If you ask any person who has worked through the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), they will soon tell you the challenges involved. The SQE is a lengthy set of exams over multiple days that targets not only legal knowledge, but skills, judgement, and application of English and Welsh law. It requires dedication, preparation and resilience. With this in mind, those planning to take the SQE exam must get their preparation right.
Today, we gain valuable insights and knowledge from the exact people you need to hear from: Tilly Twite, newly qualified solicitor at Ison Harrison, took and passed both SQE1 and SQE2 at the College and Jane Waddell, Head of Curriculum Development at the College, and is heavily involved in getting students SQE ready.
Planning your time correctly
Jane: Do map out your time. Working out how much time you have prior to the exams is key. Work out how much time you have to devote to studying and be smart with it across the full number of weeks you have available to study. The course really will take you the full study hours each week to give you a good chance of passing.
Tilly: Don’t feel the pressure to do what others do in their preparation. There’s no one size fits all when it comes to deciding when to study. It’s about finding what works for you and your schedule. For example, for me, when I got home from work, I was so tired. I needed to switch off. Weekends for me were the times that I was really laser-focused. I could easily do a 1 hour day on a Saturday, the same on Sundays. It takes commitment, but you need to put the time in - however that looks.
Practice makes perfect
Jane: Do practice. We’ve found through lots of student data that practice makes perfect. It doesn’t matter if you get 0% the first time you take a practice test, what matters is that you can eventually achieve that 70% pass rate and put in the leg work to get there. That requires time and motivation to keep going. Keep persevering as that’s where all that knowledge is applied - when you fail and get things wrong. Keep going. If you stick to the study schedule, you can practice and re-practice throughout your preparation course.
Don’t avoid weak areas
Tilly: Do all the practices and mocks that you physically can. The College offers several but I’d also work on other online mocks. I got so much out of them because they constantly pointed out where my gaps were. They also point out the areas that you find difficult. We often get this habit of reading over the areas we enjoy and know well, and it’s easy to find yourself doing that because it feels good. But if you can pinpoint your weaknesses, see where you’ve lost points and see where you struggle, this can really help build a broader knowledge base overall. Don’t shy away from the hard stuff!
Jane: I agree with Tilly - don’t avoid what you don’t like. Our brains are programmed to do that. We prefer to leave what we know, and stick with the areas we do, but the exams have no mercy. They cover all the practice areas, and some are disguised as well. You have to know it all. Be honest with yourself about where you need to up the revision.
Complete all the learning and mocks on time
Jane: We know that if you can complete all the learning in the timetable each week and you complete the mocks at score 65% on average in those, you have a really good chance of passing the SQE1 or SQE2 first time. The timetables and the mocks are all there to get you through the legal knowledge and skills you need to learn,, and to have sufficient exam practice, so you can perform at speed, over a long period of assessments.
Try and get law firm experience
Tilly: Do try and get law firm experience. SQE2, particularly, is a very skills-based examination, so if you can get experience of the skills in practice, that really helps. I’ve been in a law firm for 5 years and see how these skills and areas of knowledge are put into practice every day. Working in a firm also helped with the writing side of things. I see legal drafting, research, constantly in my job, and that helps me see the context for all the studying.
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