How to choose a bar exam prep provider

We are not going to tell you which other companies to avoid. We sell preparation, so our opinion of a competitor is worth exactly what you would expect, and a page of that would be advertising wearing a review's clothes.

What we can usefully give you is the set of questions we would ask if we were buying rather than selling. Ask them of us too.

Who is behind it, and for how long

A question bank can be assembled in a season. What cannot be assembled quickly is knowing which mistakes are common, which subjects candidates consistently under-prepare, and what actually goes wrong in the fourth hour. That comes from years of sitting with people after a disappointing result and working out why.

Ask how long the provider has been preparing candidates for these examinations, and how many. A new entrant with a large bank has the content. What it does not have is the pattern.

Does the same question appear in more than one product

If it does, you are paying for one test several times, and a score that climbs across them is memory, not readiness. Ask directly.

What do you get back afterwards

A score is not feedback. Anyone can tell you that you got 118 out of 160. The useful question is what you should do on Monday morning, and that requires knowing which categories cost you the most marks, whether your accuracy held across the full 4.5 hours, and which questions you got wrong while feeling confident.

Ask to see what the report actually looks like before you buy. If nobody will show you, there is a reason.

Is it timed properly

The Ontario papers are 160 questions in 4.5 hours, open book with print materials only. A provider whose practice is untimed, or timed generously, is preparing you for a different exam. Untimed practice has a place, but it is study, not simulation, and it should be sold as such.

What happens if you have to write again

Ask before you need to know. A provider who charges full price for a second round is telling you something about how they see the relationship.

Since you asked

OntarioBarExam.com is a new name on an old business.

LexPD has been preparing candidates for the Ontario bar examinations for over 12 years, thousands of them. OntarioBarExam.com is the platform that work now runs on: the same tutors, the same understanding of where candidates lose marks, built into something that scales past the number of people one person can sit with.

Every question in our bank was built for these examinations, no question appears in more than one of our products, our mocks run the full 160 questions on a 4.5-hour server-kept clock, and every attempt produces the report described above. If the Law Society has granted you accommodations, we match them at no extra charge and without asking for documentation.

Ask our competitors the same five questions. That is the point of the list.