Updated: March 12, 2022
NCA Logistics: (Pt. I) How Many Exams per Sitting?
Hello NCA Candidates! As we embark on a new year, I’ve gotten a lot of questions from new NCA Candidates around the logistics of planning their exam sittings and allocating study time.
While I’ve previously outlined how to study smart in my Avoiding Information Overload post and what subjects to take together in this post, I thought I’d take a few steps back and discuss planning the basics. In this two-part series, I’ll outline how many exams you should do per sitting, how much time you should take to prepare for each sitting, and how best to prepare.
Part I: How Many Exams Can I Write Per Sitting?
In true legal fashion, the answer to this question is: “It depends!” The NCA exams are designed to be a flexible assessment system that works for both employed and unemployed students. So, how many exams you sit at a time will depend on any other demands there are on your time. It will also depend on your personal study habits and how long it takes you to prepare for each exam.
Unlike in the past, where students could complete all their exam assignments back-to-back in a single week, the new NCA exam schedule forces students to spread out their exams a little more. Exams are now offered every month, but not all subjects are offered each month. This means, that it will take, at minimum, 3 months for a student to pass all five core exams. All the core exams are now offered over the span of 3 months with elective subjects scattered in between.
Additionally, students must take and pass the 8-week, online, Legal Research and Writing Course through CPLED or an NCA approved Canadian Law School program.
For most students who are also working or otherwise splitting their time between studying and other demanding activities, the three month timeline is likely reasonable. To help you gauge your own situation, I’ve outlined my NCA experience below. However, keep in mind, I wrote by NCA exams on the old schedule where all exams were crammed into a single week, every 3 months.
Number of Exams: Seven (7) (five core, two electives)
Number of Sittings: Three (3)
October: I sat one exam to get a feel for how the NCA process and exams work; I also didn’t have a lot of time to study as I received my official NCA assessment one day before the October registration deadline and decided to be safe and only sit one exam.
January: I completed three exams in a single week. I was initially registered to do four exams but deferred one as I did not feel prepared. This was how I discovered that three exams per week was my upper limit given the other demands on my time.
May: I completed three exams in a single week and thus concluded my NCA studies.
Lifestyle & Background: For the duration of my NCA studies, I was working full time (approx. 40hrs / week). I was also volunteering and maintaining a social life (or at least trying to ;) ) . However, I always took the exam weeks off work including the Friday before each week so I had a long-weekend to do final prep. Again, this was more necessary since all the exams happened in a single week; now, you will likely take just 1 or 2 exams per week. Overall, I approached the NCAs as you would a part-time degree and maintained a good work-life-study balance. Even during exam weeks, I would make sure I had down-time and took lots of breaks.
There are other factors you should consider as well:
1) Language Skills: Legal language is often not straightforward or easy to understand. If English is not your first language, you may find this particularly challenging and need to take a bit more time to read through all the materials. This may ultimately limit how many exams you can reasonably prepare for in the three months between exam sittings. Only you can assess this for yourself however as everyone is different!
2) Scheduling: Each core NCA exam topic is offered 4 times per year while elective subjects may be offered only 2 or 3 times a year. You can find out when exam topics are scheduled for each sitting on the NCA website here.
3) Travel and Space: The new online format means you likely will not have to travel to an exam site. However, you will need to ensure you have a stable internet connection and a quiet, private place to write the exam. You cannot have people (or small children) in the same room as you when you write. If your home does not offer these features, you may need to factor in traveling to a hotel, library, or other place where you can comfortably write the exam.
Hopefully you’ve found this outline of my personal experience useful! Whatever you decide to do, make sure you are meeting your unique study habits. Use your past law school experience as a guide for what does and doesn’t work for you.
Join me next time when I outline how much time you should take to prepare for each exam and sitting.
Happy Studying!
Tiffany
Tiffany is an LLM candidate at NYU Law. and a regular blogger for NCA Tutor™.