My Bar Exam Journey

by: Christian Adrianne M. Arbiol, J.D.1

Disclaimer

The tips I have mentioned here are not failsafe, but these served me well during this
difficult time. Try at your own risk, but remember too that nothing in life is risk-free. There is no
harm in following them though.

Acknowledgment

My heartfelt thanks go to my family, Papa Lito and Mama Nilda, Alyssa, Alyanna for
giving me the best legal education I could have given the situation, to Uncle Yong, Mama
Minda, Kuya Leo, ate Gian, ate Che and kuya Gilbert for the financial support.

To the love of my life, Angelika Magallanes, for inspiring me to give my best in

everything I do and whose uncompromising love and unwavering support enabled me to
accomplish this feat and “slay” the bar exam dragon.

I am also grateful to Andrei Maghirang, J.D., and Yuji Mediavillo, J.D.2, Cedric Comon,
Ingrid Calub, Christian Magsino and ate Charie Maghirang for your valuable insights and for
assisting us in our needs during our stay at the hotel. Especially to my roommates, Andrei and
Yuji, who discussed with me possible bar questions before we go to sleep so when we wake up
the next day, we are confident enough to answer the bar questions.

Thank you also to the hardworking men and women of SBCA School of Law
Administration, and the 2019 SBCA Centralized Bar Operations. Your selfless support and
assistance enabled me to pass the exams healthy and with a calm disposition.

To my friends, colleagues and loved ones who continued to support and pray for me,
thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Preliminary

The Bar Exam is just that—an examination that you may pass or fail. It is not your life
nor does it dictate and control the same. If you treat and look at the bar exams this way, the
sooner you will realize that passing the bar exam is possible as long as you dedicate yourself in
your review.

There are other factors involved in the bar examinations and those are outside of your
control. The weather during that day, who the examiners are, what questions will be asked,
what topics will the examiner concentrate on, and their manner of appreciating and grading
you—let go of your thoughts concerning these (externals) and just focus on those that you do
have control—such as practicing your handwriting, studying the laws and cases covered by the

12019 Bar Passer and yet to take the Lawyer’s Oath and sign the Roll of Attorneys.
2Similar to my situation, they are also 2019 bar passers and yet to take the Lawyer’s Oath and sign in the Roll of
Attorneys

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syllabi, and the manner you answer the questions—these (internals) are worthy considerations
that you must bear in mind. Let go of the externals and focus on what you can control at the
moment.

Before you prepare for the bar exams, make sure that you spring-clean your life first.
Settle those matters that you think will appear during your review, or those that will be recurrent
as you go on. Time is of the essence during your bar review. Thus, carrying these unnecessary
emotional baggage will consume your time and may ultimately distract you as you prepare.

When you wake up in the morning, after praying, try to think of the worst outcome that
you may encounter during the day. Anticipating them will enable you to prepare as these events
unfold. In a way, you can also be assured of your pacing during the review.

Set your review schedule in the same way that the bar exams will be conducted. I start
at 6am and I end at 7 or 8pm. It is also important that you set a weekly break—similar to weekly
rest day provided by the Labor Code. During this day, use it for your leisure, to relax and unwind
after you finish a week’s worth of review. Try to exercise before you review and only eat those
that will not cause you indigestion.

Participate in mock bar exams conducted by your review center or by your school. This
will help you to familiarize yourself with the stress and time element involved in the actual bar
exams.

Lastly, but not the least, when you intend to improve your handwriting, always look for
someone who is honest in evaluating or even criticizing your paper. If that person can criticize
your sentence construction and even grammar, do not be afraid to take his/her opinions
regarding your handwriting. The opinion of an impartial third person is crucial in this process,
considering that you do not have the slightest ideas regarding the examiner on how he/she will
appreciate your answers. Follow the general rule: always present your answers neatly, in a
logical fashion and briefly as possible. Do not indicate in your booklet answers that were not
called for by the question, this may also be construed as marking.

