Take the following quiz to compare common beliefs about contracts with the reality. Consider whether the statements are true or false.

1. Promises to make gifts are legally enforceable.

2. Advertisements create offers that can be accepted to make a binding contract.

3. Clicking “yes” on a terms-of-use icon does not create a binding contract.

4. An airline ticket's confidentiality clause prevents the airline from sharing personal data.

5. Employees can only be fired for “cause.”

6. Contracts must be fair to be legally valid.

7. A celebrity's payment to a gadfly to hush up about a private affair creates a valid contract.

8. Gambling contracts are invalid.

9. Promises must be kept, come hell or high water.

10. Caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”) rules.

11. Children are responsible for their contracts just as adults are.

12. When someone breaches a contract, courts most often order them to perform it.

13. When courts award money for a breach of contract, the amount includes all losses the breaching party caused.

14. Courts punish people who breach contracts by requiring them to pay punitive damages.

15. If a contract says what money should be paid upon breach, courts award that amount.

16. Good Samaritans are legally entitled to compensation for the benefits they confer on others.

17. To be valid, a contract must be in writing and signed or notarized.

18. Contracts cannot be changed once they are made.

19. Promises must be performed to a tee so that shortcomings forfeit all rights to any promise the other side made.

20. No one but the parties to a contract can have any rights or duties under it.

If you chose true for any of these, you are most likely reading this conclusion before reading the book. All the statements are false, and this book has explored why.

The correct answers are the product of centuries of ongoing refinements that give contract law unmatched pedigree, with an amazing constancy in which classic cases from scores or hundreds of years ago remain pivotal to resolving disputes today. Modern contract law – from the founding of the United States until today – has never been extreme but tended always towards a sensible, practical center.