Time To Start Studying!
With the Fall sitting for the barrister exam now only 6 weeks away, it’s time for those of you who plan to write the exam to start studying. Or, at the very least, it’s time to come up with a game-plan for studying. “But how do I come up with a game-plan for studying?”, you might be asking. Fret not. In this post, we’re going to address this topic.
Our best advice is to treat studying for the bar exam as if it were a full time job. Yes, we know that studying is not a real job. In fact, most of you already have a real job (i.e., your articling position). But, nonetheless, it helps to treat your bar prep as if it were a job. This means that you should create a study calendar weeks in advance of the actual test and, more importantly, do your best to stick to that study calendar.
Okay, so we now know that creating a study calendar is important. But what should that calendar look like? Assuming you start your studying now, we’d advise blocking off a few hours each weekday in the lead up to test day (but be sure to take weekends off, you don’t want to burn out!). If you do that, then you should be able to easily get through all of the study materials before it’s time to actually write the bar exam. In fact, you’ll probably be able to get through the materials more than one time. This is a good thing because, having read the materials over more than once, you’ll be a pro at navigating them when test day finally rolls around.
Another good tip for creating a study calendar is to create mini-goals for yourself. For instance, tell yourself that you want to get through the “Professional Responsibility” and “Civil Litigation” sections by a certain date (e.g., October 20th). Setting mini-goals like this will help keep you focused. You’ll also be motivated to make study a little harder to make-up for days when you can’t study at all (so that you still meet your “mini-goal”).
In creating a study calendar, we’d also advise leaving the days leading up to test day for practice tests. Yes, reading the study materials is absolutely critical (and will undoubtedly be the most time consuming part of your bar prep). BUT, you want to make sure that you actually have a handle on those study materials. And the only way to do this is by completing practice tests. We’d recommend completing several different practice tests from several different test providers. That should give you a pretty good idea of just how prepared you are. Oh and don’t be discouraged if you don’t score well on the first one or two practice tests you write. Take some time to review those tests so that you can see where you’re struggling. Then, try another test or two and see where you stand after that. The goal is to be IMPROVING with each practice test you write—not getting 100% on your first go-around.
Because we KNOW that practice tests are critical for success on test day, and because we want you to score well without breaking the bank, we’re offering all of those planning to write the Ontario bar exam this Fall a 20% discount on ALL of our practice tests. Simply use the discount code “PASS” at checkout. Good luck and stay tuned for some more advice from us in the lead up to test day!
