The review industry sells a great deal of material. Most of what a candidate actually needs is published free by the institutions that set the examination and make the law — and it is authoritative in a way no purchased reviewer is.
This is the list, in the order it should be read.
1. The Bar bulletin (first, once)
The single most important document of the year. It carries the schedule, the format, the weights, the cut-off and the coverage, and — in the 2027 cycle — the rules on what is examinable (main-opinion doctrines only) and what is not (arithmetic beyond basic computation; penalty-period computations in Criminal Law).
Read the text, not a summary. See the 2027 Bar Examinations.
2. The syllabus, subject by subject
The coverage for each of the six subjects, in the Court's own numbering. Use it as a checklist rather than a reading list — reading the 2027 syllabus — and audit against it every two months.
3. The provisions
The Constitution, the codes, the Rules of Court, and the statutes the syllabus names. This is the layer that answers questions, and it is free.
Practical form: for each subject, one file of the provisions that the coverage names, read properly — reading a statute is a skill, and it is the one that pays in an answer.
4. The decisions
Not all of them. The ones the coverage and your lectures point at, read for the ratio, with a brief per case — how to read a Supreme Court decision.
Two rules from the bulletin that shrink this list: only the main opinion is examinable, and only jurisprudence as of 30 June 2026.
5. The examination's own instructions
What may be brought, how the platform works, the procedure at the test centre. Short, procedural, and the document candidates skip — the electronic platform.
6. Past questions
The questions are the Court's, and they are the best available description of the paper's shape. Use them as described in how to use past bar questions: classify, write skeletons, then write a few at full length under time.
What to buy, and what not to
Worth paying for: marking. A person or a service that reads your answer and tells you what was missing is the only thing money reliably improves, because you cannot see your own omissions — choosing a review centre.
Worth paying for, sometimes: explanation of the two or three doctrines the text will not resolve.
Worth paying for, rarely: volume. There is more free text in the world than you can read.
Not worth paying for: anything that claims to know what will be asked, and any reviewer that quotes the law without a source — why secondary sources are not authority.
The order, as a schedule
| When | Read |
|---|---|
| Month 1 | The bulletin; the syllabus for the first subject; its foundational provisions |
| Ongoing | The provisions for the current subject, and the decisions the coverage names |
| Weekly | Three citations verified against the source |
| Month 3 onward | Past questions for the subject just finished |
| Last 90 days | Your own outlines, flags list and one-pagers — not new material |
| Pre-week | The bulletin's instructions, once, and your one-pagers |
The discipline
Six documents, one of which is a checklist and one of which is a test. The rest is reading — and reading, in a review year, is only useful to the extent that it produces something you can state, closed book, afterwards.
For where the free text lives, see the law library and the Supreme Court E-Library.