82 questions
Each test holds the same questions every time, so you can take them in any order.
This theme is about how justice works in the UK. Which court hears which kind of case, what the police do and what they may not do, the laws everybody living here has to keep, and where British rights came from in the first place. Almost all of it sits in the handbook chapter on government and the law, with a short run of older history behind it.
The courts take much the largest share, a little over four questions in ten once jury service is counted in. Which court hears a minor criminal case and which hears a serious one, which handles a civil dispute, who sits in each of them, how a jury is chosen and what it decides, what magistrates and solicitors do, and what the small claims procedure is for. Scotland has its own court system, and it gets a separate question for nearly every court the rest of the UK uses. Northern Ireland differs in two places.
The rest divides fairly evenly between four smaller blocks. The laws everyone must keep, which covers criminal and civil law, weapons, illegal drugs, age limits and harassment because of somebody's religion or ethnic origin. The police, their duties, Police and Crime Commissioners, Police Community Support Officers, what must happen after an arrest and how to complain. The crimes the handbook singles out as happening inside families, meaning domestic violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. And the older documents British rights rest on, from Magna Carta to the Human Rights Act.
Mostly which and where. A named court, a named body, an age, a number of jurors. A smaller group asks what a principle means rather than what it is called, and those are worth a second look, because the handbook states each one plainly. Judges are independent of government. If a court rules that something the government has done is unlawful, ministers have to change the policy or go to Parliament to change the law. Carrying a weapon for self defence is itself an offence, and defending yourself is no excuse.
Scotland runs a different system, and it is asked about constantly. Minor criminal cases go to a Justice of the Peace Court rather than a Magistrates' Court. Most civil work goes to the Sheriff Court rather than a County Court. The biggest civil cases go to the Court of Session in Edinburgh. A Scottish jury has 15 members, not 12. Young people who break the law go through the Children's Hearings System.
One name, two meanings. The High Court in Scotland is where murder and the gravest criminal charges are heard. The High Court in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is where the most serious civil claims are heard. Check which part of the UK the question is about before you answer.
Northern Ireland twice. Minor criminal cases there are heard by a District Judge, someone legally qualified and paid for the work, rather than by local magistrates who are neither. And youth conferencing is the Northern Ireland approach to young offenders.
Criminal and civil. A dispute with a landlord about repairs, wages you have not been paid, debts, injury claims and divorce are all civil matters. Criminal law is the state acting against wrongdoing.
Who decides, and who punishes. Magistrates decide guilt and set the sentence themselves in the cases they hear. In a Crown Court the two are split, with the jury deciding guilt and the judge alone setting the punishment.
Five dates for where rights came from. Magna Carta in 1215, which established that even the king was bound by the law. The Habeas Corpus Act in 1679. The Bill of Rights in 1689. The UK signing the European Convention on Human Rights in 1950. The Human Rights Act in 1998, which made that Convention part of UK law.
The age limits. 18 to buy alcohol or tobacco and to go into a betting shop. The single exception is at 16, for wine or beer with a meal in a hotel or restaurant when an adult over 18 is with you.
Answers the world has moved past. Scotland's not proven verdict is still in the handbook, and it was abolished for new criminal trials from 1 January 2026. The handbook names the Independent Police Complaints Commission as the complaints body for England and Wales, and it was replaced by the Independent Office for Police Conduct in January 2018. The handbook gives 70 as the upper age for jury service, and in England and Wales it has been 75 since 2016. The test still marks the handbook's answers correct, so answer the book. When one of these comes up in practice, a Worth knowing note appears beside the answer with the current fact, so you learn both.
Pick this one if the courts run together in your head, or if you keep answering for the wrong part of the UK. It is a short theme with a small number of hard edges, so it usually improves quickly. It shares a handbook chapter with Government, Parliament and Politics, and the sections on rights and on what you can do in your community turn up in both. It also meets Equality, Welfare and Social Change where the law protects people from discrimination. If the whole modern chapter is the problem rather than the law in particular, the wider track is chapter 5.