Many students feel unsure and nervous about starting to prepare for the SQE, and I was no different. At the time of writing this blog post, it is roughly one year since I started my SQE preparation course, the LLM in Legal Practice (SQE1&2).
Written by Alyssa, LLM Legal Practice (SQE 1&2) and Student Ambassador. Published 22 October 2025.
Now, with SQE1 and SQE2 passes under my belt, it felt like a good time to share what I wish I'd known when I was in the early weeks of the course and what I found useful in preparing for the SQE exams. So, in this blog post, I've outlined some key tips and recommendations based on my personal experience of the SQE.
Before you start, get your academic law up to scratch.
There are two broad areas of law that are assessed on the SQE. The first is academic legal knowledge, the second is practical legal knowledge. You'll cover law in practice on your SQE preparation course but academic legal knowledge is not covered on the LLM in Legal Practice or the SQE 1 Preparation Course. Instead, you'll be expected to already possess knowledge of the seven foundational subject areas of the Law in England and Wales:
- The Legal System
- Contract
- Tort
- Land
- Equity and Trusts
- Criminal
- Constitutional and Administrative Law and EU Law.
You need to be comfortable with these legal subject areas for two reasons. The first is that they provide the context and foundation for the practical subjects that you will study (Business Law and Practice, Legal Services, Dispute Resolution, Property Practice, Wills, Solicitors' Accounts, Criminal Practice, and Ethics).
The second is that these areas of academic legal knowledge form roughly half of the examinable content for the SQE exam. This means you will need to revise academic legal knowledge alongside the content taught on your SQE course.
It's easy to underestimate the importance of academic legal knowledge, so it's key to assess your understanding at an early stage. I found it useful to go through the SQE syllabus for the academic subjects and make a note of areas I felt confident with and those that I did not. Hang on to your LLB/law conversion notes and resources as you may find these useful for the SQE. As I was revising my academic legal knowledge (rather than learning it for the first time), I found that I could really condense my notes into key points to help jog my memory.
Get to grips with practice questions
The University was keen to highlight the importance of answering plenty of practice questions as part of SQE preparation, but I found a number of ways to get the most out of the questions that we were given access to. SQE1 is assessed through Single Best Answer Questions (SBAQs) which many feel are more difficult than multiple-choice questions. Practicing SBAQs is a great way prepare for SQE1.
When I wanted to focus on a topic that I found difficult or hadn't studied for a while, I found it useful to answer a lot of questions in that area. By answering 20 or so SBAQs on one subject, I was able to improve my knowledge as I went, learning from any errors I made and having the opportunity to implement the feedback from one question when answering the next. By the end of a session, I would feel much more confident about that topic area.
For areas that I felt confident about, I made sure that I had tried answering difficult questions on that topic. This is because it is easy to get into a false sense of security after answering easy questions on a specific topic. I would look for questions that were very wordy, included a lot of details, or simply filtered the questions by difficulty, and answered these questions to really test my knowledge. Testing in this way improved my confidence in many topics.
At the beginning of my course I spent some time answering questions with my notes to hand, referring to them if I wanted to check particular points or principles. Towards the end of my preparation, as the exams got closer, I answered my questions closed book. I found it much more valuable to use notes to answer my questions in the beginning rather than guessing. It also made me feel more confident and I began to refer to my notes less and less as the course progressed.
Of course, there are plenty of ways that you can use practice questions while preparing for the SQE. It's a good idea to spend some time thinking about how to get the most out of them and trying out different ways to use the questions.
What to do if you fall behind
Some weeks have more content than others. On some weeks, due to reasons outside of your control, you may find that you struggle to complete all of the work required of you in preparation for class. If you can't finish all of the work for one week, it's a good idea to move on to the next week's work rather than spending a week catching up (and getting further behind). Then, if you find that you have more time later on, you can go back to the content that you missed out on. For example, if you were unable to complete the work for week two, still move on to week three to ensure that you can keep up and not fall further behind. This strategy is an easy way to keep on top of work and get the most out of the workshops on the course.
If you're feel even the slightest bit overwhelmed at the prospect of working on your academic legal knowledge, getting to grips with practice questions and the possibility of getting behind, know that the SQE is difficult, but not impossible. Through careful preparation, the SQE isn't as scary as it's made out to be and support from coursemates, lecturers, friends and family shouldn't be undervalued, too.
If you've read this far, chances are that you're a conscientious person doing the work to prepare for the course, which is a great sign.
You can speak to Alyssa via our UniBuddy page to ask about the LLM in Legal Practice (SQE1&2) or life at the University. Chat to a current student today.