International Law Practice Questions Collection (Supporting Materials for 21st Century Law Series Textbooks)

Author: Yu Mincai, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
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 long disappeared from the current list of popular majors. Law was originally a highly specialized field, yet many employers feel that law graduates lack professionalism when seeking jobs. Many students have studied law for four years, knowing numerous legal terms, but when asked how to handle a case, they can speak fluently and confidently, full of professional jargon, even discussing German regulations or American theories, yet they are unaware of how China regulates such cases 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 in postgraduate entrance exams while neglecting students' interests in their majors. These 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, students can easily pass with credits. 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 "non-specialization" has caused concern and unease among many legal educators and practitioners. 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 focus on mastering their majors and develop this highly specialized field into their own expertise, enabling them to secure survival and respect through professionalism.
University students doing exercises? Some people, especially liberal arts students, might ask sarcastically. For science and engineering students, doing exercises and experiments during their studies is commonplace, but in liberal arts schools and departments, doing exercises seems like an extraordinary thing, and some students even feel the "fundamental difference" between university and high school. However, we have compiled this "Exercise Collection" specifically for law students, advocating that they 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 the current laws of China, and gain some insight into cutting-edge academic issues. On a larger scale, we aim to contribute to 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 earning credits; to truly grasp the "essentials" of the discipline, at least some foundational work is required. This "Exercise Collection" includes a "Knowledge Logic Map" section that details the logical relationships between different knowledge points in a chapter. It also provides various types of self-assessment questions that highlight key points and offers detailed, 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 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, students should find passing the National Judicial Examination a matter of course. In reality, this is not the case, which indicates 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, perspectives, and formats of the exam, enabling targeted study 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 (e.g., Renmin University of China, Peking University, China University of Political Science and Law, etc.). On the other hand, the book includes a "Essay and In-depth Thinking Questions" section to broaden students' academic horizons and provide significant help in mastering the methods and techniques for answering essay questions.
In summary, our approach is to use a seemingly "practical" method—synchronous exercises that resemble "exam-oriented education"—to achieve our grand but unpretentious goal of strengthening "specialized education." This "Exercise Collection" consists of 14 books, corresponding to 14 core law courses, and serves as a supplementary guide for the "21st Century Law Series Textbooks." It must be noted that since their publication in 2000, the "21st Century Law Series Textbooks" have been widely adopted by legal institutions and teachers across the country. Some textbooks, such as Professor Wang Liming's Civil Law, have sold over 300,000 copies, and the average print sales of the 14 core course textbooks exceed 100,000 copies each. Behind 100,000 copies lie 100,000 or more readers. The immense love and support from so many readers make us feel a great sense of responsibility. Our only way to repay this is to continuously improve our services!
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 titles. Now, this "Exercise Collection" has been added. The purpose of all these varieties is the same: to provide teachers and students using our textbooks with more choices and to meet their diverse needs. We hope that this large-scale "21st Century Law Series Textbooks" will continue to be supplemented and improved, satisfying the teachers and students who use it and contributing our due efforts to the "specialized education" of China's legal field!