Insights from:

Atty. John Angel N. Bautista

Roxanne Daphne O. Lapaan (2019 Bar Passer)
Cherish G. Rufino (2019 Bar Passer)
Danielle D. Bunquin (2019 Bar Passer)
Richard L. Sayson (2019 Bar Passer)

https://www.facebook.com/batasforeveryjuan
attyja.batasforeveryjuan@gmail.com
For most people, the Bar Examination is the ultimate test of wits. They say that only smart people pass,
and those who are not don’t. But we, lawyers, law students, and Bar reviewees, are not like most
people; we do not subscribe to that notion. We all know that there are really smart people who fail in
the Bar. And there are various reasons why.

To say that the Bar is merely a test of intelligence is, at best, ignorant. While intelligence is a big factor
in passing the Bar, there are various factors that affect a person’s chance of passing. Tough luck,
unfortunate events, improper guidance, lack of resources, lack of support, distance from Manila,
personal struggles among other things take a toll on a Bar taker’s chances. Surviving law school is, in
itself, an evidence of one’s intelligence. But surviving the Bar is another thing. It requires entirely
different sets of skills and strategies.

With these in mind, we came up with 14 tips which are aimed at guiding future Bar takers in their
journey to the coveted title, ATTY.:

The Bar examination is a war, one fought with notebooks and a pen. Like a real war, it will entail a
lot of sacrifices, require great skill and discipline, and deplete resources. And just like any war, one
cannot by any stretch of the imagination emerge victorious without any sort of preparation. And
the first step in the preparation phase is summarized in one of Socrates’ three Delphic maxims:
“Know thyself”

Knowing yourself is part and parcel of your preparation for the bar. You will have to answer a few
questions before start with your review, and these questions can range from existential ones to
ones that involve petty idiosyncrasies. “Am I ready?” “Why am I doing this?” “What is my goal?”
“What review center has a schedule that suits my waking-up time?” “Can I live on my own during the
review?” “Which color of highlighter works for me?”

All of these questions help in furthering your understanding of yourself. With enough knowledge of
how your system works and operates, start designing a game plan to hurdle the war that you are
about to face. With an effective plan and sufficient knowledge of the subject matter, you will
prevail.

The Great Bar Exam Game Plan | 1

Do you learn better reading? Or do you learn more by listening? Are you a note-taker? Or do you
prefer storing all the information in your head?

People learn through different styles and different modes. Some prefer reading; others don’t. But
ultimately, what works for you is something that only you can answer. Think about this carefully
because this will determine what types of materials will work for you. If you learn more by reading,
read more. If you comprehend better by listening, invest in recording. If you learn by charts or
mental maps, look for reviewers that use those. Or make one yourself.

A mistake in this area could spell disaster to a Bar examinee. If you used the wrong style, your
ability to recall the concept is affected.

This is a lesson that is being taught since day one of law school. But this one becomes particularly
crucial in the Bar review. More or less six months of review is barely enough for one Bar subject, let
alone eight. A timeline of activities would help a lot in allocating the very limited time for the
review. However, in making the timeline, you need to account and allocate time for unforeseeable
events. Leave a few days blank in case there are things that may come up. It must not be
susceptible to shocks so as not to sacrifice the time for other subjects.

Managing your time is also valuable in taking the actual Bar exam. Ideally, you are given four hours
per bar subject. And everyone who has taken the bar exams will tell you that those four hours are
barely enough to finish one bar subject. In this case, you will have to learn how to answer in a fast
and efficient manner (See tip #9).

The mind is not infallible. It is capable of committing mistakes, which it usually does. Hence,
memorizing provisions is not advisable as it is prone to mistakes, and these mistakes could poten-
tially jeopardize you chances of passing. A mistake in writing a provision verbatim is just as bad and
dangerous as a wrong answer. A better approach is learning the essence and wisdom of the law as
it can be reworded or rephrased without losing its meaning.

However, this is not to be taken to mean that memorization is not a good answering technique. If
you are confident that you have memorized the provisions in verbatim and you can write them as
is, you have a much better chance of acing the exam, provided that you analyzed the provision
well. Also, there are instances that you really have to memorize, especially definitions and of
course, the Lawyer’s Oath.

Handwriting, as most examiners and reviewers claim, is vital in securing your slot in the roster of
Bar passers. Also, it is a long-held belief that cursive raises your chances of passing as opposed to
print. However, forcing yourself to learn cursive when it just does not work is a suicide mission. Not
only will that significantly diminish the time you have for answering questions, it might also affect
the readability of your answers.

The best approach to this is improving what you are currently using. If you are used to cursive,
improve it with practice. The same goes for print. Make sure that an elderly examiner can read your
work. It also helps to ask others to critic your handwriting.

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Review and assess the Bar syllabus, no matter how stressed it’s making you. Knowing the you do
not know half of its contents is a bitter pill to swallow. But is has to be done. Otherwise, you will be
facing the review blindly.

