Westlaw's new questions

I've spoken to a few of my friends who actually bother with this semester's westlaw trivia gimmick, and the general consensus is that Westlaw's new trivia questions are unnecessarily tougher. Whereas before, the answer could be figured out fairly easily and points awarded as a result, the trivia now requires extra effort (and in many cases extraordinary efforts) to figure out what the right question is. And since there are less points to win and less ways to win them, it makes me wonder whether it's even worth this effort at all. Certainly if I was a first year student, I would think not.

First, I can understand the need to copy Lexis's idea of forcing you to have to do some sort of research to figure out the answer, but Westlaw's trivia comes at a point in the work session where the user has to log back in. Second, their point values are worth a little more than the penny, so why require more than a penny's amount of effort? Third, why be so stingy with how your key demographic can get points? Even the television networks cater to the online market by offering multiple methods to watch their popular television shows. This is more of a rant than anything else, but whatever reasoning lies behind the amount of work for so little westlaw reward is simply illogical.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to post a comment and maybe Westlaw will key in on it and come up with some sort of "Valentine's" gimmick as a way to save face.

Tags: westlaw trivia