 Hi guys, welcome to my YouTube channel. I'm Shirreen. I'm a lawyer in Ontario, Canada. I discuss about Canadian immigration and Canada in general. If you like my video, please like, subscribe and share it. Hi everybody, so today I'm going to discuss some of the trips and tricks to clear your NCA exams. This is completely out of personal experience and since I gave the exams back in 2018 and I was assessed with the five core subjects and Out of them, I gave all of them in one sitting. I gave them in Delhi, so in India and you can give your NCA exams in your nearest location to what suits you. Not necessarily that you have to come and give it in Toronto. And I hope the tips and tricks help you guys. This is my strategy and I suggest you pin them down and keep revising them throughout your NCA preparation. I'm sure it's not it's a much hype exam and it's not that difficult. So, yeah, let's go. Let's first discuss about the exam. This exam, as you know, is a subjective exam. 50% is the passing mark, so anything above 50 or 50 helps you to pass. And then this exam is an open book exam, but that for sure does not mean that you can refer to the book. Your conceptality should be there. Then this exam requires you to put certain kind of time to it because the questions are so long. So each question, when you look at the question paper or the sample papers on the NCA website, which I'm going to show you, then you will know that each question is case-based. Mostly the questions are case-based and each question has a particular time assigned to it. So if you give that much time to the question, then it's good. The NCA assessors would just want you to give that much time to that particular question and not exceeding that because if you do, you're going to miss onto the paper. Always also address the key points. If you do not address the key points, then you are surely losing onto marks because what the common notion is that the NCA teacher who's checking your paper has a particular mark sheet in his hand and has the key points, key case mentioned to it. So you need to mention those points. I will tell you how to answer the question using the format and where to put your headings and subheadings. Next thing I would like to discuss is that I was assessed with the five core exam, that is the Canadian Constitution, Canadian Criminal Law, Professional Ethics, Administrative Law and the fifth one being Foundation. So I gave all of them in one sitting, but that was according to my circumstances. I was not working and I studied for two, three months and gave all the five exams in one sitting. But this is completely out of circumstances and you can see what suits you the best because do not be harsh on yourself. Just be very comfortable with the whole process. And I'm sure you can ace the NCA's then. Next thing that is very important is the syllabus. If you are aware of the syllabus, then you can start your preparation in a very defined and very controlled manner because the syllabus is so well defined in the earth. If you know it's on the NCA website, I'm going to show you. The syllabus is so well defined that it has the case mentioned to it. It has the pages from where you have to study for that particular point. So for example, Canadian Administrative Law has a topic called procedural fairness to it. So you know Baker's case is the landmark judgment on this point and they have mentioned it to you. So if you're mentioning Baker's case in your answer, then you're surely getting onto some extra points because that is what is mentioned in the NCA assessor's time sheet as I told you. After once you are done looking at the syllabus, starting about at the subject you are going to start with, I suggest you not open your material or your notes for now. What you do is you go to the past sample paper. You pick up a sample paper of the subject of your interest that you're going to start with and you first read it. So that once you start the material, you know how to maneuver your brain and read according to that. So I did this and this really helped me because in the end I realized that everything boiled down to the particular point that how you write your exams, how much you practice for your ear right, how much exam writing you practice in reality. If you are aware, the NCA also has a guide on how to answer your exam. They need to see your reasoning and your logical analytical legal skills. They want to see that you are able to address the key issues in the case. So when you have a fact-paced question or you have a long case-paced question, what I suggest is that you read the question first and later you read the fact. So in that way, once you are reading the question, you know what key points to pick up in the facts. There is also a method called the IRAC method, which is the most effective way of writing any kind of NCA exams. In fact, even the judges in Canada always write their judgments in a very systematic and organized manner and IRAC is the manner they mostly prefer to. So if you are supposed to write an answer, the IRAC method suggests you write the issue first, you write the rule then, you write the application of that rule to your facts. Application is a very important part. I'm sure the most of the marks that it carries is the application part, how you apply law to the facts given at hand, and then the conclusion. Always have a conclusion in the end. So this is the kind of a typical format that they want you to write in. This further suggests that you