Pre-bar review preparation tips

A. Sleep:

Getting quality sleep is a must during this period. I end the day by writing my thoughts in
a journal. This practice helped me attain peace every night before going to bed. If during your
review you feel lightheaded or sleepy, try to sleep but for a short period only. This constant
battle of staying awake and sleeping should always be resolved in favor of the latter; your brain
will have a hard time analyzing your books and materials and retaining the information you
acquire during this state. If you are hesitant, try to exercise for short intervals but do not overdo
it.

Also, to avoid getting sleepy after your lunch break, do not overindulge yourself with food
and try to avoid fatty food and those that are difficult to digest (i.e., red meat and deep fried food
— unless if you drink tea or Yakult after you consume them).

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B. Reading techniques:

During my junior year in law school, one of my professors recommended watching the
course titled: Learning how to learn by Dr. Barbara Oakley in Coursera. I’ve watched it again
before I prepared for the bar.

The course taught me that there are two modes of thinking: the focused and the diffused
state. Some students only use the focused state, such as pouring your concentration on the
material, or even rereading it for maximum retention without any distraction—however, this is
not the only effective method. The diffused state of mind helps you learn by letting your mind
wander for a bit and it usually happens when you are about to sleep or while you’re taking a
mental break from the material. The complex or even difficult subjects will come into your mind
in another form (such as imagining hypothetical situations, or by correlating the information to
another much easier version of the same or to another branch of knowledge which seems odd
at first, but would matter later on), and somehow, the mind absorbs it like a sponge although
you are not actively focusing on the material itself. After I finish every subject, I always try to
imagine hypothetical situations and I practice answering them without looking at my notes. This
helped me retain the information I need without sacrificing much of my time reading.

To avoid procrastinating during your review and maintain focus: use the Pomodoro
technique. This technique requires you to set a time (25 minutes at least, or more if your focus
muscles are stretched enough) and during this period, devote your focus only on what you are
reading or doing. After the time is up, set a short break of not more than 5 or 10 minutes per
session and then, after completing 4 sessions, the 4th break is usually longer or twice than the
one you originally set.

During the bar exams, I used the same method by taking occasional breaks to relax my
mind and my writing hand after answering tough and difficult questions. I have also used this
rest period to drink water or to attend to my personal needs during the exam.

Where did I do my daily readings? In a well-ventilated room that is enough to induce

productivity while avoiding the temptation of falling asleep. Do not try to study in a noisy or
populated area as you will have the tendency to look around and observe those around you.
This will disrupt your focus and prevent you from achieving your daily reading goals.

Do you need music to study? Personally, I prefer complete silence while studying.
However, when I feel tired or if the material is too complicated, I listen to the compositions of my
favorite baroque and classical composers such as JS Bach, WA Mozart and J Haydn to name a
few; but my personal preference is Mozart’s piano compositions. They put me in a light mood
and it made studying more enjoyable than before.

C. Diet tips

I bought one set of Yakult every week to aid my digestion especially at lunch. After
finishing lunch, I usually take one bottle of Yakult. It helped me avoid any invitation to doze off
(siesta). Avoid eating chocolates and sweets during your review. This will induce the state of
“sugar-rush” and will injure your productivity after it wears off. However, this is subjective and

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based on my personal observation during the review period. During the bar exams, I ate only
dark chocolates and candies whenever I feel sleepy or when I have a hard time formulating my
answers.

D. Maintaining your over-all health during the bar review and pre week.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, you have to at least exercise twice or 3 times every week.
Jogging, brisk walking or occasional basketball game suffices your needs during your review.
Be careful not to over-exert yourself in this. A tired body will prevent the mind from studying.

For mental exercise: I played a lot of games during my bar review. I played sudoku,
chess and answered crossword puzzles. I practiced essay writing also in my spare time. I’m
grateful that Angelika was very supportive in reading and sometimes criticizing my daily
messages to her. It enabled me to practice a lot on sentence composition, grammar and proper
punctuation. When I have time to spare, I read Philosophy treatises and books for variety. There
are times that I consult my legal philosophy notes to remind myself what this particular law is all
about and the basic controlling principles that led the Supreme Court in interpreting the same.

