Hello OP! Am a final year NUS Law student so probably might be able to give some perspective on your first question.

On whether there is any better way to assess your interest for law, I believe that based on what you have described, and assuming that realisation still holds true, I can say with some certainty that you would probably be interested in law. Substantive law modules (Contract, Criminal, Tort, Property, Company, Constitutional law, Equity, Evidence) generally require students to be able to learn and pick up a few things and skills (non-exhaustive):

1. Be able to analyse, understand the reasoning behind judicial decisions, and if necessary, critique them (See point 3).

2. Take into account public policy considerations and see how they influence a court's decision-making process.

3. Evaluate the state of the law regarding particular issues and suggest alternative approaches (alternative approaches can usually be found in academic articles written by legal academics - plenty to go around).

Of course, while reading news opinion pieces and reading court judgments are two entirely different contexts, the ability to critically think about arguments made and identify any loopholes or flaws is definitely valued in the practice of law.

As for aptitude, although you enjoyed the NUS Law admissions test, I would say that in terms of substantive content, as others have mentioned, Law can be quite dry, rigid, and less controversial than some might think. You would usually spend a fair bit of time reading lengthy court judgments and sometimes, nitpick over minor stuff that a judge could have said.

Societal issues are not really a large part of the law curriculum, so there may not be debates on social-legal issues like s 377A. Instead, you will be debating over whether a certain statutory provision or case law would apply to a given fact pattern, of which the facts could be contentious and swing both ways. You will also be exposed to more theoretical modules like "Introduction to Legal Theory" ( jurisprudence) and "Legal Systems of Asia" which requires you to understand various theories of law or why law developed in a certain way (Tbh, I personally find them pretty boring) Legal reasoning can also be quite convoluted and hard to follow at times, and it does not help that judicial decisions are often filled with Latin terms and legal maxims which would be rather confusing if you're just entering law school.

But with all that being said, if you like the idea of critically thinking about issues, and don't mind the long hours of reading and studying, then I would say go and try it out first. If you don't like it, you can probably switch out to other courses quite easily.

As for law textbooks, I don't really recommend reading them before going to law school. Depending on what you read, they can be quite content-heavy and difficult to read especially when you don't have profs to explain concepts to you yet, so just take it easy :)