AIL LET key terms

A national entrance test format used for admission to integrated law degrees, typically assessing English, current affairs including general knowledge, logical reasoning, legal reasoning, and quantitative techniques through multiple-choice questions.

The section that tests a candidate's ability to apply a stated principle or rule to a new factual situation and choose the conclusion that follows, without assuming outside law or personal opinion.

A question format in which a short legal principle is supplied, followed by facts, and the candidate must decide which outcome the principle dictates even if it conflicts with intuition or real law.

A logical reasoning task requiring identification of an argument's structure, including its conclusion, premises, assumptions, and the effect of strengthening, weakening, or inferring additional statements.

An unstated premise that must be true for an argument's conclusion to follow; a necessary assumption is one without which the reasoning collapses, while a sufficient assumption guarantees the conclusion.

A conclusion that follows necessarily from given statements, as opposed to a guess; in reasoning sections only what is strictly supported by the text counts as a valid inference.

A scoring rule that deducts a fixed fraction of a question's marks for each wrong answer, penalising random guessing and rewarding selective, confident attempts.

A minimum score that must be achieved in each individual section of a test, in addition to an overall qualifying score, for a candidate to be considered for admission.

A ranked list of candidates prepared after the test and any interview, usually combining test score, academic record, and reserved-category adjustments, from which seats are offered in order.

A relative score showing the percentage of candidates who scored at or below a given result, used to compare performance across different test sessions and difficulty levels.

A statistical adjustment applied when a test is conducted in multiple shifts, converting raw scores into a common scale so that differences in paper difficulty do not unfairly advantage one group.

The legal rule or principle on which a court's decision actually rests; it binds lower courts in later cases, distinguishing it from incidental observations made in the judgment.

Remarks made by a judge that are not essential to the decision; they carry persuasive weight but are not binding on later courts as precedent.

The doctrine that a court's decision in an earlier case guides or binds courts deciding similar later cases, subject to higher courts overruling and to distinguishing on facts.

The basics of recording transactions, preparing a balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement, and understanding assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, and expense, tested in commerce-flavoured law entrance papers.

A statement of an entity's assets, liabilities, and equity at a point in time, showing what it owns, what it owes, and the residual interest of owners.

The excess of current assets over current liabilities, measuring an entity's short-term liquidity and its ability to meet obligations falling due within a year.

Quantitative techniques such as ratio analysis, averages, percentages, probability, and interpretation of data tables, tested to gauge numerical aptitude in integrated commerce-law programmes.

The use of accounting relationships, such as current ratio, debt-equity ratio, and return on capital, to assess liquidity, solvency, and profitability from financial statements.

The ability to read a table, chart, or graph and derive correct conclusions or computations, a common quantitative topic requiring careful attention to units and base values.

Core rules on offer, acceptance, consideration, capacity, free consent, legality of object, and remedies for breach, forming the foundation of commercial legal reasoning.

Something of value exchanged between parties to a contract, such as a promise, act, or forbearance, which must be lawful and real for the agreement to be enforceable.

Failure to perform a contractual promise without lawful excuse, entitling the innocent party to damages, specific performance, or termination depending on the nature and seriousness of the breach.

The systematic framework of research design, sampling, data collection, and analysis used to conduct reliable legal scholarship, tested at the postgraduate and doctoral level.

Legal research that analyses statutes, judgments, and commentary to determine what the law is on a question, relying on primary and secondary sources rather than field data.

Research that collects observable data, through surveys, interviews, or case-file analysis, to test hypotheses about how law operates in practice rather than how it is stated.

A testable, falsifiable proposition stated at the outset of research that predicts a relationship between variables and is accepted or rejected based on evidence.

Selecting a subset of a population for study, using probability methods such as random or stratified sampling, or non-probability methods, so that findings can be generalised with known limits.

Presenting another person's words, ideas, or data as one's own without proper attribution; in academic legal writing it is a serious research misconduct with disciplinary consequences.

A precise reference identifying the source relied on, such as a case, statute, or article, following a recognised style so that readers can locate and verify the material.

The set of laws, regulations, and institutional choices governing how technologies such as data systems, artificial intelligence, and digital platforms are developed, deployed, and controlled.

Legal rules governing the collection, storage, use, and transfer of personal data, typically requiring consent, purpose limitation, security safeguards, and rights for data subjects.

A principle requiring privacy safeguards to be built into a system's architecture and defaults from the outset, rather than added after deployment as a corrective measure.

A controlled environment in which regulators permit firms to test innovative products or business models under supervision and temporary rule relaxations before full compliance is required.

Legal rights protecting creations of the mind, including patents, copyright, trademarks, designs, and trade secrets, granting owners limited exclusive control over use and commercial exploitation.

The conditions an invention must satisfy to obtain a patent, usually novelty, inventive step or non-obviousness, industrial applicability, and patentable subject matter.

All publicly available information existing before an invention's filing or priority date, used to test whether the claimed invention is novel and involves an inventive step.

A doctrine permitting limited use of protected works without the owner's permission, judged by factors such as purpose, nature of the work, amount used, and market effect.

The financial condition in which a person or company cannot pay debts as they fall due, or has liabilities exceeding the value of assets, triggering resolution or bankruptcy proceedings.

A time-bound statutory procedure under which a debtor company's affairs are managed by a resolution professional, creditors decide on revival, and a resolution plan may be approved.

An insolvency practitioner appointed to take control of the debtor's operations during resolution, verify claims, run the business as a going concern, and present resolution plans to creditors.

The body of financial creditors that decides key matters in a corporate resolution, including approval of a resolution plan by the specified majority vote.

The process of winding up an insolvent entity, realising its assets, and distributing proceeds to creditors in a statutory order of priority before any surplus returns to owners.

The statutory order in which liquidation proceeds are distributed, typically beginning with resolution costs, then secured creditors, workmen dues, and other creditors in prescribed priority.

A structured document outlining a proposed doctoral study, covering the research problem, literature gap, objectives, methodology, timeline, and expected contribution, assessed at admission.

A personal written statement explaining a candidate's academic background, research interests, motivation for doctoral study, and fit with the department's research strengths.

An oral examination or interview in which a panel questions a candidate on their proposal, subject knowledge, and research aptitude to assess suitability for admission or a degree.