How detailed should your Ontario bar exam index be?
Mine is turning into a second set of materials. Every time I read something I want to write it down, and now I have entries that are basically paragraphs.
Is a detailed index a good index, or am I building something I will never be able to use under time.
6 replies
Accepted answer
You are building the second one.
An index entry has one job, which is to get you to the right page fast. The moment an entry contains the answer you have started rewriting the materials, and what happens on the day is that you read your own entry, doubt it, and go to the page anyway. So you have paid twice.
Term, page, done. If you cannot make an entry that short, the real problem is that you have not decided what the term is.
What about things where the answer is a short list. Do you put the list in or just point at it.
Point at it. On the day you will trust the page and not the index every single time, because you know the page is the source and the index is you at 11pm in week three.
the exception i would make is anything numerical. deadlines, thresholds, time limits. those i do put in the index, because flipping to check a number is the single most common thing i do and it is pure lookup with no reasoning in it.
That is a nice line actually. Reasoning goes to the page, numbers can live in the index.
Mine was 90 pages in June and it is a real part of why I did not pass. Detailed felt like prepared. It was not.
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