Major's ON Bar Exam Practice Tips & Resources (2023)

[Major_Agnostic]

PREAMBLE:

Major here with some practical tips for your second to last or last big, stupid barrier to becoming a lawyer. These tips are practical, so I won't be wasting your time with tips such as "go see your friends, take care of yourself, smile in the mirror before the exam, etc", as any adult taking this test should be aware of their mental health and peripheral considerations that are important to them. Also, linked throughout this doc are all the free resources that (I think) you'll need for the Bar. I do not recommend paying for anything unless some of my links no longer work and you can't substitute those resources.

The tips listed below don't focus on how to go about reading the materials, but I will say that the utility of reading is quite limited. The actual exams are quite focused on understanding/PR nowadays, so if you're like me and you don't remember that much detail from reading, you won't feel like it was worth it once you've done a bit of practice. If you're short on study time, you're better off jumping straight into practice questions and learning the material by looking at a question then searching the relevant subheader/area in the ToC or looking up keywords in the indices; this will point you to the relevant materials and you can learn some of the mats and their structure while simultaneously getting better at flipping and answering.

With that said, I do recommend reading, even if it's just a quick skim of the materials that interest you or seem good to know as a lawyer. Having read will allow you to snap to the right place more quickly after jumping to a section from the ToC or even clue into the section you need to look for, as it won't always be obvious from the question. As well, and more importantly, having read will allow you to answer some questions quickly and comfortably without having to look them up, saving valuable time. So, if you have enough time to read and practice sufficiently (2-3 weeks (more or less full-time) total per exam to be safe and not burn out), do it.

 

PRACTICE AND PREP TIPS:

Note: For all materials that I refer and link to, there is both a barrister and solicitor version.

0. Optional: consider practicing solely with the ToC at first, using only the indices when necessary, as the ToC is often faster to use and can help when you don't have a keyword that comes to mind. However, DO use the indices once you're used to the ToC. They will almost certainly get you a few extra marks.

1. Practice on an actual printed scantron, such as the one linked below: https://uh.edu/measurement-evaluation-center/forms-download/Form4521.pdf?fbclid=IwAR079LSkHHu0MkVf2W_GRlcucN2ac1zZzeFZ9ULq1-KHRsX1Vsqzkm6x-wY#Form4521

More generally, try to replicate the exam conditions as much as possible during your practice and don't limit this to simply writing under time constraints. Have whatever resources you would have on the actual exam at your disposal and use them as you would, such as a timesheet (check it every 20 questions or so), pencils, comparable desk space, etc. And be sure to set up your materials in the same way you'd set them up on the exam day desk (e.g. PR on the left with the TOC, current question section book on the right, and exam + scantron right in front of you). For timed practice, be sure to print out a scantron and the exam itself so you can practice the entire process, including a flagging system, if desired. Consider water/food/ID placement as well (probably under the chair, so you're not distracted by food/water).

2. As just mentioned, use a timesheet. This is a sheet that lists clock times by number of questions answered at certain intervals (such as every 5 questions), so that you have an idea of whether you're falling behind or not. I recommend this for both practice and the actual exam (which counted down from 4h30, at least in Ottawa, June 2023). As just mentioned, I recommend checking the timesheet every 20 questions or so; frequently enough to stay on top of things, but not so much so as to waste a lot of time.

3. Tabulate your ToC (label both sides of each tab). It doesn't take long and adding tabs for each section will save you a little bit of time flipping from one section to the other, which you'll have to do thanks to PR being strewn throughout. You may also do this for the actual materials as well (tabbing page intervals), but I didn't find it necessary as I fan pages quickly and developed a 'feel' for where to jump to after a decent amount of practice.

Also, you may find it useful to highlight each chapter within a ToC section as well as each subchapter (in a different colour than chapters; see this picture: https://imgur.com/a/egIUfgh). Annotate the ToC as well throughout your practice; any cryptic findings that are hard to locate should be added to the ToC. Finally, I HIGHLY recommend retabbing your ToC before the exam to make sure that no tabs fall out due to having lost their stickiness.

4. When first practicing untimed, focus on the triage process (see tip 5 in the next section) and getting a feel for your question approach rather than speed. Also, after finishing practice, whether timed or not, look up in the materials all questions that you didn’t look up or couldn't find while answering (and note down those cryptic ones in your ToC as you go, as aforementioned). Do this before looking at the answer key to practice the process more, but don’t change your answers, as this will cause your score to not be reflective of your performance

5. Extra resources: I recommend the following UoT charts: appeal routes and timelines (for Barrister), and tax appeals and tax calculations (for Solicitor). There may be other charts that you find useful, but these are the ones I consider essential. Keep in mind the physical space available to you when writing. Too many charts can lead to clutter.

