Formation, defenses, performance, breach, and remedies under the common law and UCC Article 2.
Overview
Contracts asks whether a promise is enforceable, what it requires, whether performance was excused, and what the law gives the injured party. The subject is split between the common law of the Restatement and UCC Article 2 for transactions in goods, and identifying the governing body of law is the first move in almost every answer.
Exam fact patterns are typically commercial: a purchase order, a construction job, a custom manufacturing order, a services agreement with a modification. The facts are engineered so that formation is quick and the real points sit in performance, excuse, and remedies.
Strong Contracts answers are economical about the easy steps and generous with the damages analysis. Professors consistently report that students over-write formation and under-write the remedies ladder.
Topics
These are the Contracts doctrines available in the Exam Builder. Pick one to generate a hypo focused on it, or combine several.
Objective manifestation of assent, definiteness, revocation, the mailbox rule, and UCC 2-207 battle of the forms.
Practice Offer & AcceptanceBargained-for exchange, pre-existing duty, illusory promises, and promissory estoppel as a substitute.
Practice ConsiderationWhich contracts must be written, the sufficiency of the writing, and exceptions including part performance and specially manufactured goods.
Practice Statute of FraudsIntegration, merger clauses, and when prior or contemporaneous terms may be admitted.
Practice Parol EvidenceExpress and constructive conditions, substantial performance, material versus minor breach, and anticipatory repudiation.
Practice Conditions & BreachMerchants, gap fillers, warranties, perfect tender, cure, risk of loss, and buyer and seller remedies.
Practice UCC Article 2Expectation, reliance, and restitution measures, consequential damages and foreseeability, mitigation, liquidated damages, and specific performance.
Practice Remedies & DamagesIntended and incidental beneficiaries, assignment of rights, and delegation of duties.
Practice Third-Party RightsGrading reality
Issue spotting is the entry fee. Points separate on rule precision, factual application, competing arguments, and the way the answer is organised.
Goods or services, merchant or non-merchant, predominant purpose in a mixed contract. One clean sentence at the top of the answer sets up every rule that follows.
Consideration, conditions, and the Statute of Frauds all have discrete elements. Graders look for each element matched to a specific fact, not a summary conclusion.
Impracticability, mistake, duress, unconscionability, and failure of a condition are where competing arguments live. Asserting that a defense fails is worth much less than arguing its strongest version first.
Expectation first, then the limits — foreseeability, certainty, mitigation — then alternatives in reliance or restitution. Under the UCC, the sequence through 2-706, 2-708, and 2-709 is heavily scored.
Issue library
The fact patterns below recur across Contracts finals. Each one names the doctrine, the trigger, and the analysis a grader expects.
Test offer against definiteness, look for revocation or lapse before acceptance, and consider whether an option or 2-205 firm offer held it open. Under 2-207, resolve whether additional terms became part of the contract.
Apply 2-201, then work the exceptions: merchant confirmation, admission, part performance, and specially manufactured goods not suitable for resale.
Under the common law, the pre-existing duty rule usually requires new consideration or an unanticipated circumstance. Under 2-209, good faith replaces consideration, but the writing requirement may still apply.
Identify the unequivocal repudiation, address the aggrieved party's options — suspend, await, or treat as total breach — and then whether continuing performance was commercially reasonable under 2-704(2).
Compute expectation from the contract price and cost avoided, subtract what mitigation did or should have produced, add incidental damages, and address the lost-volume seller argument where a substitute sale would have happened anyway.
Professors rarely test a doctrine alone. These pairings show up repeatedly.
Diagnostics
Each of these is fixable, and each is visible in a graded practice answer long before it shows up on a transcript.
Three paragraphs proving an obvious contract formed while the remedies section gets two sentences is the most common time-allocation error in Contracts.
Practice this under timeApplying common-law mirror-image rules to a goods transaction, or 2-207 to a services contract, propagates errors through the whole answer.
Practice this under timeAfter a repudiation, graders expect the mitigation question raised explicitly before any damages figure appears.
Practice this under time'Plaintiff recovers expectation damages' without computing them, or without addressing foreseeability and certainty, leaves most of the remedies points on the table.
Practice this under timeThe loop
Exam Sim generates a fresh Contracts hypo from your criteria, times your attempt, grades it against a hidden rubric, redlines your own sentences, and points you at the next session.
EXAMPLE SCENARIO
A restaurateur orders twenty engraved oak tables by email, cancels three days later, and the maker completes and tenders anyway. Tests formation, 2-201(3)(a), repudiation, 2-704(2), and the damages ladder.
EXAMPLE SCENARIO
A subcontractor demands more money mid-job after discovering unexpected conditions. Tests the pre-existing duty rule, duress, unanticipated-circumstances modification, and restitution.
EXAMPLE SCENARIO
A buyer relies on an oral performance promise made before signing an integrated agreement with a merger clause. Tests parol evidence, express and implied warranties, and disclaimers.
FAQ
Generate a fresh Contracts exam, write it under realistic conditions, and see exactly where your analysis earns or loses points.
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