Con Law drills train one muscle above all: selection under time, naming the framework fast and in the open. Two original questions below, a structure side statute test with a full model answer and a rights side ordinance with a self grading key. Doctrine in the hub, execution in the exam guide, protocol in how to use practice exams.

Drill one: the truck statute (20 minutes)

Citing highway safety, State A bans commercial trucks longer than sixty feet from its highways. Neighboring states allow sixty five foot trucks, which are the interstate industry standard, forcing carriers to reroute around State A or switch equipment at its border. The state's own studies show negligible safety differences between the lengths, and the statute exempts logging trucks, an industry concentrated in State A.

An interstate carrier sues. Analyze.

Model answer

Threshold in one line: the carrier has standing, direct compliance costs, traceable, redressable. Selection in the open: a state law burdening interstate commerce where Congress is silent, so the dormant Commerce Clause governs, not preemption, there being no federal statute to preempt with. The fork decides the analytical track: the ban is facially neutral, length, not origin, but the logging exemption points at discrimination in effect, sparing a home industry the burden visited on interstate carriers, and if the court reads it as discriminatory the test is virtually per se invalidity unless no nondiscriminatory alternative serves the purpose, which the exemption itself refutes, since exempted trucks are no safer.

Run the second branch too, because a court might not credit the discrimination reading: under balancing, the burden on interstate commerce, rerouting and equipment switching at the border of a national network, is substantial, while the local benefit, per the state's own studies, is illusory, and the classic truck length cases invalidated materially identical laws on exactly that ledger. Both directions on the state's side get their sentence, safety is the core police power and courts defer to legislatures on margins, but deference thins when the state's evidence contradicts its asserted interest and the exemption undercuts its sincerity.

Conclusion, committed: the statute likely falls under either branch. The harvest to notice: the framework named with a reason, the fork run both ways, the exemption used twice, and the state's best case stated before losing.

Drill two: the lawn sign ordinance (15 minutes)

A city, citing neighborhood aesthetics, bans all residential lawn signs except for sale signs and address markers. A homeowner is cited for displaying a candidate sign during election season. Analyze her First Amendment challenge.

Self grading key

Full credit runs the gates in order. State action, one line, a municipal ordinance. The speech tree's master fork next, and it is the question's engineered point: the ordinance is content based, because enforcing it requires reading the sign, for sale survives, vote for Chen does not, and exemptions defined by subject matter make the law content based regardless of the city's benign purpose, a doctrinal move worth naming explicitly.

Content based restrictions draw strict scrutiny, government's burden, compelling interest and narrow tailoring, and aesthetics, however legitimate, is not compelling, so the ordinance likely falls there. The alternative branch earns its paragraph: even treated as content neutral, intermediate scrutiny asks for narrow tailoring and ample alternative channels, and residential lawn signs are a uniquely cheap, uniquely located medium, speech identified with the speaker's own home, for which no adequate substitute exists, the classic residential sign holding.

A closing sentence weighs the political speech context, core protection at its election season peak. Deduct if scrutiny ran before state action, if the content based conclusion was asserted without the exemptions reasoning, or if the tier appeared without its burden holder; those are the three graded joints.

Where to find more, in order

Your professor's past exams, doubly here, because they reveal the structure versus rights weighting and whether the policy essay is a standing feature, the profile worth building before any rep is spent. Then the casebook's end of chapter problems, then released exams from other sections, with every selection miss logged as a selector page repair in the outline.

FAQ

How do I drill selection by itself?

The one minute rep: take any government action, from a past exam or the news, and write only three sentences, actor, framework, test with burden. Ten a week through the final month, and the exam's opening minutes become reflex.

What if I chose a defensible but different framework than the model?

Grade the reasoning: a stated selection with a reason, plus a line acknowledging the alternative, often earns most of the architecture points. A silent selection, even the right one, earns fewer. Log silence, not divergence.

Should I drill the policy essay?

Once per debated doctrine: a timed paragraph, strongest case each way, your view last. The prepared paragraph in the outline is the deliverable; the drill is confirming you can adapt it in five minutes.

Written by Ali, Georgetown Law, founder of Lovare Institut.

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