Passing the ON bar exams without reading the materials & I wrote in English as a Francophone
As the title says, I passed both LSO bar exams without reading the materials. I wrote both exams in June 2026.
The method to my madness?
-I began studying about 2 months before the exams.
-I started with taking all the 2025 Emond exam prep courses for Barrister and Solicitor, and I printed out the slides and I took handwritten notes. Each subject had a cours of about 6 hours, except for Business which had 3 courses of about 12 hours total. Each 6hrs course would take me 2-3 days to complete.
-I printed the materials and spiral-bound each subject separately, when the LSO made them available to us. In each binder, I included a copy of the Detailed Table of Content (DTOC) provided in the material.
-I did an untimed Brickam test for each subject after each Emond course and I would write down the answers in my notebook. To find answers, I used the materials + the DTOC provided in the materials + Emond pdfs and notes.
-I read the U of T summaries and charts, after completing all the Emond courses.
-Then, I reviewed my notes of the Emond courses + notes of answers to questions per subject
-Then, I did these practice tests timed: Access Bar Prep (all their practice tests, especially for Prof Resp), Brickam (mini and full exams), Emond (full exam), Pinpoint (mini exams)... I referred to the materials and my notes from Emond courses
-I used a time tracker everytime I did mini or full practice tests, and I also used it on the actual exams.
-I never used an index but I used the DTOC provided in the materials. Indexes did not make sense to me.
Why did I not read the materials?
-short answer: i was intimidated by the huge amount of material to read that my brain would just shut down.
-The material was also too dry and too new for me.
-I am a slow reader and I never had to study this way. I always had teachers explain things to me. For the rare times, I've had to learn things this way, it was never this much information and it was never for a high stakes exam like this one.
-I was worried that I'd get lost in the weeds and miss the big picture or miss the most important concepts.
-I graduated many years ago, and in law school, I did not take any of the Solicitor classes. By June 2026, I had forgotten most of my Barrister classes.
-Many years ago, I wrote the bar exam without reading 90% of the material and without doing anything else to learn. I winged it on the exams. Of course, I failed and I just gave up.
-after the 2021 cheating scandal, I heard that questions became harder and they now require a deeper understanding of the materials than before.
-And it's no longer a search-and-find exercise. I found that this was true when I wrote exams in June 2026 as there were many questions which I had to think hard and take an educated guess.
-my first language is french but I wrote the exams in english for reasons explained below. So there was also some language barrier on my end.
-I was fortunate to have the time and money to take the Emond courses and to take all those practice exams.
A Francophone writing exams in English. Why?
-my first language is French but I chose to write in English for multiple reasons. English materials had less pages than French materials; the terminology was obviously different; French materials often felt like a direct translation of the English materials and the sentences did not always make sense to me; the outside resources (bar prep courses, UofT summaries, practice tests) are mostly (only?) available in English; at the exam, the questions are already long and convoluted in English so I was worried that the French exam would be even worse and that I'd not be able to answer all the questions.
-It worked out well for me and I am very grateful.
Exam day:
-Day before, did not study and I slept 9+ hours.
-For breakfast, I had lunch with meat in the morning, not a traditional breakfast. It allowed me to not get too hungry during the exams.
-I did not dring any tea or coffee to avoid trips to the bathroom during exam
-for each exam, I packed bananas, cookies, cheese and water. I only drink some water when I was parched.
-I was not able to look up all the answers in my materials. I looked up about 40% of the questions in my materials, that's all I had time for...
-some questions mixed 2 or 3 concepts so there was no way for me to look up each concept before answering. I took educated guesses and moved on.
-Use a time tracker and stick to it. Take educated guesses and move on. Sometimes I had to physically pinch arm to force myself to stop searching and move on.LOL
-Answering all the questions was my #1 goal.
-Carefully reading all the questions was my # 2 goal. And I was able to accomplish both goals thanks to the time tracker.
-after the Barrister exam, I did not study that day. I slept early that night as I was exhausted. I resume studying the next day for the solicitor exam.
-I finished Barrister exam with 7 min to spare and I finished solicitor with 2 min to spare.
-after each exam, I genuinely had no idea if I would pass or fail. It could go either way. There were so many inference-based questions for which I had to guess the answer. There were many Prof Resp questions too that I just had to guess and move on. There were also a many questions that I answered solely based on knowledge I got from Emond courses and practice tests.
How I organized my life to study?
-I did not work during the 2 months that I was studying
-I did have 2 young kids, including a baby. I studied while they were in school and in daycare, and also at night after their bedtime. My spouse was the real MVP and I am forever grateful. My parents were also amazing and I am also very grateful for them.
-I was obviously not contributing to home responsabilities as much as I usually did but they stepped up (cooking, cleaning, laundry, bathing kids, taking them to activities, etc..)
-I missed about 15 days of studying because of family obligations and sickness (my exhaustion + kids will bring home all the germs)
Last words: please do what works for you. Good luck to all of you !!!