Law & Citizenship · Unit 11

Jurisprudence

What law is and where its authority comes from

Jurisprudence asks the question the rest of the subject assumes an answer to: what makes law law, and where does its authority actually come from?

The unit covers natural law, legal positivism, legal realism, theories of justice, and the critical approaches that ask whose interests a legal system serves.

This unit breaks down into 18 short steps and 108 questions, starting at difficulty 4 and building to 5. Below you can see exactly what it covers, how the path is structured, and worked examples with explanations.

Steps: 18
Questions: 108
Difficulty: 4-5

What this unit covers

Legal Realism
Legal Positivism
Natural Law
Critical Approaches
Theories of Justice

Where this fits

The most abstract unit in the track. Connects directly to Political Philosophy.

Where people slip

Whether an unjust law is still law is a real disagreement, not wordplay. Natural law says no and positivism says yes, and the answer changes what obedience means.

How the unit is structured

Jurisprudence runs as 18 short steps that unlock in order. 13 are practice rounds and 5 are challenge rounds that pull together everything before them. Questions start at difficulty 4 and climb to 5 as you progress.

Step 1 · easierStep 18 · harder

Challenge rounds

Example questions

30 real questions from this unit, with the answer and the reason behind it, grouped by what they practise. There are 108 in the unit altogether.

Critical Approaches

Build the sentenceLevel 4
1. Build a sentence about legal reasoning.
Answer: Legal reasoning is constrained but never purely mechanical
Legal reasoning is constrained but never purely mechanical.
Choose all that applyLevel 4
2. Which are critical approaches to law? Pick all that apply.
- Critical legal studiescorrect
- Feminist legal theorycorrect
- Critical race theorycorrect
- Statutory drafting manuals
Critical legal studies, feminist theory and critical race theory are all critical approaches.
Multiple choiceLevel 4
3. What do critical legal scholars argue about legal reasoning?
- It is less determinate than claimed and masks choicescorrect
- It is perfectly mechanical
- It has no politics
- It cannot be studied
That it is less determinate than claimed and can mask political choices.
True or falseLevel 4
4. Critical race theory examines how law has interacted with racial hierarchy.
Answer: True
True, as a body of legal scholarship.
Type the answerLevel 4
5. What is the claim that legal rules do not dictate single outcomes called?
Answer: indeterminacy
Indeterminacy is central to critical legal studies.
Fact or fibLevel 5
6. Copying a successful legal rule reliably reproduces its results elsewhere.
Answer: False
False. Transplanted rules depend heavily on local institutions and culture.

Legal Positivism

Build the sentenceLevel 4
7. Build a sentence about legal theory.
Answer: Positivists separate legal validity from moral merit
Positivists separate legal validity from moral merit.
Choose all that applyLevel 4
8. Which are features of Hart's account? Pick all that apply.
- Primary and secondary rulescorrect
- A rule of recognitioncorrect
- The internal point of viewcorrect
- A divine command test
Primary and secondary rules, the rule of recognition and the internal point of view all feature.
Multiple choiceLevel 4
9. Why did Hart criticise the command theory of law?
- Law includes power-conferring rules, not only threats
- Commands are always moral
- Law has no rules
- He agreed with it entirely
Law includes power-conferring rules, not just orders backed by threats.
Sort into groupsLevel 4
10. Sort each claim by the school it belongs to.
Answer: Unjust rules may not be law = Natural law; Law connects to a moral order = Natural law; Validity and morality are separate = Legal positivism; A rule of recognition identifies law = Legal positivism
Schools differ on the relationship between law and morality.
True or falseLevel 4
11. Positivists can still argue strongly that an unjust law should be disobeyed.
Answer: True
True. They separate legal validity from moral obligation.
Fill the blankLevel 5
12. Hart's shared official criterion identifying valid law is the rule of ____.
- recognitioncorrect
- change
- adjudication
- morality
The rule of recognition anchors legal validity.

