SQE1 guides
What the assessment actually asks of you, how it is marked, and how to prepare for it — written alongside the question bank, and checked against the SRA’s published specification.
30 guides
The exam
- SQE1 explained: format, subjects and markingSQE1 is two assessments of functioning legal knowledge, sat as four sessions of multiple-choice questions. Here is the shape of it — and what the shape tells you about how to prepare.Sept 20267 min read
- What changes in SQE1 from January 2027Fewer questions, the same clock, and subjects grouped by session. The January 2027 changes are small on paper and significant in the exam hall — here is what to do about them.Sept 20265 min read
- The SQE1 pass mark, scaled scores and quintiles300 out of 500 is the number everyone quotes, and almost nobody explains. Here is what scaling actually does, roughly what raw score it takes to clear it, and how to read a results page.Sept 20266 min read
- SQE1 pass rates, and what they actually tell youHalf the candidates pass, and the headline rate is quoted everywhere without the two footnotes that matter. Here are the published figures and how to read them.Sept 20266 min read
- Booking SQE1: dates, fees and test centresTwo sittings a year, a booking window that closes months before the exam, and a fee that has risen again. What to decide, and by when.Sept 20265 min read
- SQE1 exam day: what to expect at the test centreTwo sessions, an hour apart, in a room with lockers and a whiteboard. Knowing exactly how the day runs removes the only variable you can still control the week before.Sept 20266 min read
- Failed SQE1: what a resit actually takesA resit is not the same exam again with more revision. Here is what the rules allow, what your quintile is telling you, and what to change before you book.Sept 20267 min read
Subjects
- FLK1 subjects: what the first SQE1 paper examinesFLK1 is the commercial and contentious half of SQE1. Six subject areas, split across two sessions, with ethics running through all of them — here is what each one actually tests.Sept 20268 min read
- FLK2 subjects: what the second SQE1 paper examinesFLK2 is the property, private client and criminal half of SQE1 — and the half where Solicitors Accounts turns up in both sessions. Here is what each subject actually tests.Sept 20268 min read
- Business Law and Practice for SQE1The biggest subject in FLK1, and the one that most rewards knowing procedure cold: which resolution, what notice, whose approval, by when.Sept 20268 min read
- Dispute Resolution for SQE1Civil procedure is a timetable with consequences attached. The questions test whether you know the step, the deadline and what happens when it is missed.Sept 20268 min read
- Contract Law for SQE1Familiar ground for anyone who has studied law, which is exactly why it is worth re-learning as the exam asks it: one thing goes wrong, five consequences are offered, one is right.Sept 20266 min read
- Tort for SQE1Negligence is the spine of the subject, and causation is where the marks are won: a carelessly behaving defendant is not the same as a defendant who caused this loss.Sept 20266 min read
- Legal Services and ethics for SQE1Ethics is asked directly in FLK1 and pervasively everywhere else, which makes it the highest-yield revision on the whole specification.Sept 20267 min read
- Wills and the Administration of Estates for SQE1A subject of rules that produce numbers: who takes what, under which formalities, with how much tax. Precise, examinable, and where a great many FLK2 marks are decided.Sept 20267 min read
- Trusts Law for SQE1The most conceptual subject in FLK2, and the most tractable once you stop learning it as theory and start learning it as a sequence of tests.Sept 20267 min read
- Land Law for SQE1Almost every Land Law question in FLK2 is a priority question in disguise: does this interest survive the sale, and why.Sept 20267 min read
- Property Law and Practice for SQE1A conveyancing transaction in order, examined step by step: what you check, what you ask, what you promise and what must be done by when.Sept 20268 min read
- Criminal Liability and Practice for SQE1Two subjects examined together: the law that makes conduct criminal, and the procedure that takes a case from the police station to sentence. Most lost marks are in the second.Sept 20268 min read
- Solicitors Accounts for SQE1Examined in both FLK2 sessions, dismissed by candidates who think it is accountancy, and won by candidates who realise it is a rules subject wearing a numbers costume.Sept 20267 min read
Technique
- Single best answer technique for SQE1Most SQE1 questions you get wrong are questions you knew the law for. Single best answer is a format with its own rules — these are the ones worth drilling until they are automatic.Sept 20267 min read
- SQE1 practice questions: how many, and how to use themAnswering thousands of questions is not the same as learning from them. What to look for in a question bank, how many you actually need, and the review loop that decides whether any of it counts.Sept 20267 min read
- Free SQE1 practice questions: what is actually freeThere are more free SQE1 questions than most candidates realise, and most of them are worth less than the official couple of hundred. How to tell the difference.Sept 20266 min read
- Flashcards and spaced repetition for SQE1SQE1 rewards recall you do not have to reconstruct. Flashcards are the cheapest way to build it — and the easiest thing to do badly for months.Sept 20266 min read
Planning
- An SQE1 revision plan that survives real lifeMost SQE1 timetables fail in week three. Here is how to size the preparation honestly, order it so nothing is learnt once and forgotten, and keep it working when a week goes wrong.Sept 20268 min read
- Preparing for SQE1 while working full-timeMost SQE1 candidates are not studying full-time. The constraint is not willpower — it is that the plan has to survive a bad week at work without collapsing.Sept 20267 min read
Qualifying
- SQE or LPC: which route still exists, and what changedFor almost everyone starting now, the question answers itself — but the transitional arrangements are real, and the two routes assess completely different things.Sept 20266 min read
- The SQE route for non-law graduatesA conversion course is no longer compulsory, which makes the route cheaper and the first decision harder. Here is what the SRA requires, and what a non-law start actually involves.Sept 20267 min read
- Qualifying work experience: the two years, explainedTwo years, up to four organisations, paid or unpaid, before or after the assessments — the most flexible part of the SQE route, and the one people leave unrecorded.Sept 20266 min read
- SQE2 in outline: what comes after SQE1SQE1 asks what you know; SQE2 asks what you can do with it. A short orientation for candidates who are not there yet but want to know what they are walking towards.Sept 20265 min read