six example multiple choice questions, provided so that students have some sense of the likely scope, style and coverage of the multiple choice questions. I work on these questions as I prepare materials for the class during the semester, so they are meant to have broad coverage across the entire class, and test for fairly specific information from the materials and class discussion.
Please note that I generally calibrate the length of the issue-spotting portion of my exams with the number of exam hours allocated to that portion. For each exam hour allocated to the issue-spotting portion there will be no more than 2 pages double spaced of examination fact pattern for issue-spotting exams. Thus, if issue-spotting questions are 50% of the grade in a course having a three hour exam, the fact pattern would be no more than three pages double spaced.
The Spring 2012 policy portion of the Property final examination is representative of the policy portion of the final examination I contemplate for the course.
Here is the policy portion of the Spring 2012 Property examination, and here is the composite student model answer for the policy portion. Please note that the composite answer does not necessarily address every perspective in such a way as to earn all possible points. Both the examination and the answer should be read in light of the documents I have posted above describing how to deal with my exams.
The Spring 2006 Property final examination is representative of the final examination I contemplate for the course.
Here is the issue-spotting portion of the Spring 2006 Property examination, and here is the composite student model answer. Please note that the composite answer does not necessarily address every issue, nor resolve every issue in such a way as to earn all the points for that issue. Both the examination and the answer should be read in light of the documents I have posted above describing how to deal with my exams.
The Spring 2004 Property final examination is representative of the final examination I contemplate for the course. The exam instructions will likely change as to procedure, however, since the examination below is for UH.
Here is the issue-spotting portion of the Spring 2004 Property examination, and here is the composite student model answer. Please note that the composite answer does not necessarily address every issue, nor resolve every issue in such a way as to earn all the points for that issue. Both the examination and the answer should be read in light of the documents I have posted above describing how to deal with my exams.
Last modified on December 8, 2012, by Greg R. Vetter