How Many Pages a Day Should You Read for the Bar?

The formula

Your daily reading target comes from three numbers:

1. Total pages. Add up the pages in every book you plan to read once through.
2. Days until the Bar. Count from today to the first exam morning, 5 September 2027.
3. Study days a week. Be honest. If you rest on Sundays, that is six.

Then:

Pages a day = total pages ÷ ((days until the Bar − buffer) × study days a week ÷ 7)

The buffer is the stretch before the exam you keep free of first-time reading. About 14 days is a sensible default, because the final week is best spent on review, not new pages.

A worked example

Say you start with 300 days to go, you study six days a week, and your books total 9,500 pages.

• Days before the buffer: 300 − 14 = 286
• Study days in that stretch: 286 × 6 ÷ 7 ≈ 245
• Pages a day: 9,500 ÷ 245 ≈ 39

Round up to 40 and you finish your first reading two weeks before the Bar.

The same books with only 180 days to go:

• Days before the buffer: 180 − 14 = 166
• Study days: 166 × 6 ÷ 7 ≈ 142
• Pages a day: 9,500 ÷ 142 ≈ 67

That is a different review. At some point the honest answer is that a full first reading no longer fits, and you should read by subject weight instead. More on that below.

To run the numbers for your own books and start date, use our free Bar review planner. It uses this same formula and shows your finish date on a timeline.

Weight your pages by subject

Not every page is worth the same. The six Bar subjects carry different weights, from 25% for Remedial Law down to 10% each for Labor and Criminal Law. See the full 2027 breakdown.

A good plan reads every subject, but gives each one a share of your days close to its weight. If your Remedial Law materials are short and your Commercial Law materials are long, the page count alone will mislead you. Plan by subject first, then by pages within each subject.

What to do when you miss a day

You will miss days. Work runs late, you get sick, a mock exam goes badly and you need the evening off.

The worst response is to double tomorrow's reading. That turns one missed day into two hard ones and makes the next miss more likely. Instead, spread the missed pages across every remaining study day. Forty pages missed across 200 days adds a fraction of a page to each.

Then look at the new pace. If it has crept up past what you can sustain, change something now: add a study day, trim a book, or switch the weakest subject to a summary reviewer.

When a full first reading no longer fits

If you start late, the formula may give you a number you cannot read. Then stop planning by page and plan by weight:

1. Give each subject a share of the remaining days in proportion to its Bar weight.
2. Within each subject, start with the topics that come up most and the ones you know least.
3. Keep the two-week buffer anyway. Recall in the final days beats reading new material.

How Lagda does this

Lagda asks for your books, their page counts and your study days, then shows today's pages and the date you finish. When you miss a day it spreads the pages forward and shows the new pace, and if a full reading no longer fits, it tells you plainly and plans by subject weight. Lagda is coming soon to iOS.

Questions

Published 13 November 2026. Read how we write and check our guides in our editorial standards. The Supreme Court's bulletins and announcements always control. Lagda is an independent study aid and is not affiliated with the Supreme Court of the Philippines.