Feeling extremely behind on bar exam studying - tips to speed through

[MapleLeafs]

15 hours ago, goosie said:

I prioritized getting through PR because it was shorter and I needed it for both exams, and doing practice tests, first untimed, then timed about 4 days before the exam. I think I did about one exam a day.

 

Would you mind sharing what PTs you did? Just trying to decide which ones to purchase. 

[OzLaw16]

7 hours ago, Bachtowork said:

Also I'm worried that the DTOC alone may not be sufficient these days, since the exams are allegedly less straightforward now. When did you write the exams?

I wrote before the cheating scandal, so I can’t speak on how the exam has changed. If I had to give my two cents, I’d argue that the changes (based on how I’ve heard other people describe them) make the DTOC an even more appealing option over an index than it was before, since less straightforward questions probably mean that learning to find the answer by topic is more helpful than learning to find the answer by some magic combination of key words. But take that comment with a grain of salt since I don’t have any personal experience with the more recent exams. 

[Bachtowork]

11 minutes ago, OzLaw16 said:

I wrote before the cheating scandal, so I can’t speak on how the exam has changed. If I had to give my two cents, I’d argue that the changes (based on how I’ve heard other people describe them) make the DTOC an even more appealing option over an index than it was before, since less straightforward questions probably mean that learning to find the answer by topic is more helpful than learning to find the answer by some magic combination of key words. But take that comment with a grain of salt since I don’t have any personal experience with the more recent exams. 

That makes sense! So far, when doing practice questions, I am finding the DTOC a lot more useful; I've been using it about 90% of the time. Admittedly, I haven't timed myself yet. Hopefully once I finish annotating the DTOC and get more familiar with all of the subheadings, I'll be able to move fast with just the DTOC. 

[goosie]

21 hours ago, Bachtowork said:

Would you recommend using charts (for appeal routes, civil litigation timelines, etc.)? I'm finding the indices quite unwieldy, because of how often the same keywords show up multiple times; moreover, I sometimes think of different keywords than what they used. For those reasons, I'm thinking of just annotating my detailed table of contents and mainly relying on that (as some have done in the past), but not sure if that's a good idea. 

I didn't use charts, but I found that the indices worked well for me. Do whatever works best for you. That's another thing the practice tests are good for - if you find that the detailed table of contents + charts gets you better results than an index, then use that.

6 hours ago, MapleLeafs said:

Would you mind sharing what PTs you did? Just trying to decide which ones to purchase. 

I don't fully remember, but looking back I think I used Bar Exam Crackers, Emond, CanBarPrep, Access Bar Prep, and Ontario Law Exam. Early on while I was still doing untimed tests I did the LSO's sample questions just so I could get a better sense of how they might look on the real thing. I know I left Emond for last for both the barrister and solicitor exams. I also got some old practice exams from friends who wrote the bar exam in previous years, but given how much things have changed in the last few years I would use those with an understanding that they were probably not going to be accurate to the real test (but they were free).

I tried to approach the practice exams realizing that the questions themselves might be very differently phrased or structured on the real exam (which they were), but with the goal of getting faster and better at using my index. Eventually when I came across enough of the same type of question I even had where some info was memorized (like appeal routes). I didn't necessarily have the answer to the question memorized, but I could flip to that paragraph without having to look it up.

[BlockedQuebecois]

Just so folks reading this don’t feel pressured to buy a ton of practice exams (which I’m sure are extortionately priced), the only practice I did was reviewing the twenty LSO sample questions. Many of my friends did the same, or bought one set of practice exams.

Before spending a ton of money on practice exams, it might be worth doing the free sample questions and maybe a single timed exam to get a sense of how you’re doing. If you find you’re able to answer the vast majority of the questions correctly, you probably don’t need to buy multiple practice exams from multiple providers. 

[jlaw]

Hi! Does anyone recommend buying the flash cards from Emond for the solicitor bar prep? I was thinking of buying them but don't know if it's worth it.