Legal Realism

Choose all that applyLevel 4
13. Which factors do realists say shape outcomes? Pick all that apply.
- The particular factscorrect
- Judicial background and outlookcorrect
- Resources of the partiescorrect
- Only the statute's wording
Facts, judicial background, institutional pressures and resources all shape outcomes.
Fact or fibLevel 4
14. Reading the statute alone reliably predicts how a case will be decided.
Answer: False
False. Facts, procedure and institutional context also shape outcomes.
Multiple choiceLevel 4
15. Why did realists study judicial behaviour empirically?
- Outcomes depend on context and judges toocorrect
- Doctrine explains everything
- Judges never decide
- Empirical study is impossible
They argued outcomes depend on facts, context and judges as much as on doctrine.
True or falseLevel 4
16. Realism influenced the growth of socio-legal and empirical legal studies.
Answer: True
True. It pushed law towards the social sciences.
Build the sentenceLevel 5
17. Build a sentence about legal research.
Answer: Empirical evidence tests claims about how law works
Empirical evidence tests claims about how law works.
Put in orderLevel 5
18. Put these stages of Dworkin's interpretive method in order.
Answer: Identify the legal practice -> Generate candidate interpretations -> Test which fit the material -> Choose the one that best justifies it
Identify practice, find candidate readings, test fit, choose best justification.

Natural Law

Choose all that applyLevel 4
19. Which ideas are associated with natural law? Pick all that apply.
- Objective moral standardscorrect
- Principles applying across societiescorrect
- A moral limit on what counts as lawcorrect
- Law defined purely by procedure
Objective moral standards, universal principles and a moral limit on valid law are all associated.
Fill the blankLevel 4
20. The view that law's validity depends partly on morality is ____ law theory.
- naturalcorrect
- positive
- realist
- critical
Natural law links legality to moral standards.
Multiple choiceLevel 4
21. What is the central claim of natural law theory?
- Law's validity is connected to moralitycorrect
- Law is whatever the strongest say
- Law is purely procedural
- Law does not exist
That law's validity is connected to morality, so a deeply unjust rule may not truly count as law.
True or falseLevel 4
22. Natural law thinking influenced post-war trials of officials who followed unjust orders.
Answer: True
True. Obedience to law was not accepted as a complete defence.
Fact or fibLevel 5
23. Legal positivists must approve of whatever law exists.
Answer: False
False. Describing law as valid says nothing about whether it deserves obedience.
Put in orderLevel 5
24. Put these transitional justice steps in order.
Answer: Document past abuses -> Establish a mechanism -> Hear evidence and testimony -> Publish findings -> Reform institutions
Document, establish mechanism, hear evidence, report, reform.

Theories of Justice

Choose all that applyLevel 4
25. Which are theories of justice? Pick all that apply.
- Utilitarianismcorrect
- Rawlsian justice as fairnesscorrect
- The capability approachcorrect
- Alphabetical justice
Utilitarian, Rawlsian, libertarian and capability approaches are all theories of justice.
Fill the blankLevel 4
26. Bentham dismissed natural rights as nonsense upon ____.
- stiltscorrect
- paper
- water
- sand
His phrase attacked rights talk as unfounded.
Multiple choiceLevel 4
27. What is the veil of ignorance for?
- It removes self interested bias from the choicecorrect
- It hides the law
- It prevents voting
- It has no purpose
It removes self interested bias by hiding your own talents, wealth and status.
Put in orderLevel 4
28. Put the steps of Rawls's argument in order.
Answer: Imagine an original position -> Apply the veil of ignorance -> Choose principles of justice -> Apply them to institutions
Original position, veil, principles chosen, applied to institutions.
True or falseLevel 4
29. Rawls argued inequalities are acceptable only if they benefit the least advantaged.
Answer: True
True, his difference principle.
Sort into groupsLevel 5
30. Sort each concern by the kind of justice it belongs to.
Answer: Compensating a specific victim = Corrective justice; Restoring a bilateral imbalance = Corrective justice; Allocating resources across society = Distributive justice; Setting tax and transfer policy = Distributive justice
Different justice concepts answer different questions.

Where these questions come from. Each unit starts as a plan of the concepts it should cover and the difficulty it should span. Questions are written against that plan with AI assistance, then checked by a validator that rejects anything without a single defensible answer, an explanation, or plausible wrong options. How we write questions sets out the whole process, and corrections are fixed in the bank and reach the site and the app the same day.

How you practise

This unit mixes 9 different question formats, so you are recalling and applying rather than recognising the same layout every time.

Build the sentence
Choose all that apply
Fact or fib
Fill the blank
Multiple choice
Put in order
Sort into groups
True or false
Type the answer

Practise Jurisprudence

108 questions across 18 steps. Start with step one and crawl at your own pace.

Play this unit

Read about Jurisprudence

Explainers from our blog on what this unit covers. Each one ends with real questions from the bank.

More units in Law & Citizenship

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