Promise

The MBE rarely tests “promise” in the abstract; it buries the issue in a single clause and makes you decide whether that clause is a promise, a condition, or both. The classic pattern: a buyer “promises to pay within 30 days of delivery.” Read that event as a pure condition and its non-occurrence merely suspends a duty — no breach, no remedy. Read it as a promise and the broken commitment gives a cause of action for damages. When wording is genuinely doubtful, courts read it as a promise (constructive condition) rather than an express condition to avoid forfeiture — but not when the language is unmistakably conditional.

The trap is conflating the promise with the doctrines that make it enforceable. A promise is just the commitment; consideration (or detrimental reliance) supplies enforceability — not every promise binds. An offer is a promise conditioned on the offeree’s assent, so it is freely revocable before acceptance unless an option contract or UCC firm offer locks it open. Remember: “a condition you fail; a promise you break.”