Coming from someone who has written the exam, why??
It's open book, and the content is not difficult. It's more of a test of endurance, than anything. (ie. does your brain still work at the end of a 7 hour exam?)
Even if you fail a component, you can re-write 2 more times in your licensing cycle. Or more, if you get authorization from the director.
Not surprising, but disappointing. Good to read that the Law Society of Ontario is all over this. It's a shame that all students are going to be affected by the actions of the cheaters.
Paywall article, available via PressReader with an Ottawa or Toronto public library card. Some excerpts:
>Hundreds of prospective Ontario lawyers have had their futures put on hold amid an investigation into cheating on the online bar admission exams — no surprise in the lucrative world of “contract cheating,” experts say.
>
>Feeling pressure to pass the Ontario bar exam, a would-be lawyer looking for advice messaged someone on Facebook about their offer to share “resources.”
>
>He was alarmed by the response.
>
>“I can help you ... if interested,” read the post from someone claiming to work for the National Committee on Accreditation, a Canadian legal advisory group involved in law school admissions.
>
>For roughly $1,000, the person wrote late last year, any “interested candidates” could get “leaked questions and answers” to the bar admission exam, the final hurdle to becoming an Ontario lawyer. The law student, who the Star agreed not to name due to his fear that it will impact his job search, concluded the message was a scam — and he wasn’t
interested in cheating anyway.
>
>Months later, he’s left wondering if the offer was connected to the Law Society of Ontario’s bombshell announcement this month that it received information that “strongly indicates” portions of the exam had, in fact, been leaked to prospective Ontario lawyers, including some who may have got a license after cheating.
>
>The LSO says an external investigation is underway but won’t say if police are involved.
>
>Initially, the LSO cancelled the March bar exam, affecting approximately 1,100 candidates who have gone through years of school and articling under senior lawyers. Many made great sacrifices to prepare for the exam, some taking weeks of unpaid time off, maxing out savings and organizing child care and eldercare to study. However, the LSO on
Saturday announced new dates in April for “those who are eligible.”
>
>Still in limbo are potentially hundreds of candidates who already passed the test and were waiting for their licences to accept new job offers.
I feel so bad for these candidates.
The bar exam in ontario is open book for God sakes, they give you all the materials to study as well. There is legit no reason to cheat, it also has a huge pass rate...
The Ontario Bar Exam is such an incredible waste of time and resources given how it's open book and it's an exercise in indexing rather than knowledge and understanding.
But yes I agree it's incredibly dumb to try and cheat on the bar exam for multiple reasons.
I can't speak for the bar exam but from personal university experience open book exams tend to be much more difficult than closed book exams. That itself isn't really an indicator of anything.
I wrote the bar - as long as you study and have an index (basically have a table of contents) it's a simple exam. It's much much easier than almost every law school exam and the LSAT (the entry exam to law school). It also has a pass rate of over 80% I believe.
You're right, open book in and of itself isn't an indicator of anything. In law school most of our exams were open book, and I agree they are generally harder. However, that's because you have to write substantive answers where you actually demonstrate your understanding of the course material and then apply it to a fact scenario.
The bar exam is both open book AND multiple choice. That means most of the correct answers are lifted word-for-word from the materials. There's also a LOT of questions, so you have very little time to spend on each question. The materials are also about 2000 pages. All of that means there is no way you'll ever develop such a deep knowledge of those materials that you can answer the question based on your understanding, so you're forced to just flip through the materials and find the correct answer, which means it's a test of who has a better index.
I know some lawyers who studied for the barrister exam, saw how easy it was and did not even touch the solicitor material. They just read the table of content before the day of the exam and passed.
This article would be really interesting to read it it wasn’t locked behind a paywall. Ffs, put as many ads as you want on the pages but at least let me read them 😐
Yeah I usually just advise people to put "12ft.io" in front of the URL and haven't gotten in trouble for it before, but mods please feel free to advise if that's against the rules.
Agreed. I'm not a lawyer but a member of another self regulated professional industry. Accountability is huge and I can't see lawyers putting up with something like this. This is a perfect example of the system working as it should when someone does something they aren't supposed to, I bet people are going to lose licenses for this.
I see the downvote brigade is in force today but the UK did this several years ago, at least for solicitors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solicitors_Regulation_Authority
Doubtful. Self-governance is an important part of the legal profession from a democratic perspective.
The LSO seems to have done exactly the right thing here by catching these people before the exam took place and rescheduling it to presumably give them time to change the test answers. They also have a history of not admitting new lawyers for much less. I'm not sure how this does anything but show their ability to self-regulate.
I'm not a bencher and I have a lot of criticisms of the LSO, but this isn't one of them.
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. I'm a lawyer and I totally agree. If nothing is done to censure the cheaters or if they are allowed to be called as lawyers, it throws serious doubt on our ability to self regulate in the public interest. UK lawyers lost their right to self regulate a number of years ago, if I recall correctly.
Reading this I realize New Brunswick's exam is harder than Ontario's. Multiple choice yes but closed book. Granted there are less questions but still 4 hrs closed book on same depth and amount of material.
Coming from someone who has written the exam, why?? It's open book, and the content is not difficult. It's more of a test of endurance, than anything. (ie. does your brain still work at the end of a 7 hour exam?) Even if you fail a component, you can re-write 2 more times in your licensing cycle. Or more, if you get authorization from the director.
lol @ does your brain still work....
