The final weekend before the bar exam can feel overwhelming. You’ve spent weeks (or months) preparing, and now you’re staring down the last few days before test day. But here’s the thing: studying for the bar exam is like training for a marathon. You need to taper off your training in those final days so you can rest and restore your energy.
Nobody training for a marathon runs 20 miles two days before race day, right? The same principle applies to bar prep. If you’re studying until the very last second, you’re probably setting yourself up for failure. Let’s walk through what you should actually be doing this final weekend to show up on exam day well-rested and ready to perform.
SATURDAY: START GETTING INTO EXAM MODE
Wake Up at Exam Time
If you haven’t started already, Saturday is when you need to begin waking up at the time you’ll need to get up on exam day. This is especially important if you’re not a morning person. You usually have to be at the exam center by 8:00 or so at the latest, and if you’re driving yourself there, it could be even earlier.
Think of this like adjusting to jet lag. If you’re someone who doesn’t respond well to jet lag and isn’t naturally a morning person, start getting up early. Give yourself a few days to shift your schedule. Some people are even traveling across the country and dealing with actual jet lag—if that’s you, start adjusting your sleep schedule even earlier.
Practice in Three-Hour Blocks
You need to get comfortable sitting and focusing for a solid three hours without taking a bunch of breaks. California test-takers need to practice three-and-a-half hour blocks. You want to mimic the actual testing conditions as closely as possible.
This means timed, closed-book practice for multiple choice and essays. No water bottle on your desk if that’s not allowed during the actual exam. Limit bathroom breaks. Think about what you’ve been eating and how it affects your ability to sit still and concentrate.
Here’s the reality: sitting in one spot for three hours and just using your brain is physically difficult. People underestimate this. Many unsuccessful test-takers blame day-of fatigue, especially during that second day afternoon session.
Get Comfortable Switching Topics
If you’re doing the MEE, you’ll have three hours and they’re going to hand you six essays. That’s very different from sitting down and thinking, “Today I’m going to do a civ pro essay.” Nobody’s going to tell you what the essays are about on exam day.
With our tutoring students, we call it the “surprise package”—it just gets put into a schedule and they have to sit down and do it. If you’ve never done back-to-back essays like that, you need to do them this weekend. Your bar review provider should have supplied these, but if not, grab a bar prep friend and put together surprise packets for each other. Or download a full exam from a few years ago.
Figure Out Your Lunch Schedule
You probably want to eat lunch around the same time you’ll be eating during the test. Make sure you’re eating enough. This can be a problem if you’re a big snacker—the bar doesn’t really let you take snack breaks. You don’t get your 2:00 latte. You need to adjust to the examiners’ schedule.
If you don’t usually eat lunch at noon and you’ve got to eat at noon on exam day, figure out what you need to eat to make it all the way until 4:30 or 5:00. That’s a very long time. You also need to think about calibrating your caffeine and sugar intake. If you eat too much, you get drowsy. Too much sugar and you crash. Try some things out this weekend and see how they make you feel.
Do a Test Run to the Exam Site
Decide how long it’s going to take you to get there and where you’re going to park. You want to make sure the day you’re planning to park isn’t street cleaning day. Seriously—these details matter.
If you’re taking public transit, make sure you know exactly what you can take and have a backup plan. Public transit can be incredibly unreliable. In California, the bar is typically given in Oakland, and if you’re thinking “I’ll just jump on BART from San Francisco,” you better have a plan B. If BART stops running in the tunnel, you’re stuck. What’s your backup? Can you walk? Who can you call?
Get Your Registration Materials Organized
Print or download anything you need. If they mailed you anything you’ll need, make sure you have that too. Put it all in a gallon-sized clear Ziploc bag (check your jurisdiction’s specific requirements). Know exactly what you can bring into the room and have everything organized so you can grab and go.
Check that your ID is valid and not expired. Driver’s license expiration dates can sneak up on people. If you’re international, do you need your passport? Make sure you’ve checked all the boxes so you can just show up, show them your documents and your plastic bag, and sit down without any issues.
Confirm Your Computer is Ready
Turn off automatic updates. Make sure you’ve done all the testing and downloaded or uploaded everything you need. Check that your power cord works. You really don’t want last-minute computer surprises. If there’s testing software, make sure you know how to use it. Are you allowed to use spell check? What formatting options do you have? You shouldn’t be spending time on exam day looking for the bold button.
Study Smart: Focus on Heavily Tested Law
From a study perspective, spend your time (six to eight hours max) focusing on weak areas of heavily tested law. You need to know everything that’s likely to show up on the test. If it’s heavily tested, know it. If you don’t know it, create a list and start drilling that material this weekend.
Don’t get caught up in predictions. We’ve talked to many people who gambled on predictions and were wrong. Yes, Professional Responsibility will be on the California bar—that’s about as close to a guarantee as you get (it’s on something like 95% of exams). But beyond obvious things like that, you can’t game this test.
The reality is that they’re going to throw in some curveballs that maybe aren’t even in your study materials. This happens every year. Learn everything that has a high likelihood of being on the test based on frequency data, not random website predictions. Then you’ll know enough to deal with questions you don’t have any idea about.
Spend about 30-40% of your time memorizing, and the rest needs to be practice. Focus on heavily tested essays and topics. And don’t study super late—you need to shut it down in the evening so you can get to bed at a good time.