To make the most of the syllabus, use the Feynman Technique. The Feynman Technique was the
birthchild of Richard Feynman, an American theoretical physicist. As applied to the Bar exam, the
Feynman technique requires you to do the following:

a. Familiarize yourself with the syllabus - Browse the syllabus and decipher for yourself why it
is designed that way. The syllabus provides more information than you might think. It can show
you how other concepts are interconnected with other concepts from a different law. It can
also give you valuable insights as to which legal concepts are fundamental and which are not.

b. Explain the concepts to a common tao - The Feynman technique stipulates that the test of
whether you understood a concept well or not is your ability to convey the idea to a toddler. It
is a metaphor of course but, in your case, ask an ordinary person to you and explain to her/him
the topic. If s/he understood the whole concept, you can proceed with the rest.

c. Identify gaps in your knowledge base - If, in an attempt to teach something to a common
tao, you found it difficult to explain or you hardly know the topic, flag the same as a gap. Mark
these concepts which you do not know.

d. Review and simplify the marked concepts - The key to a holistic and comprehensive review
is having at least an idea about every topic in the syllabus. To do that, the Feynman technique
directs you to spot the gaps in your review, read on them, and simplify the concepts. To test
whether you were able to fill the gaps, go back to explaining the topic to a common tao.

A word of caution though: The Feynman technique might not work if the syllabus is too general. In
order to come up with a more detailed version, check previous Bar syllabi or make your own based
on your books.

There is this principle in economics known as the Pareto Principle or the 80-20 rule. This concept
was coined by Vilfredo Pareto. As applied in the bar exams, the Pareto Principle entails that 80% of
all bar questions come from just 20% of all the legal provisions in the area. To get a feel of what
these provisions are, check the bar exam trends for the past few years.

There are various review materials out there which identify the Frequently Asked Questions in the
Bar Examination. These provide great insights as to what topics to prioritize in your review.

Some people have this misplaced notion that bar reviewees must veer away from common topics
because they will not be asked anyway. That notion must be corrected. The only way you could
understand other seemingly peculiar concepts is by learning the basics. Facing the Bar without a
solid foundation of the basic legal concepts is a recipe for disaster. And in fact, the bar examination
itself is a test not of advanced legal knowledge but of the bare minimum in the practice of law.

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A great lesson which can be derived from Sun Tzu’s Art of War is that the key to winning battles is
knowing yourself and the enemy. Here, the bar exam is the enemy. And to fully understand how it
works, you might have to experience it firsthand.

Practice tests can help a lot in spotting potential mistakes and gauging your aptitude in preparation
for the bar exams. They can provide valuable information which can be used to diagnose gaps in
your study. And there are various exams you can take to improve your test-taking skills.

Diagnostic tests can be used to test your prior knowledge on a subject matter. Post-tests can be
compared side-by-side with the diagnostic tests to compare the improvements in the results of the
diagnostic tests. Speed tests can be undertaken to gauge whether you can work under pressure or
not.

It is also imperative that you simulate the Bar Examination environment so as not to be
overwhelmed. Devote four hours for on bar subject, just like in the bar. Take note that in answering
Bar questions, brevity is your friend. For an examiner who has to check thousands of answer note-
books for a very limited time, your “short story” will do no good for you or the examiner.

A famous (fictional) theoretical physicist Dr. Sheldon Cooper, BS, MS, MA, PhD, SCD once said,
refuting the the-more-the-merrier analogy: “That's a false equivalency, more does not equal merry.
If there were two thousand people in this apartment, would we be celebrating? No, we'd be
suffocating.”

The same holds for the Bar exams. The volume of materials that you have is not directly
proportional to your probability of passing the bar. In fact, it can even be detrimental to your
mental health. Having tons of materials and not being able to read a lot of them will take a toll on
your confidence, thinking that you are not prepared.

Purchasing one or two main references will help with recall. Most review materials have the same
content because after all, they are commenting on the same law. Hoarding materials will just raise
more confusion than enlightenment, and confusion is a bar examinee’s greatest enemy. Meanwhile,
mastery of the same materials helps with establishing familiarity to the concepts involved, raising
the probability of recall.

The Bar examination is the most popular examination in the Philippines. That in itself is a guarantee
that the discussions on various platforms about the exam is a fertile breeding ground for gossips
and false news. But believing in these gossips will not help you. In fact, it might even be detrimental
to your overall strategy. Do not fall for it. Stick to your strategy because regardless of whether the
gossips are true or not (but the latter is more probable), if your game plan is foolproof, you will
survive the bar.

Also, different reviewers give different advices on how to review. And they are giving these advices
because they mean well. But at the end of the day, it is your call. If you think that such strategy
does not work for you or that your strategy works better, do not adopt it. Don't change horses in
midstream.

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Reviewing for the Bar should not be your end-all, be-all, your raison d’etre. While the Bar is an
important part of your life, do not study round the clock and ignore everyone or everything else.
You are human; you need a break. You are human; you need to be with your family and friends.
You are human; you need to treat yourself like one.

It is true that sacrifices have to be made. You will have much less time to spend on gatherings and
catching-ups. But it is important that you maintain a semblance of normalcy. After all, when all of
these is done, you will have to revert back to where you were before the Bar. It is good to have
those connections once that happens.

The Bar is not a race; what other reviewees are doing does not, in any way, affect you or your
scores. All you have to bear in mind is that you are racing against time alone and towards a
certain mark.
Feeling intimidated by others is a valid feeling because it is almost always instinctive. But you
should learn not to mind others. You are two entirely different bar takers and what s/he is
doing might not apply to you or even concern you at all. At the end of the day, you will go to
the exam room alone and leave the same room alone. Eyes on the prize!

Sleep should be non-negotiable. It is common knowledge that lack of sleep for a considerable
amount of time may lead to long-term effects on your health. The last thing you would want to
happen on the day of the examination is get sick. Everything you sacrificed for will be rendered nil.
Rest is also important. Burn-outs are common during review season. In order not to be burned out,
take a reast every once in a while. An unrested mind is not efficient.

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