Emotional health: inform your family members and loved ones that you will cave yourself
as you prepare for the bar. Help them to understand that your review demands a lot of your
time. My advice is to settle your personal issues first, considering that unnecessary emotional
baggage taxes your energy to study. The bar review is stressful already, and having these
uncomfortable situation puts you at a more disadvantageous position.

During the Bar Exams

When I wake up every Sunday, I always take cold showers to awaken my body. I say a
short prayer and go to the breakfast section of the hotel we were staying at. Usually before
breakfast, the last minute tips are now available for distribution and reading. However, I avoided
reading these tips and I heavily relied on the notes given by ABRC as it already contains the
notes I have written and I am already familiar with it. Familiarity is important during your last
minute review, as overindulging yourself in acquiring and/or reading notes will place you at a
quandary and you’ll be anxious about what material speaks best to you. The sorting of these
materials should’ve done before and not during the day of the exams.

Tip: find someone or those whom you are comfortable with while staying at the hotel.
Your comfort and your sleep during the Saturday evening is crucial in your preparation for the
next day.

My bag contains the following items which I found useful for the actual exams:

1. Dark Chocolates;
2. Mentos Candies or Snowbear;
3. Big bottle of water (when you bring water bottles to the examination site,
remove the label first; if you are bringing your own tumbler, use only those
that are really clear);
4. Packed lunch courtesy of my school and bar operations;

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 5. Plain Skyflakes (in case of emergency)
6. Gatorade (for extra boost and as substitute for my energy needs; trust me,
the afternoon subject is taxing because you’ll get sleepy due to exhaustion)
7. Pilot V-5 Hi-tecpoint (button) 9 pcs. (I brought a lot of extra pens in case of
emergency and I find this pen comfortable to my style of writing; also, in
choosing your pens, make sure you are comfortable enough to use it and use
only those pens that do not smudge easily. Remember: presenting a neat
paper plays an important role in assessing your answers too.);
8. Vicks inhaler and menthol to put on my head whenever I feel tired or stressed
out during the exams;
9. Clipboard (trust me, it is difficult to find a good spot in UST where you can
study comfortably);
10. Enchiridion by Epictetus — in case my mind will be clouded by negative
thoughts. I read this instead of my notes whenever I experience this. A
distressed mind performs poorly especially if the endeavor is academically
demanding—such as the bar exams.

Be sure also to bring a comfortable jacket with you when you take the exams. Also, do
not forget to bring your permit! Guard your examination permit with your life because the guards
are strict when it comes to your permit. Moreover, the proctors will not allow you to take the
exams without the permit. Guard it with utmost care and with extraordinary diligence!

Another, do not attempt to bring any watch (if prohibited by the guidelines) and any other
devices, such as phones or so. If you know someone from your school’s BarOps, or if your
loved ones are there, leave your phone and other electronic gadgets to them. Do not attempt to
bring it in the examination room, as it may also disqualify you from taking the exams. You can
also have the option to leave it at the guards, but it will take too much of your time in depositing
and claiming them. Make your choice.

Answering the bar questions

READ CAREFULLY THE INSTRUCTIONS!

By this time, you must be already familiar with how bar questions are framed. You
should have improved your issue spotting skills, your handwriting is now readable enough and
your grammar and punctuation must be on-point during this time. These skills are essential if
you want to pass or even top the bar examinations. When you know the law, you already know
half of the battle; the tides will be decided by how you present your answer to the examiner in a
logical fashion, and your answers show that you are worthy enough to be concluded as member
of the profession. Do not worry, you still have time to practice on this area as long as you do it
ahead of your time.

Another important tip: do not use any person or character not referred to in the
question, because this will be construed as marking and will disqualify you from taking
the examinations. Read the problem with meticulous care and with the intent to understand so
you can easily spot the issue posed by the problem.

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 Angelika gave me a tip that was very useful when answering bar questions. She told me
to prepare a rough draft of my answer in the questionnaire so in case I would have a hard time
finding the right answer, I can criticize my initial take on the question. Also, this will help you
save time since this rough draft presents the flow of your answer; this method incidentally
increases your chance of presenting a neat answer. Note however, that you should not overdo
yourself in this aspect. Prepare only the ROUGH draft, not the actual one. The latter is placed
on your booklet, not on the questionnaire.