6. Practice strategy: below I will recommend a practice order and resources to get you comfortable with answering bar exam questions, all for free. Read my EXAM WRITING TIPS below this section before using this strategy. These suggestions are made with 5-7 days available for practice (including a bit of an optional break) in mind:

a. If it's your first time studying for an Ontario Bar exam, begin with these 8 sample practice questions from barexamcrackers: https://barexamcrackers.com/sample/. These are honestly terrible and a mix of barrister and solicitor questions, but they serve an important purpose: giving a general idea of what the questions will look like and how you'll attempt to answer them. When answering these, read the question and answer options, reread if necessary, then search through the ToC for a chapter/subchapter that seems relevant. If you have the indices and think of a keyword, go for that. Just experiment a little and you'll get a bit of an idea of how you'll need to retrieve information on the exam.

I suggest doing these initial questions before reading, if possible, because they may help guide the way you think about the material relative to the ToC structure, as well as give you an idea of what to annotate or highlight, if desired. Otherwise, you'll likely be highlighting a bunch of useless information and distracting your future self during practice.

b. After having read all of the materials for a given exam (time permitting), start practicing questions without a timer once you've decided on your tactical approach; I've listed mine under tip 5 in the section below. Ideally, you'll spend at least a day doing such practice just to get a feel for searching through the different sections and using the resources you've selected (ToC, indices, charts, etc.).

I recommend using questions that aren't in a printable exam format (save these for timed practice), such as those mentioned in a. and the 9 free Emond questions here (just need to make a free account first): https://emond.ca/Store/Exams/Barrister-and-Solicitor-Practice-Exams-ON. After those, use any questions (NOT the 2014 or 2018 practice exams) from this DRIVE: (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iTvfsVnMK1VE9ggFnU1WhZMIprfAoaiC)

c. After a day of untimed practice (or more if you have time), I recommend the following as your first timed half-test ("free mini-exam"): https://accessbarprep.com/. If you're low on time like I was for barrister, you could do this exam after having done substep b. earlier in the day. Be sure to review your performance and make small adjustments to your approach.

d. The next day, go ahead and do your first longer timed practice exam. Don't do anything else that day except for checking the answer key and noting/revising your strategy and what to improve. Enjoy the rest of the day, if at all possible. The drive I linked above contains two practice exams: 2014 and 2018. I recommend doing the 2014 one first, as it has only 120 questions and is less reflective of the actual exam/outdated; save 2018 for later. Print the timed exams and write them with a printed scantron such as the one linked in step 1 above.

e. Now that you have good timed experience under your belt, you should be relatively comfortable with the process. If not, you'll want to modify your strategy and practice as much as possible (although give yourself a break from timed practice for a bit); this may include adjusting ToC/indices usage, adding some charts into the mix, adding some highlights or annotations, revising your triage method, etc. If time permits, reread PR (more PR is always good).

If you ARE comfortable with your performance af this point, I recommend that you take a break or do some reading for the next exam, if you have another one coming up soon after, or revise a PR summary; or maybe even relax! Your body can only handle so much sustained stress consecutively; believe it or not, hours of sustained concentration with limited movement is hard on you, even if it doesn't feel that way due to your focus. Besides, we all know by now of studies showing that memory and skills are enhanced with periods of rest between training, regardless of its nature.

f. After a day or two of break/revision (again, time permitting), head back into practice. This first day back should resemble substep b or a mix of b & c. Don't go all out, but you shouldn't have too much trouble pushing yourself a bit after the break since you should be used to the process. Do some more questions from the drive I linked above (untimed) and consider doing the following 10 LSO sample questions: https://lso.ca/becoming-licensed/lawyer-licensing-process/licensing-examinations/sample-examination-questions.

I recommend doing the LSO ones close to your actual exam, as they're probably the most reflective questions available. Also, take note of which habits have become automatic and what still needs to be worked on; at this point, you should just be doing a little bit of tactical fine-tuning, not revamping your strategy.

g. The next day, you should do your second and last timed practice exam. This should be the 2018 one mentioned above from the drive, which is about 170 questions (just stop after you've done 160 or delete a few questions from each section in advance). It should be printed along with a scantron and written as close as possible to exam conditions, including time of day, desk setup, a good meal prior, etc. If you have time, feel free to practice more, but you shouldn't need much more practice nor should you be modifying your strategy at this point. Revising PR is probably a better investment. Or just take the day before the exam off, if possible!

h. If you have time and motivation, refresh PR with a summary because it features prominently on both exams (without a dedicated section), so the more of those you can answer off the top of your head, the less time spent on grabbing that PR book. I don't recommend doing further practice at this point. Some people do timed practice exams the day before the exam, but I don't recommend this unless you feel that you're in dire need of more practice (like I did due to a compressed study schedule) or you have a surplus of energy. If you decide to do this, don't bother with a thorough analysis of your performance (if you even grade it at all) and just use the remainder of the day to rest.

