Guest written by Jays law life.
Preparation courses for the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) are designed to help students understand how to pass the exams. However, with the most recent pass rate for SQE1 being just 44%, students should really think about starting their preparation well before their training course starts in order to maximise their chance of success in the SQE. So what should you be doing before starting your prep course?
Contents
- Revise key underlying law
- Find your revision strategy
- Speak to your family, employer and friends
- Take your time
Revise key underlying law
The first thing every single student should be doing before starting an SQE prep course is revising key topics from your law degree or law conversion course. Too many students think that they are done with these topics as soon as they finish learning them for the first time. The underlying law is a huge part of the SQE (sorry to those who have already burnt their notes!).
The vast amount of content the SQE covers is one of the biggest challenges students face when studying for the SQE. Not just all of the new procedural law, but also all of the underlying law you need to retain from your previous studies. In fact there are 13 areas of law that you need to have at your finger-tips for the closed book SQE exams.
From my personal experience, it definitely did feel at times like there were not enough hours in the day to revise the amount of topics there were. Therefore, the first thing you should do is revise key topics from the underlying law before you start your prep course.
By revising this content before your prep course starts, you will be utilising your time most effectively, allowing you to focus on learning the new areas of law once your prep course starts.
To do this, you’re going to need to have strong revision techniques.
Find your revision strategy
Once you start your SQE prep course, you’ll notice that your time becomes a very scarce asset. Finding the time to fit everything into your study schedule definitely gets difficult when studying for the SQE. As you learn on the prep course, you will also need to revise and retain what you are learning right through to the SQE exams.
Therefore, before you start your prep course, you should make sure you have identified and mastered the revision strategy that best works for you. That way, you can hit the ground running and not waste any time trialling revision strategies when you can instead start revising the content.
Whether that be flashcards, blurting, mind maps, using the pomodoro method, spaced repetition – whatever you find that works for you, practice and master it before starting your prep course.
You could even go as far as making your flashcards for the underlying law now (if you’ve chosen that as your revision method) as that would save you so much time when your course starts!
Speak to your family, employer and friends
If you are juggling multiple commitments in your life, perhaps you are already working, or you have a family, then you need to consider how you can manage your study alongside your work. I was able to study full-time, but I still had to cut back on a lot to ensure I had enough time to study (for me, that meant zero social life for months).
I recommend that you have early discussions with your employer in particular. Whilst much of the study can be flexible and online, courses generally have scheduled live sessions and assessment deadlines, and you want to make sure you can make the study commitments laid out in the course.
Then when it comes to the SQE exams themselves, work out your leave and timeframes from the start of your prep course, through your revision period, all the way to your exam week. You definitely want to make sure you have enough time to revise for the SQE exams so this is not something that you should procrastinate!
Take your time
All of this being said, arguably the most important thing you can do is take some time to relax (unpopular opinion I know!).
The SQE can be such an intense process which can cause a lot of stress for students taking the exams. Once you start, it can be a very full-on process without many breaks, and you may find yourself wishing for the downtime you have now (I know I did).
Therefore, one of the best things you could do for yourself might be to just take a break. Enjoy the time you have now, set up some good habits (i.e. a solid sleep schedule!) and just get yourself mentally prepared to take on the challenge of the SQE.
While revising the underlying law is important, this is arguably equally as important. So make sure you take some time to relax so you can enter the SQE feeling refreshed and ready to take it on.
Wondering if you should even take a prep course? Read Jay's article on whether you should take a prep course, linked below.
Should you take a prep course?
My name is Jay, and I am a Future Trainee Solicitor on a mission to de-mystify the world of law! I recently passed the Solicitor's Qualifying Exam (SQE) first time and share my thoughts and legal tips on my Instagram and TikTok.