Do not be afraid to take your time in answering the bar exam questions. When I took the
bar, the earliest I submitted my booklet was 5 minutes before the bell (11:55AM in the first
subject, and 5:55PM for the second subject) but do not be late or be adamant when the proctor
tells you to submit it as soon as the time is up. Finishing first or last has no bearing in the bar
exams. But if you finish early, you still have a lot of time to review your answers or you can still
improve the same. Note: Do not strive for perfection in answering every bar question as it
would take much of your time in overemphasizing your answer. Remember too you have a
limited period to answer the bar, which usually involves 20 or more problems, with sub-
questions provided almost in every problem.

At the end of the day, you only need to garner an average of 75% to pass the bar. 75%
or 100%, it’s still the same—you will still be allowed to practice law.

Be sensitive! Do not anymore discuss your answers or compare them with your friends
or seatmate. If you feel the need to discuss or if your friends are willing, discuss instead the next
exam.

After you finish every subject, don’t look backward anymore and focus on the next exam.
You no longer have control over the past, but dwelling on it will surely affect the present and
your future (next subject). Accept and let go—it will bring you relief and the needed confidence
to hurdle the next exam.

Books and materials I’ve used

General tips

When you finally choose the books and materials you will use, stick to them! Hoarding
review books or materials will not do you any good, but will only confuse you as you go on.
Avoid the temptation of buying books that the examiner is an author of, and as much as
possible, do not listen to any “chismis” regarding the identity of the examiners as you make the
judgment—no one can surely predict who the examiners are, but always try to focus on what
you can do at the moment. You should not also discard the materials you have used during your
senior year especially if you are a fresh graduate.

Moreover, try to ask those who recently passed the bar exams, or if you have a
professor who mentors you, try to solicit his/her opinion because they know the pros and cons
of the books you have in mind. While I was reviewing for the bar, I mainly used San Beda’s
2019 Red Book Vols 1 and 2. I supplemented these books with the materials given to us by

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SBCA Centralized Bar Operations, especially the FAQs and survey of possible bar topics in
essay format as practice sets.

These reviewers use the Q&A format that you can use to practice answering bar
questions. NOTE: Use the red book only if you have a clear grasp of the basic principles
governing the bar subject concerned.

BRB is comprehensive enough for the bar, but if it is your first time reading a subject, or
if you have difficulty comprehending the same, I would recommend that you reread your law
school textbooks or reviewers BUT MINIMAL READING ONLY. Rereading textbooks in whole
will cost you your precious time. If you are not satisfied, try to look for other reviewers that follow
this Q&A format, or the UP suggested answers to previous bar exam questions may suffice.

Companion books and materials

You will never go wrong with reading your codals. Every bar subject demands you to
read them in its black-letter form. However, I gave special emphasis on the codal provisions of
Constitutional Law, Labor Relations, Civil Law, Taxation Law, Criminal Law and Remedial
Law—I view these subjects as heavily codal-based and the bar questions are somehow
answerable by just using the codal provisions.

LEX PARETO books are helpful also in conducting your survey of possible bar topics
and areas that you should take into account. If your school’s bar operations conduct this survey,
you can already skip LP; but you can also conduct your own if you have spare time. Be careful
also while reading the LP as the reviewer may already be outdated. While reading LP, make
sure your updated jurisprudence or reviewer is with you.

The books mentioned here are the same ones I’ve used in my senior year. My familiarity
with those books saved me a lot of time, as I have already indicated my own notes and those
given to us by our professors. Thus, recalling those difficult, sometimes abstract, concepts
became easy for me especially during the pre-week and last minute reading.

Note: I’ve only read BRB and these books twice during my review; one during the pre-
bar period and the other is during my pre-week review. I focused on quality reading instead of
quantity. Moreover, I do not strongly believe in rereading your books—instead, I shifted my
focus on practicing by answering previous bar questions and rereading only if I have difficulty in
answering these questions or if I forgot something.

