Philosophy of Law Practice Questions Collection

Author: Zhu Jingwen, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Faced with various phenomena in higher legal education, we feel confused and have many concerns: Ten years ago, law was considered one of the "hot majors," but it has now disappeared from the list of popular majors. Law was originally a highly specialized field, yet many employers feel that law graduates lack specialization when seeking jobs. Many students who have studied law for four years know many legal terms but, when asked how to handle a case, can speak fluently and confidently, full of professional jargon, even mentioning German regulations or fresh theories from the United States, yet they are unaware of China's regulations or how to resolve cases occurring in China. Etc. This phenomenon can be termed "the non-specialization of specialized education." In 2005, Professor He Weifang announced online that he would stop admitting graduate students, challenging the current trend of overly emphasizing public courses and neglecting students' interests in their majors. The phenomena in legal education may be related to the broader educational context. Many liberal arts students spend half their time studying foreign languages and the other half playing games after entering university. Since final exams in liberal arts are relatively easy, it is not difficult for students to pass with credits and graduate smoothly. Many students cram for exams a month or even a week before the test, so some jokingly say that some liberal arts students actually study for only eight months or even less during their four years of university. While we criticize exam-oriented education and emphasize quality-oriented education, we have neglected specialized education. This "lack of specialization" has caused many legal educators and practitioners to worry and feel uneasy. If this continues, it will not only have a negative impact on our law students but, in the extreme, may harm China's legal education. Therefore, we suggest that law students should still focus on their major and refine this highly specialized field into their own expertise, enabling them to survive and gain respect through professionalism.
Do university students also do exercises? Some people, especially liberal arts students, might ask sarcastically. For science and engineering students, doing exercises and experiments during their studies is very common, but in liberal arts schools and departments, doing exercises seems like an unusual thing, and some students even feel the "fundamental difference" between university and high school. However, we have specifically compiled this "Exercise Collection" for law students, advocating that law students should also conduct synchronous exercises and self-assessments during their regular studies. This idea stems from the doubts and concerns mentioned above. We hope that through synchronous exercises, we can help and encourage students to truly master the knowledge of their discipline, familiarize themselves with China's current laws, and gain some insight into academic frontiers. On a larger scale, we aim to make some effort for the "specialized education" of legal education. Specifically, this book aims to achieve the following goals:
1. Help students systematically master the knowledge of their discipline. Completing a course is not just about getting credits; to truly grasp the "essentials" of the discipline, at least some foundational work must be done. This "Exercise Collection" includes a "Knowledge Logic Map" section, which details the logical relationships between different knowledge points in a chapter. It also includes various types of self-assessment questions that highlight key points and provide detailed and insightful answer analyses. This not only broadens students' horizons but also helps them understand the different forms of exam questions and master their problem-solving methods, while also enhancing their adaptability. In addition to the self-assessment questions for each chapter, the book also includes three sets of mock exams, allowing students to test their learning outcomes after completing the course.
2. Help students pass the National Judicial Examination. After systematically studying law for four years, passing the National Judicial Examination should be a natural and effortless task. However, the reality is different, indicating that some students' professional studies are superficial. This "Exercise Collection" selects some classic questions from past National Judicial Examination (Lawyer Qualification Examination) papers to help students understand the difficulty, perspective, and format of the exam, enabling targeted learning and review.
3. Help students prepare for postgraduate entrance exams. On one hand, it selects some questions from past postgraduate entrance exam papers of top law schools (such as Renmin University of China, Peking University, and China University of Political Science and Law). On the other hand, the book includes a special section on "Argumentative and In-depth Thinking Questions" to broaden students' academic horizons and provide significant help in mastering the methods and skills for answering argumentative questions.
In summary, our approach is to use what seems like a return to the "exam-oriented education" model and conduct synchronous exercises in this "worldly" way to achieve our grand but unworldly goal of strengthening "specialized education." This "Exercise Collection" includes 14 books, corresponding to 14 core law courses, and is a supplementary teaching aid for the "21st Century Law Series Textbooks." It is worth mentioning that since its publication in 2000, the "21st Century Law Series Textbooks" have been widely used by teachers and students in numerous law schools across the country. Some textbooks, such as Professor Wang Liming's "Civil Law," have sold over 300,000 copies, and the average sales of the 14 core course textbooks exceed 100,000 copies. Behind 100,000 books are 100,000 or even more readers. The love and support of so many readers make us feel a great sense of responsibility. Our only way to repay this is to continuously improve our service! The "21st Century Law Series Textbooks" now have multiple sub-series, including core course textbooks, core course teaching reference books, elective course textbooks, case analysis textbooks, and bilingual textbooks, totaling over 80 types. Now, this "Exercise Collection" has been added. The purpose of having so many varieties is to provide more choices for teachers and students who use our textbooks and meet their diverse needs. We hope that this large-scale "21st Century Law Series Textbooks" can continue to be supplemented and improved, satisfying the teachers and students who use it and making our due contribution to our country's "specialized education" in law!