Bocconi Law Test common mistakes
Bocconi Law Test · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Reading the passage once at normal speed and then answering from memory of its 'gist', so that questions about a specific clause, quantifier or concession are answered from an impression rather than the actual wording.
The Italian test rewards close reading of dense argumentative prose, and candidates carry over habits from speed-based school comprehension tests where the general idea suffices. Under time pressure the brain substitutes a plausible summary for the text, and distractors are deliberately built to match that summary.
What to do instead
Adopt a two-pass method: first pass for structure (mark the thesis, the counter-position and each paragraph's function), second pass only when a question points to a detail. For every answer, locate and underline the exact phrase that licenses it, and reject any option you cannot trace to a specific line. Practise on argumentative editorials, not narrative texts.
Treating 'the author would agree that...' and 'it can be inferred that...' items as literal-recall questions, choosing the option that repeats a sentence from the passage verbatim.
Verbatim options feel safe, so they attract candidates who have not distinguished question types. Inference items are designed so the verbatim option is either out of scope or restates a premise without drawing the conclusion the stem asks for.
What to do instead
Before answering, classify the stem: stated detail, inference, author's attitude, function of a paragraph, or main point. For inference items, eliminate any option that merely paraphrases a sentence; the correct answer must require one logical step beyond the text but no external knowledge. Train by writing, for each passage, one sentence the author implies but never states.
Solving syllogisms and conditional-reasoning items by intuition about what sounds plausible in real life, rather than by formal translation, so that converse errors ('if P then Q, therefore if Q then P') slip through.
Everyday reasoning is content-driven and tolerant of reversals that formal logic forbids. Under exam stress, familiar content (doctors, laws, taxes) triggers real-world assumptions that override the stated premises, and the invalid converse feels natural.
What to do instead
Translate each item into symbols before evaluating: P→Q, ¬Q→¬P, and check whether the conclusion is the contrapositive (valid), the converse (invalid) or the inverse (invalid). Deliberately practise items with absurd or counterintuitive content so that content cannot do the work. Keep a personal error log of the exact invalid forms you fall for.
Assuming that because two premises are individually true, any conclusion combining them follows, and ignoring whether the premises are universal, particular, or existential.
Candidates read premises as a set of facts rather than as quantified statements, so 'some A are B' and 'some B are C' get treated as supporting 'some A are C'. The quantifier is the whole argument, and skipping it makes invalid syllogisms look sound.
What to do instead
Circle every quantifier (all, no, some, some not, only) and test with a counterexample diagram: for 'some A are C' to follow, you must show it cannot fail. Draw two-circle or three-circle Venn checks for each candidate conclusion, and reject any conclusion whose truth allows a consistent arrangement of the premises in which it is false.
Confusing historical periods and institutions, for example placing the codification of a legal code, a constitutional charter or a philosophical school in the wrong century or attributing an idea to the wrong author.
The history and philosophy portion draws on a canon that Italian candidates meet in school but often only as disconnected names and dates. Revision by re-reading summaries creates familiarity without chronology, and familiarity is easily mistaken for knowledge.
What to do instead
Build a single timeline from antiquity to the twentieth century and place every figure, work and institutional change on it with one line of context (what problem it answered). Test yourself by covering the dates and reconstructing the order, and by matching authors to theses in both directions. Prioritise the sequence and the causal links over isolated dates.
Answering philosophy items by recognising a famous phrase or slogan and picking the option that contains it, without checking what the author actually argued or which position the option attributes.
Canonical phrases are highly memorable and create a fluency illusion; the option that sounds most quotable feels correct. Distractors exploit this by pairing a genuine phrase with a mismatched doctrine or by attributing one thinker's thesis to another.
What to do instead
For each major thinker, write a three-line card: the problem addressed, the core thesis in your own words, and the standard objection. When answering, read the option as a full proposition and ask whether that thinker would assert it, not whether the words are familiar. Flag and review any option that only works because of a memorable phrase.
Reading legal and institutional items as general-knowledge questions and choosing the answer that reflects the morally or politically appealing outcome rather than the rule stated in the item.
Candidates without legal training reason from fairness intuitions, while legal reasoning turns on sources, competence and procedure. The appealing answer is frequently the distractor precisely because it is what a layperson would expect.
What to do instead
For each item, identify the source of the rule (constitutional text, statute, regulation, case law) and the institution competent to act, then apply the stated norm even if the result feels harsh. Learn the basic hierarchy of sources and the division of competences as a framework, and practise explaining in one sentence why the attractive but wrong option fails as a matter of authority, not morality.
Skipping or rushing the English section on the assumption that everyday fluency is enough, without noticing that items test precise collocation, register and subtle tense or preposition choices.
Candidates who use English casually overestimate their accuracy on formal written English, where the tested distinctions (perfect aspect, article use, false friends from Italian, formal versus informal register) are exactly the ones casual use blurs.
What to do instead
Treat the English section as a precision test, not a fluency test. Revise the specific contrast pairs that generate items (present perfect versus past simple, make versus do, say versus tell, who versus whom, countable versus uncountable with articles) and read formal English prose such as quality journalism or institutional documents, noting collocations. Review every error by naming the rule, not by ear.
Allocating time uniformly across sections or spending too long on one hard item, so that later questions are answered in a rush or left blank despite being easier.
The paper mixes domains with very different time costs, and candidates often lack a practised pacing plan. Sunk-cost behaviour on a single puzzle feels productive and hides the cost paid elsewhere, and unanswered items forfeit marks that were easily available.
What to do instead
Fix a target time per item and per section in advance, and rehearse it in full-length timed simulations. Use a strict rule: if an item resists after the target time, mark it, give a provisional answer, and return only if time remains. Never leave a blank where there is no penalty for guessing, and review your simulation logs to see which section actually consumes the overrun.
Practising on full papers only, without analysing errors, so the same distractor pattern is chosen repeatedly across sessions.
Full simulations feel like real preparation and give a score, but a score without diagnosis does not change behaviour. Candidates remember the topic of a missed question rather than the reasoning error, so the underlying habit survives.
What to do instead
Keep an error log with four columns: the item, the option chosen, the reason it was wrong (misread stem, invalid inference, ignored quantifier, unknown fact, rushed), and the corrected reasoning in one sentence. Review the log before each new session and re-attempt missed items after a delay. Track error categories over time and target the two most frequent with focused drills.