Utility of the LSO Materials

[capitalttruth]

I'm wondering if I should read all of the Barrister and Solicitor materials at first, or just wait until the indices come out and jump right into practice exams before the Barrister exam. If the exam is just a matter of finding items in the index under time, what would the utility of reading the LSO materials beforehand be? I'm falling into the trap of over-highlighting already.

[loonie]

Although it's not an unheard of strategy to rely solely on the indices without reading the material, I think there is still value in reading them. From what I have heard, lots of people find it hard to use the indices without ever reading the material as a lack of familiarity with them can cause people to get confused and mistakenly reference the wrong key terms. In fact, I have heard that, recently, more and more people have been tending not to use indices altogether and instead use the Detailed Table of Contents to quickly flip to the appropriate section. 

In any case, I do think it is better to read the materials or, at least, skim them than to not do so entirely. However, in saying that, I also think it is more important to do practice questions and get familiar with using either indices or the DToC to come up with a personalized strategy that works best for you. So, my personal advice would be that if you are running short on time then prioritize the latter, but still try your best to read as much as you can in the meantime. I would also reference the 2023 UofT indices and look at the sample LSO questions to get a better understanding of if it will be a good strategy for you. 

Edited May 2 by loonie

[capitalttruth]

2 hours ago, loonie said:

Although it's not an unheard of strategy to rely solely on the indices without reading the material, I think there is still value in reading them. From what I have heard, lots of people find it hard to use the indices without ever reading the material as a lack of familiarity with them can cause people to get confused and mistakenly reference the wrong key terms. In fact, I have heard that, recently, more and more people have been tending not to use indices altogether and instead use the Detailed Table of Contents to quickly flip to the appropriate section. 

In any case, I do think it is better to read the materials or, at least, skim them than to not do so entirely. However, in saying that, I also think it is more important to do practice questions and get familiar with using either indices or the DToC to come up with a personalized strategy that works best for you. So, my personal advice would be that if you are running short on time then prioritize the latter, but still try your best to read as much as you can in the meantime. I would also reference the 2023 UofT indices and look at the sample LSO questions to get a better understanding of if it will be a good strategy for you. 

Thank you, really appreciate this response. Did you highlight when you read through the materials? Any tips on effective highlighting?

[goosie]

Copying over my response to a different thread, but tl;dr - I read the materials, minus one big chunk. I do think it helped me a lot to have read as much as I did.

On 5/22/2023 at 11:40 PM, goosie said:

I wrote the bar exams in July 2022 (i.e. post-cheating scandal, with the "harder" exams). I didn't get through all of the materials before the barrister exam (my plan was to read solicitor first, then barrister so it was fresh, then PR right before the first exam, then refresh both solicitor and PR before the solicitor exam). The part I didn't get to was the entire Civil Litigation section, minus the very first chapter. I passed on my first write. When I realized I was running out of time (I believe about 1 week before the exam), 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.

Maybe it can help alleviate your stress a bit to know that it might not be necessary to read every single word of the materials, though of course different things will work for different people. I definitely felt like the practice tests were crucial to me getting comfortable with the index (I used the UofT one). The other good thing about doing lots of practice tests is that I was able to notice a couple of errors in the index and put in a sticky note with a correction.

Another thing that was critical to me, which I don't see as many people mention, is having a question tracker. I printed out a sheet that basically told me which question I should be on at what time. Without it I definitely would have lost track of time.

[loonie]

21 hours ago, capitalttruth said:

Thank you, really appreciate this response. Did you highlight when you read through the materials? Any tips on effective highlighting?

Yes, I have been highlighting while reading the materials. I have a very simple method. I use different colours for: i) general rules/principles; 2) authorities; 3) what I believe is interesting information; 4) more important information that I intuitively believe can/will be an exam question. I'm not saying this is optimal -- and would advise you to use any system that works better for you -- but I really don't think highlighting is that important anyways. 

For instance, I wouldn't be too concerned about "over-highlighting". It's not like you're going to have to make concise notes or summaries of the information afterwards. For myself, I just highlight because I feel like it keeps me more engaged while reading.

[SNAILS]

I have almost finished reading the LSO materials, and I found that it's good to identify the parts of the materials that seem new or difficult and study those areas more thoroughly. For me, these areas include tax implications of family law and the various bookkeeping required when managing trust accounts in a law office.

My exam strategy is going to be to do about half the questions closed book (i.e. I will just write the answer without consulting any indices or written material). Then I can spend extra time on questions where I am unsure of the answer.

[capitalttruth]

How does one get more familiar with certain sections? I can try reading sections two or three times, but the sheer volume of reading and the fact that I'm a slow reader makes this really tough. 

I've been doing practice exams but the practice exams have only really helped me get more familiar with my TOC, not necessarily increasing my knowledge of each section. 

 

I want to incorporate a similar approach to the one @SNAILS is describing where I can answer some questions without needing to rely on my materials. I've heard that the LSO has written the exam in a way that makes simply CNTRL+F unfeasible. 

 

[Law_Student_X]

41 minutes ago, capitalttruth said:

I want to incorporate a similar approach to the one @SNAILS is describing where I can answer some questions without needing to rely on my materials. I've heard that the LSO has written the exam in a way that makes simply CNTRL+F unfeasible. 

 

As per the LSO Rules that were directed to us today, we can't bring in a computer so it's safe to say CTRL+F is off the table.

[yunglawyer]

There is value to reading the materials, especially if you are using the detailed table of contents over indices. But practicing is FAR more important, so make sure you are leaving yourself ample time for that.

The goal of reading the materials is to simply gain a broad understanding of the chapters/sections, so don't get caught up in the weeds. If you're struggling to understand a certain chapter, move on instead of re-reading.

[capitalttruth]

On 5/8/2024 at 10:57 AM, yunglawyer said:

There is value to reading the materials, especially if you are using the detailed table of contents over indices. But practicing is FAR more important, so make sure you are leaving yourself ample time for that.

The goal of reading the materials is to simply gain a broad understanding of the chapters/sections, so don't get caught up in the weeds. If you're struggling to understand a certain chapter, move on instead of re-reading.

My plan is to finish an entire read through of the materials by next weekend. I'll be annotating the TOC once I finish each chapter.

My plan is then to take about 2 weeks to do practice tests and then review/update the materials as necessary. I'll first do practice tests untimed to get a feel for using the TOC, then timed tests in the week prior to the exam to get my time management strategy down.

[capitalttruth]

I'm almost done reading the materials. I plan to finish the material by this weekend. I plan to do my first practice test on Monday. That will give me 2 weeks to take and then review 7 practice tests (every other day). Do you think 7 is enough? How many practice tests do people usually do to prepare?

[TobyFlenderson]

Seven should be more then plenty. I don't know anyone that took that many. Not to say you shouldn't, do what makes you comfortable, but I'd say it's more than the norm.

I took a free half-length test to get a sense for the indices, then two paid tests (and then the same again for the solicitor exam). If you're scoring 80-85% on timed practice exams, you're doing OK.