Siegel's Evidence: Essay & Multiple Choice Questions & Answers, 5th Edition 5th Edition

The only reason this book got four stars is for the hypos. The model answers provided range from "bare-bones" to "actually wrong," but working through 24 fact patterns is a fabulous study tool that reminds the student of all the rules, gives them a reason to go back over them, identifies questions to ask studymates/profs, etc. If the answers were better, I would running around town trying to get everyone to buy this book.

I love this series and frequently recommend it to others. This time, however, Siegel's let me down. The multiple choice questions are too easy; I haven't even finished prepping for my exam and I'm getting most of them right.Why?It's not because I've mastered the material. Far from it. I'm still not quite familiar with the nuances of all the rules regarding examination/impeachment and the many hearsay exceptions.The reason the questions are too easy is because they only test you on the most basic principles. If you're somewhat familiar with the rules, you'll be able to answer these questions. If, however, you want a set of questions that will test your mastery of the nuances, challenge you to understand how the rules work together, and force you to read carefully to parse tangled issues, this book is not what you're looking for. Sadly, even when a question prompt is relatively challenging, the way the answers are written will almost certainly telegraph the answer, making it harder for you to get any of them wrong.This could be a problem if you, like me, rely on the "bump your head" theory of remembering information: Do a few tough problems, get them wrong, read the answers, see your mistake, never make it again. Doing easy problems over and over--where the answer is based on a straightforward reading of the rules--really isn't much more helpful than just reading the rules over and over.I found the hearsay questions in the first half of multiple choice helpful, but there were long stretches where I didn't feel challenged at all.Another big gripe with this book (and all Siegel's books) is that the multiple choice answers are laid out in such a way that you can't look at the answer to problem 1 without seeing the answers to problems 2, 3, 4, and 5, since they're all on the same page. I had to go put little stickies over all the answers and peel them off one-by-one as I went through the book. While it was fun to get that advent calendar feeling in the middle of May, I'd be a lot happier if they just put one answer on a page. I realize that would make the book a lot thicker and a lot of people probably wouldn't like that but, for me, it'd be worth the tradeoff.I took the time to write this review because I know broke grad students really need to think hard about even small purchases like this. I spent $35 on this book and still feel like I need to go buy another supplement to prepare for my exam, which is unfortunate.

The Siegels' approach is nice. The summary chapter at the beginning is more about law school exam attacks, which is really a version of a client interview. Of course, you're graded differently by a prof. than a potential client, but Siegels' gives some great strategies. The substantive Q&A formats are helpful as well. About half the book is devoted to 20+ essays and their answers. Fantastic prep for exam attack. The other half is devoted to multiple choice Q&A which are set up like MBE questions, where they build on each other, or are off the same fact pattern. Worth the money.

I love the Siegel's series. The book contains over 100 MC questions and 24 essay questions. This a great source to use to get you ready and feeling comfortable for your final. I recommend reading the E&E before doing these questions. If you read the E&E you will be very familiar with evidence as a whole and doing the practice questions will help to further refine your knowledge for your exam.

There are not many books on the market that have good single topic - multiple choice questions for something like MBE prep. This book could fill that gap but the questions are confusing. The author conflates issues. His questions are too long. His explanations are confusing. Sometimes his answers are just plain wrong, sometimes they are so poorly worded that the answers do not make sense. Occasionally, it seems like he updated the questions without updating the explanation from one edition to the next - the characters in the hypo will have different names or the facts in the answer will not match those of the question.If you suffered through law school you will be familiar with professors who just do not care if students understand or not. There are also professors who delight in keeping students confused all semester, rather than teach them the law (they claim this teaches students to think like a lawyer, as if such a low standard would be tolerated in any other profession.) Siegel no longer teaches nor does he update these books with his name on them. Instead he sends emails to new bar admittees in California offering to be their recruiter. I'd steer clear of anything associated with such sloppy work. He clearly does not care if students learn the law based on the book with his name on it. I doubt he will be of any value as a recruiter, either.The essays also lack something that would be of great value to students. Would it be too much to have good answers, mediocre answers and poor answers to one or two essays? It is pretty painful to start writing essays and only be able to compare them to the professor's ideal answer. We could mark our progress if we had some C, B- or B+ answers to compare to. Nor do we have any idea about how long each answer should take a student to write. The professor's model answer in most cases will take most students way more than an hour. Would it be so hard to simply write 45 minutes, 30 minutes, or 90 minutes at the end of each essay question? That is what the writers would do if they had any intention to be the least bit helpful to students. Instead what you get is a professor's answer that the vast majority of students could never hope to produce, could never write on time and cannot use to improve.

Perfect condition and arrived quicker than anticipated.

Helped me to get an A in Evidence. I was panicking. I literally knew nothing...whew...sigh of relief.