How did you go?

[jourdy]

Guys, WTF were you supposed to write about in the VLRC question?
Nobody in my class knew how to get 7 marks for that one.

Assess whether parliament could effectively represent the community in law-making by itself. I discussed how it delegates legislation and may therefore not be representative, how it can be representative effectively because members in the lower house are voted in by electorates of equal population, but it also makes decisions on party lines and may therefore not always represent the interests of the community. I spoke about how the VLRC consults experts to gain a qualified perspective and seeks submissions on discussion papers from the public, to gain knowledge on how the public feels about an issue. I spoke about what it did in relation to abortion and that parliament wouldn't have legislated on it if not for the VLRC as they already took 39 years after R v. Davidson (1969) to ask the VLRC for help. Therefore while parliament can be effective in representing the community, it is improved greatly with the help of the VLRC.

[casbanjo]

WHOA, I didn't know ANY of that. I don't think we covered the VLRC at all.
But I don't think the question asked about effectiveness of parliament, I thought it asked about the VLRC?

[jourdy]

WHOA, I didn't know ANY of that. I don't think we covered the VLRC at all.
But I don't think the question asked about effectiveness of parliament, I thought it asked about the VLRC?

The question was along the lines of "Parliament wouldn't be able to effectively represent the views of the community without the help of the VLRC". Discuss.

[casbanjo]

I will get zero for that question, god dammit.

I'm screwed now 

[jourdy]

I will get zero for that question, god dammit.

I'm screwed now 

You won't get zero. You would have actually had to have said absolutely nothing about either parliament or the VLRC.

[casbanjo]

I said the VLRC helps assist the parliament in finding areas of law that need to be fixed?
I also said that pressure groups could contact parl't without the VLRC through direct contacts but that might be wrong.

I misinterpreted the question 

That's probably zero

[Chazef]

Don't worry, questions can be answered in a number of ways. In this, you obviously had to talk about the role of the VLRC, however instead of then using parts from your parliament evaluation, you could have considered the effectiveness of informal methods for influencing change in the law, saying how individuals can use media, petitions, lobbying etc to directly engage with parliament and therefore allow parliament to make laws which represent the people. Basically you could have had any combination of VLRC's role, informal pressures and parliament's strengths/weaknesses which relate to representing the people (as long as you had a large focus on the VLRC at some point). I don't know this for sure, but that's my take on it.

[casbanjo]

Phew, that relieves me a bit. 
I focused on informal pressures and VLRC's role, so maybe I'll get 3 or 4 marks! Sweet, thanks dude.

[LukeR]

its the way he said it... obviously

[ThyJovan]

I think Megan said it best, one does not simply get 70/70 on the Legal Studies exam.

[michak]

Im sure some people have before in the past

[connej]

its the way he said it... obviously

Yeah the way he assumes he will otherwise get 100% is quite arrogant actually

How can one be so sure?

[danicalifornia]

Hey guys,

I thought a lot of questions were very poorly worded. Despite this, I think it was an easy exam and I don't understand how VCAA haven't figured out how to maintain some consistency between years yet.

For the section 109 question, I confused myself halfway through my answer and said that although s.109 does restrict state parliament because the inconsistent part of their law will be invalid, it doesn't completely restrict them because they still have residual powers for which they are completely autonomous in their law-making. Do you think this is too far a stretch? Was the answer that it doesn't completely restrict them because ONLY the inconsistent part will be invalid, not the whole law?

[ThyJovan]

Relax lads, remember Legal is over now, be freeeeee.

[cullen6]

Hey guys,

I thought a lot of questions were very poorly worded. Despite this, I think it was an easy exam and I don't understand how VCAA haven't figured out how to maintain some consistency between years yet.

For the section 109 question, I confused myself halfway through my answer and said that although s.109 does restrict state parliament because the inconsistent part of their law will be invalid, it doesn't completely restrict them because they still have residual powers for which they are completely autonomous in their law-making. Do you think this is too far a stretch? Was the answer that it doesn't completely restrict them because ONLY the inconsistent part will be invalid, not the whole law?

I'm pretty sure you had to talk about how it restricted their concurrent powers, because if there is an inconsistency it becomes invalid. I'm just assuming that because part A of the questions was a 2 mark concurrent question (from memory).