6. Read the tips below (EXAM WRITING TIPS) before practicing.

 

EXAM WRITING TIPS:

Note: These tips should be implemented during practice as well, not just on exam day, but the tips below are particularly essential for exam day.

1. Preparing your physical space: I recommend wearing down your pencil(s) a bit before the exam starts so that you're bubbling in with a blunt end, which takes slightly less time. Check the table legs to make sure the table's solid. Make sure your calculator is good to go for solicitor. Be comfortable and test your layout; make sure to not have anything in your lap as you do the exam (like the book you're currently flipping through; I got chastised for it lol). Your food and water should ideally be beside or beneath you, out of sight so as not to distract you.

2. If you're not certain of an answer, go with your gut, even if you "sorta recall the mats saying something else". Going with your gut is important since you won't have time to look up every answer unless you have the best annotated resources in the world and insane practice experience under your belt. Also, go with your gut for PR ESPECIALLY; after doing enough PR practice, you'll get a feel for the way the LSO prioritizes different ethical considerations and procedures over others.

3. Only mark questions in the last section for review (no time to flip back much really, unless you've practiced so much that these tips will largely be unnecessary).

4. PR tips: Trust the client even if they're suspicious; doubting their intentions or behaviour doesn't allow you to act against them or disclose confidential info. They need to actually say that they'll do something bad or tell you to before you can rely on their words or behaviour to act adverse to their interests or withdraw (in other words, err on the side of not making inferences). Also, be realistic about the ability to quickly become competent in an unfamiliar area of law.

5. Below is my tactical approach to triage:

a. Super hard questions: These are questions that you have absolutely no clue how to answer, where even elimination won't get you a good guess. These types of questions include nitty gritty tax details or things that don't relate to anything you can identify in your resources or memory. These questions should be guessed as quickly as possible once identified as super hard and not flagged for review. With practice, you should be able to quickly assess question difficulty level.

b. Hard questions: These questions are challenging, but you've got a clue. Doing a preliminary search for the answer is optional and if you can't find the answer, you should be able to get a good guess down by process of elimination (if you can't, then this is probably a super hard question). Flag hard questions for review (consider marking this on the scantron beside the question number, if permitted). If uncertain, err on the side of not flagging as you will likely not have much time for review given that the actual exam is tougher than most practice materials, but these are the best questions to review.

c. Normal questions: These will likely comprise the majority of questions, being the ones you look up and answer within 1-2 minutes. Simply answer and move on without flagging, unless you're on the fence as to whether it's of normal or hard difficulty.

d. Easy questions: these are questions where you certainly know the answer or are very confident in your choice without having to look it up or you can find/calculate it within 30 seconds. Whether you're confident enough in throwing a question into this category will depend in part on the time you have left on the exam, so this category should be fairly flexible.

e. You should adjust the threshold for these categories as you practice so that you end up finishing the exam on time. In other words, if you find that you're running out of time, maybe throw some questions you found to be on the higher end of "hard" into the "super hard" category, or throw some normal questions into easy and don't look them up. Also, for hard and normal questions that you flagged, feel free to write down a small note of what you searched already for when you review (e.g. "not in Duty to Others").

6. Sometimes, the question isn't the best indication of where to look for the answer; the answer options may sometimes provide a better clue of which section/keyword to search, so keep this in mind before jumping into your ToC or indices. Read the answer options first every time!

7. Reread tips 1-2 from the previous section for time management and logistics tips. Good luck!

8. Bonus tip: Here are my timed practice exam scores and keep in mind that I did a few dozen untimed practice questions between timed practices. I think these scores show that you can improve a lot in only a few days, and I ended up passing both exams the first time:
Barrister: 57% (80-question free Access Bar mini sample), 68% (2014 practice), 85% (2018 full practice), 90% (10 LSO questions)
Solicitor: 75% (80-question free Access Bar mini sample), 100% (8 LSO questions) (yep, didn't have much time to practice for this one lol...)

[Major_Agnostic]

NOTE: The drive that I linked to in the main post may or may not have the mats I refer to throughout. For some reason, the contents have changed a few times, but now the 2014 practice exams and answers are back up. I'll try and get the 2018 exams up too, but no guarantees since it's not my drive. Feel free to contact the drive owners or try and get any missing mats from other students as a last resort.