Is the Ontario bar exam getting harder?
It’s impossible to say for sure. Anecdotally, though, a lot of licensing candidates have reported that they found the Ontario bar exam to be more challenging than they initially anticipated (simply lookup “Ontario bar exam” on Reddit and you’ll find all kinds of reports of this nature). This contrasts with candidates who wrote the exam many years ago, who often reported that they found the exam to be quite easy.
Assuming, then, that the Ontario bar exam has become more challenging, what can you do to prepare yourself? We’ve covered this question extensively in some of our other blog posts (see, e.g., here and here), but a few points are worth re-stressing. First, make sure you read all of the study materials provided by the Law Society. No, you don’t need to memorize it all (that would be impossible). But you should at least be familiar with all of the materials provided by the Law Society. The questions on your bar exam come from these materials, and so the more comfortable you are with them the more likely you’ll be able to succeed on test day.
Second, do practice tests (the more the better). It’s one thing to read over all of your materials. But you also need to practice flipping over your materials quickly and efficiently so you can answer questions fast on test day. Almost uniformly, licensing candidates report that time goes by extremely fast on test day. And so you need to get comfortable navigating your materials in a time-effective manner. This can only be achieved by sitting down and taking some practice tests.
Thirdly — and this is a piece of advice we haven’t yet provided — you need to know how to apply the information contained in your study materials to factual scenarios. In other words, you need to be prepared to be analytical on test day. Gone are the days (if the ever even really existed) when the answers to Ontario’s bar exam questions could be pulled directly from your study materials. Instead, candidates report that you need to truly understand your study materials and be able to apply them to the questions in order to succeed on test day. So, if during your bar exam prep you find yourself not understanding something, rather than simply skipping it, take a minute and try to figure out what’s going on. If you do, you’ll be much more prepared on test day.