SUNDAY: LOGISTICS AND LIGHTER STUDYING
Start Packing
If you’re staying at a hotel, make sure you have what you need. Call the hotel and confirm your reservation. We’ve had students call only to discover the hotel doesn’t have their reservation. Oops.
You can also request a low-floor room (less elevator wait time) and see if it’s possible to get a mini fridge to keep food in your room. Consider whether you want late checkout on the second day so you don’t have to pack up and check out on Wednesday. It may cost a small fee, but having a place to go eat lunch on Wednesday is very nice.
Even paying for an extra night might be worth it. These hotels near exam centers can be pretty crowded with hundreds or even thousands of test-takers. Anything you can do to avoid showing up stressed out, running late, or wondering if your luggage is okay is worth the extra money.
Prep Your Food
If you’re staying at home, make sure you’ve done all your laundry and grocery shopping. Consider doing some food prep to make your life easier. Never cut up just one carrot—cut up a whole bag, put them in a jar with water, and just grab them when you need them. Same with celery, peppers, watermelon. You want to make everything outside the test very easy because you’re going to be very fatigued at the end of each day.
Think ahead about what you’re going to eat when you come back after the first day. Have your fridge stocked with a few great meals. Your future self will thank you for planning ahead so you can just roll in exhausted and heat something up instead of ordering pizza and feeling terrible.
Organize What Goes Into the Exam Room
They’ll have a list of things you can bring. Don’t bring everything on the list—just bring what you need. Ear plugs, pencil, pen, highlighter. Sometimes you’re allowed to bring Advil or Tylenol. If you’re planning to hand write (or even if you’re not), have a couple of reasonable pens that you could write for hours with if you had to.
Keep Studying Light
Again, six hours or so max. Continue to chip away at heavily tested law you’re still struggling with. Stick to the statistics—don’t get caught up in predictions. Be kind to yourself. If you’re feeling anxious, maybe it’s not a great time to quiz yourself on MBE questions. It’s better to just do some studying or write some heavily tested rule statements.
This is a good point to sit down and rewrite attack plans or rule statements you feel fairly confident about. If you can’t do that at this point, you might have cause for concern. Focus on memorizing and being able to write down attack plans by element.
MONDAY: THE DAY BEFORE EXAM DAY
Stop Studying by 3:00 PM
Have a pre-set time when you’re going to stop studying—noon, 1:00, 2:00, no later than 3:00. Just pick it. It doesn’t matter how you feel when that time comes. Put the books down and walk away. Very important.
Spend that morning continuing to check off your list of law you’re still struggling with. Be careful about doing lots of essay questions or MBE sets. You can easily get into a head space where you feel like you don’t know what’s going on. This is not the time to demoralize yourself. Just drill the law.
Travel and Get Settled
If you’re traveling to your location, do that Monday. Go to the grocery store and get the food you need to stock your hotel room. If you can’t get a mini fridge, ice chests work great. Here’s a pro tip: don’t dump ice directly into your cooler. Put ice in big Ziploc bags. When it melts, you just have a bag of water to pour into the sink instead of a pool of water in your cooler.
Find a Distraction
Have a plan to distract yourself. Go to a movie or dinner with a friend—preferably someone who’s not sitting for the test so they can’t talk to you about it. You’re basically just burning hours until it’s time to go to bed. Download some favorite reality TV shows or light entertainment. Don’t read anything stressful—if a book is about to take a dark turn, put it down.
Stick to Your Schedule
Don’t sleep in. Get up early because you’re going to have to get up early on Tuesday, and you don’t want to make it so you can’t go to bed Monday night. Have a similar breakfast as you will on exam day to make sure you have your food routine down.
Eat dinner a little earlier—if you’re trying to go to bed by 10:00, go to a 6:00 dinner instead of an 8:00 dinner. A super full stomach makes it harder to fall asleep.
Don’t Experiment
This is not the time to start experimenting with sleeping pills. If you need them and you’ve taken them before, fine. But if you’ve never taken Ambien before, Monday night before the bar exam is not the time to try it.
SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR ACCOMMODATIONS
If you’re getting accommodations and taking the exam at a hotel or in a specific room, there are often rules that you have to check in the day before. Some people don’t show up to the test (a surprisingly high number), so they want to confirm you’re coming. Sometimes you have to develop the schedule for when you’re taking lunch breaks if you’re sharing a room.
Make sure you’ve read all the materials the bar has given you. And bring that documentation with you in case there are any issues about what you should be getting. Don’t be in a position where you’re arguing about what you remember—just have everything printed out and ready to go.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The final weekend isn’t about cramming in more information. It’s about getting your logistics sorted, getting your body and mind into the right rhythm, and setting yourself up to perform well on exam day. You’ve spent weeks or months preparing. These last few days are about tapering off, organizing, and resting.
You want to show up to that exam well-rested, with all your materials organized, knowing exactly where you’re going and what to expect. The bar exam is hard, but you don’t need to make it harder by being sleep-deprived, disorganized, or stressed about logistics.
Remember: This will be over in a few days. Head in the game. Keep going. You’ve got this.
For more details, on what we recommend for the last weekend before the bar, check out our podcast episode on the subject.
Ready to pass the bar exam? Get the support and accountability you need with personalized one-on-one bar exam tutoring or one of our economical courses and workshops. We’re here to help!
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