Now, for the specific bar subjects:

Political law

Nachura’s Outline (2016 ed.) and Suarez Political law reviewer (2018 ed.) (This book
supplements the lacking Q&A in the Red book. This book is comprehensive enough for your
political law, but it will take too much of your time especially if you are already cramming. If you
have used it during your senior year, the book’s value will save you a lot of time digesting your
own cases) Note: The Suarez book already contains a summarized version of this

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comprehensive material, just turn at the end pages of the book (useful especially during the pre-
week and last minute reading)

Labor law

Ungos Reviewer and Notes taken during his class. (He was my professor in Labor
Standards, Labor Relations and Labor Law Review. I merely consolidated the notes I’ve written
while I was his student in these subjects)

Civil law

Rabuya’s Civil law Reviewer Book 1 for Civ 1, and Aquino’s Civil Law Reviewer for Civ 2
subjects. While I was studying for civ in law school and the bar review, I concentrated on the
codal provisions. Use your codal here especially during your pre-week review.

Taxation law

Dimaampao books on Tax Principles and Remedies and Income Tax (Good books for
incorporating jurisprudence as Justice Dimaampao made taxation easier to understand). For the
remaining topics, I relied on the red book and my personal notes for tax 2 subjects.

Commercial Law

Sundiang & Aquino Reviewer (2017 ed.) and Villanueva Take Note (2019 ed.) (these
books are enough for you to pass commercial law).

Criminal law

Boado Notes and Cases in Criminal Law (the thick one) [2018 ed.] and San Beda
Memory Aid (MA, 2018 ed.) (MA has been my trusted companion during Criminal law review in
my senior year)

Remedial law

Albano Reviewer for Spec Pro, San Beda Memory Aid (I used MA during my remedial
law review) and Riano books, especially for criminal procedure and evidence. Like in Civil law
and Criminal Law, I concentrated on the codal provisions more.

Ethics

Red book only and I practiced my handwriting by doing forms.

Materials

I enrolled at Albano Bar Review Center and I used all the materials and handouts given
to us by ABRC. This adage stuck to my mind like glue during the bar review: Stick to one. I only
read their materials during the pre bar and in my pre week review—especially their magic notes!

For the Last minute tips

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 I never read any LMTs except the LMT of San Beda in Taxation—because I crammed
reading taxation law during the pre bar (you should not do this, because taxation is really
difficult). During the pre-week and last minute review, I carried my Albano magic notes and
materials given by ABRC. I avoided reading last minute tips while having breakfast on the day of
the exam so I can enjoy my food, and at the same time, to relax before taking the exams.

Familiarization with my chosen books and materials served me well and saved a lot of
time since the material was already glued to my mind. This familiarization technique allowed me
to draw the answers easily and with accuracy during the actual exams.

I also attended all the pre bar lectures, but I skipped pre-week and last minute lectures. I
preferred to stay at home and practice answering more bar questions. I also had quality time
with my girlfriend and my family during the morning of Saturdays, and I tried to maintain a calm
mind before I face the actual exams. I avoided unnecessary stress during this period to
preserve my health since your preparation will go down the drain if your body is tired during the
exams.

To emphasize: PRIORITIZE PRACTICING OVER READING. The bar exam is not

merely a test of your entire legal knowledge, but it tests your APTITUDE to practice law. You
have to be well-versed in spotting the main issue in the questions, and your answers should be
responsive to its call. Moreover, rereading your notes or books won’t do much but tax your time
and comprehension.

The best way to understand and comprehend a complex or difficult topic is to answer
sample questions related to the same. You’ll have a clear grasp of what the law is all about after
that. Also, before I took the bar, I enrolled at Dean Ralph Sarmiento’s bar coaching. He offers a
personalized mentoring which includes issue spotting, handwriting tips and your over-all
presentation of your answers to the bar questions.

If the review center you’re currently enrolled at already offers this service, make sure to
use and ABUSE it to the fullest extent possible. A good presentation of answers will really spell
the difference between passing and failing the bar exams.

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