SQE study and exam resources

This page maps the Qualifico SQE guides. Qualifico covers the assessed route end to end: SQE1 across FLK1 and FLK2, and SQE2 through Written Response practice. SQE2 is still a separate skills assessment, so plan that stage alongside the SRA specification and your training provider.

How the assessments fit together

The SQE is the central assessment route for qualifying as a solicitor in England and Wales, but not the whole route: admission also needs a degree or equivalent, two years of qualifying work experience across up to four organisations, and the SRA character and suitability requirements. SQE1 tests functioning legal knowledge through FLK1 and FLK2, 360 single best answer questions in total, closed book, five options per question with one best answer at newly qualified standard. SQE2 comes afterwards and tests practical skills through 16 oral and written assessments.

How SQE1 works covers the format, and SQE1 compared with SQE2 explains why preparing for one tells you little about the other.

The preparation challenge

SQE1 rewards a style a law degree does not train. It tests whether you can apply functioning legal knowledge to a client scenario and choose between five plausible options, not whether you can write about law. Revision that is mostly reading trains the wrong skill, and the symptom is knowing the rule but still picking an option that states true law without answering the lead-in.

The second challenge is coverage bias. A qualifying degree does not have to cover legal services, business law and practice, solicitors accounts or the procedural subjects, while contract and tort are unavoidable. Those practice-context subjects are the easiest to under-revise and carry marks like everything else. The third is that ethics is pervasive rather than a chapter, so a conduct duty can quietly change the best answer inside a property, accounts or criminal practice scenario.

Start here

• What the SQE involves, for the route as a whole.

• Whether the SQE is worth it, for the timing question.

• SQE compared with the LPC route, if transitional arrangements might apply to you. Settle that before spending money, because eligibility depends on the rules rather than preference.

Guides by assessment

What FLK1 covers and what FLK2 covers are the orientation guides, and how to balance study time across them deals with the allocation problem that follows. Two subjects need separate treatment: ethics across both FLKs, because it is pervasive, and solicitors accounts, because it improves through short repeated practice.

Technique and study planning

How to read the stem, lead-in and options is the core technique guide, and the common preparation mistakes is the fastest read if your revision already feels reading-heavy. A practical SQE study plan sets out the system across both FLKs, debriefing wrong answers properly is where most improvement comes from, and the final four weeks covers the switch to mixed timed practice.

How Qualifico supports SQE1 study

Qualifico is a practice layer for functioning legal knowledge, alongside official SRA materials. Guided practice explains each answer as you go, mock exam mode is timed and withholds the result, and mistake review prioritises questions you previously got wrong. Topic performance across FLK1 and FLK2 matters most here, because comfortable-subject bias is the characteristic failure and topic-level data is where it becomes visible. For SQE2, Written Response practice covers the written skills tasks: you type an answer and get a mark, a percentage, the mark-scheme points your answer missed and a suggested repair. It is automated marking rather than an assessor, and it runs in the Qualifico web app rather than the mobile app.

Written Response practice is not part of SQE1 support, and that is correct rather than a gap: SQE1 is single best answer throughout.

Keep the official sources open

The SRA and the SQE assessment website remain the authority. Keep the current SQE1 assessment specification, the FLK1 and FLK2 specifications, the single best answer guidance and the official sample questions in view. Sample questions illustrate the type of question rather than covering all assessment material, and dates, fees and eligibility should always be checked at source.

Where to go next

If SQE1 is your next assessment, start with how SQE1 works and then build the routine with a practical SQE study plan. If you are not yet certain which route you are entitled to use, settle that first with SQE compared with the LPC route, because it is the one decision that is expensive to get wrong.