should write your topics in a very organized manner. The whole answer should be having many headings and many subheadings. The much organized your answer is, the much presentable it is, and the more marks you are fetching for this. Now let's talk about the next topic. The tip is the resources or the material. I suggest that I did not buy any book except the criminal manual that too I printed out a PDF since I was in India and I didn't know where to order the book from or where to get the book from. So I printed the criminal manual and I suggest I picked up some notes of Liran. I don't know if you want to make your own notes with your books, I don't whatever suits you, but initially according to me notes were sufficient, notes were detailed and you get all the chats in the WhatsApp group of NCA's and you can join all the social media groups. I'm sure the notes are circulated also, there is a lot of material that is circulated, but still it is preferable if you buy it from the source because you know there's a lot of hard work of other people also that goes into the preparation of this, so we should and should always encourage them. So I picked up my notes from Liran and some substantive material you get from other sources. But whatever notes you are reading, the first reading is very important. Only after the first reading get into discussion on the NC WhatsApp book do not get into discussion, do not even bother to answer any question, till the time you have not given it at least one full read because there is no substitute for reading in this exam and then you should also practice papers. Practice papers is the key to pass this exam. So one resource I found very helpful was the past papers in the Canadian law school exams. So I opened Peter Allard website, I'm going to share the link in the description box and I used to do that papers of the law colleges, law students here because eventually if you look at the whole picture it's nothing but you are going to give the exams that the people here gave in their universities doing their JD. So you have to try and prepare for those exams and that is your source of information also from where you know how they, how they frame questions, how they frame NC is nothing but equivalent to that. So one of the other sources I think was very helpful were me was Camille and SSC, SCC, Supreme Court of Canada judgments. I read a lot of judgments on the key points because that's that's how your brain starts functioning and you know okay how to answer case based questions here. So I can't even fail to mention that how important it is for you to write and practice exams. So once you're done with your reading, I suggest do not waste time in second reading, third reading or in any other kind of debate with yourself. Just go and start writing till the time you don't pick up a pen and you literally don't sit and give your exam, try to answer questions, analyze facts. It's not going to be a straightforward paper. So the way you analyze facts, the way key points that you mentioned, how you apply it with the law is all that matters. So in the end your practice is what will help you to succeed the most. So practice as many papers as you can and do sample papers from the NCA websites. In the end I suggest that time is the essence. So do not give any question more than what it deserves. Give it that much time as it is mentioned in the question in the bracket. They specifically mention that and if you do not know something just move on. If you stop then probably you're going to lag behind and we'll miss on to some next very important questions. So now that we are done with the discussion and of the tips and tricks of the NCA exams, I hope you find it useful and you use these strategies. It really helped me so I wanted to share it with everybody. Also if you wanted to blog about different subjects, the five subjects that I studied and the judgments and the key process and steps in each case in each subject, then I can do that. Put your comments in the comment section. Like, share and subscribe my video. And yeah I hope that now that the screen I'm sharing is also useful for you. I'm sharing the NCA screen with you guys so you can find the syllabus and the resources that I spoke about. Bye for now and take care. Stay home. Stay safe. That's all we can do for now. So this is the NCA website, nca.legal. I'll put the link in the description box. It's got everything about the exam rules policy. You just have to click on exams. Then you can go on exam outlines and samples. You have the whole syllabus. So if you click the subject, you'll get the syllabus. And I'll just open a sample exam of professional responsibility. So that's how the question paper will be. Instructions. Yeah, that's the whole paper. And this is the question. What I was suggesting was you read the question first and then you read the facts because usually the questions are very long and case-based. Yeah, so that's how the question paper will look. Now you can go and click on the resources or the schedule and check the schedule. When the exam is going to be for 2020, it's already there. On the resources to see what all is available for your help and how to answer the fact-based law questions are also, there is a guideline for this, which mentions everything. All the things that I told you, the study skills, the writing skills and about the IRAC method. It is very detailed and very helpful. I think you should read this. And only then start practicing exams.