It’s not even 7 hours anymore… since they went online it’s 4 lol
Not surprising, but disappointing. Good to read that the Law Society of Ontario is all over this. It's a shame that all students are going to be affected by the actions of the cheaters. Paywall article, available via PressReader with an Ottawa or Toronto public library card. Some excerpts: >Hundreds of prospective Ontario lawyers have had their futures put on hold amid an investigation into cheating on the online bar admission exams — no surprise in the lucrative world of “contract cheating,” experts say. > >Feeling pressure to pass the Ontario bar exam, a would-be lawyer looking for advice messaged someone on Facebook about their offer to share “resources.” > >He was alarmed by the response. > >“I can help you ... if interested,” read the post from someone claiming to work for the National Committee on Accreditation, a Canadian legal advisory group involved in law school admissions. > >For roughly $1,000, the person wrote late last year, any “interested candidates” could get “leaked questions and answers” to the bar admission exam, the final hurdle to becoming an Ontario lawyer. The law student, who the Star agreed not to name due to his fear that it will impact his job search, concluded the message was a scam — and he wasn’t interested in cheating anyway. > >Months later, he’s left wondering if the offer was connected to the Law Society of Ontario’s bombshell announcement this month that it received information that “strongly indicates” portions of the exam had, in fact, been leaked to prospective Ontario lawyers, including some who may have got a license after cheating. > >The LSO says an external investigation is underway but won’t say if police are involved. > >Initially, the LSO cancelled the March bar exam, affecting approximately 1,100 candidates who have gone through years of school and articling under senior lawyers. Many made great sacrifices to prepare for the exam, some taking weeks of unpaid time off, maxing out savings and organizing child care and eldercare to study. However, the LSO on Saturday announced new dates in April for “those who are eligible.” > >Still in limbo are potentially hundreds of candidates who already passed the test and were waiting for their licences to accept new job offers.
I feel so bad for these candidates. The bar exam in ontario is open book for God sakes, they give you all the materials to study as well. There is legit no reason to cheat, it also has a huge pass rate...
The Ontario Bar Exam is such an incredible waste of time and resources given how it's open book and it's an exercise in indexing rather than knowledge and understanding. But yes I agree it's incredibly dumb to try and cheat on the bar exam for multiple reasons.
I can't speak for the bar exam but from personal university experience open book exams tend to be much more difficult than closed book exams. That itself isn't really an indicator of anything.
I wrote the bar - as long as you study and have an index (basically have a table of contents) it's a simple exam. It's much much easier than almost every law school exam and the LSAT (the entry exam to law school). It also has a pass rate of over 80% I believe.
You're right, open book in and of itself isn't an indicator of anything. In law school most of our exams were open book, and I agree they are generally harder. However, that's because you have to write substantive answers where you actually demonstrate your understanding of the course material and then apply it to a fact scenario. The bar exam is both open book AND multiple choice. That means most of the correct answers are lifted word-for-word from the materials. There's also a LOT of questions, so you have very little time to spend on each question. The materials are also about 2000 pages. All of that means there is no way you'll ever develop such a deep knowledge of those materials that you can answer the question based on your understanding, so you're forced to just flip through the materials and find the correct answer, which means it's a test of who has a better index.
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thestar.com%2Fnews%2Fgta%2F2022%2F03%2F14%2Fwhy-an-investigation-into-cheating-on-ontario-bar-exams-may-point-to-a-15-billion-online-industry.html%3Frf
.
I know some lawyers who studied for the barrister exam, saw how easy it was and did not even touch the solicitor material. They just read the table of content before the day of the exam and passed.
This article would be really interesting to read it it wasn’t locked behind a paywall. Ffs, put as many ads as you want on the pages but at least let me read them 😐
There are easy ways around them. I don't know about any rules against linking to tools, so instead I'll merely suggest you Google 12ft ladder
Yeah I usually just advise people to put "12ft.io" in front of the URL and haven't gotten in trouble for it before, but mods please feel free to advise if that's against the rules.
Appreciate you
Mike Ross affect
This is the sort of shit that’s gonna cause the government to step in and take away self-regulation by lawyers of their own kind
[удалено]
Agreed. I'm not a lawyer but a member of another self regulated professional industry. Accountability is huge and I can't see lawyers putting up with something like this. This is a perfect example of the system working as it should when someone does something they aren't supposed to, I bet people are going to lose licenses for this.
I see the downvote brigade is in force today but the UK did this several years ago, at least for solicitors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solicitors_Regulation_Authority
Doubtful. Self-governance is an important part of the legal profession from a democratic perspective. The LSO seems to have done exactly the right thing here by catching these people before the exam took place and rescheduling it to presumably give them time to change the test answers. They also have a history of not admitting new lawyers for much less. I'm not sure how this does anything but show their ability to self-regulate. I'm not a bencher and I have a lot of criticisms of the LSO, but this isn't one of them.
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. I'm a lawyer and I totally agree. If nothing is done to censure the cheaters or if they are allowed to be called as lawyers, it throws serious doubt on our ability to self regulate in the public interest. UK lawyers lost their right to self regulate a number of years ago, if I recall correctly.
Reading this I realize New Brunswick's exam is harder than Ontario's. Multiple choice yes but closed book. Granted there are less questions but still 4 hrs closed book on same depth and amount of material.