SQE Advice - What I Wish I'd Known Before SQE1 & 2

[Dana Altunisi]

TCLA helped me a lot when I was applying for vacation schemes and training contracts, so I thought I'd pay it forward and share some advice on the SQE.​

About Me​

• 21-year-old future trainee at an international law firm.
• Graduated with an LLB in 2024 and an LLM in 2025.
• Studied full-time on BPP's LLM Legal Practice (SQE1 & SQE2) course from September 2025 onwards, sponsored by my firm.
• Sat SQE1 in January 2026 and passed in the first quintile.
• Sat SQE2 in April/May 2026 and am currently waiting for results (fingers crossed!).

Like many people sitting these exams, I often felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content and spent far too much time worrying whether I was doing enough.

What I Wish I'd Known Before SQE1​

1. You do not need to know everything​

At some point, you have to accept that nobody walks into SQE1 knowing everything. The goal isn't perfection. It's knowing enough law to consistently identify the best answer.

2. Question practice is SO important ​

Looking back, I would have started question practice much earlier, instead of waiting till 'I was ready or knew everything'.

I used the following question banks:

• OUP
• Revise SQE
• QLTS
• The 100
• ULaw question bank

The more questions you do, the more familiar the exam starts to feel, and you will start identifying patterns.

3. Getting questions wrong is part of the process​

Some of my biggest improvements came from reviewing questions I'd answered wrong.

Don't panic if your scores aren't where you want them to be at the start. You are likely to score quite low in more difficult mocks such as QLTS and the100. Bad scores tell you where to focus your revision.

4. Don't neglect your weaker subjects​

It's very easy to keep revising the subjects you enjoy because they make you feel productive. The biggest gains usually come from tackling the subjects you hate. For me, I dreaded constitutional law revision and scored quite low on it in the exam

5. Don't compare yourself to everyone else​

There comes a point where another ten hours of revision won't magically transform your result. Trust the work you've already put in and don’t compare yourself to the amount of work others are doing. This will stress you out.

What I Wish I'd Known Before SQE2​

1. Structure solves most problems​

Start by laying out an email start and end, then structure the body around the actual issues identified in the task.
Even when you don't know the law perfectly, structure helps keep you stay organised and give you marks under the skills criteria.

2. You will probably never feel fully prepared

SQE2 felt much more open-ended, and because of that I never really felt "ready" and could not necessarily track my progress with scores. I walked into several assessments feeling underprepared and later realised that was completely normal.

3. Don't wait until you've revised everything before attempting mocks​

This is probably the biggest mistake I nearly made. I kept feeling like I needed to cover more content before attempting full mocks. In reality, I learned far more from doing mocks than I expected. Especially practicing under times conditions.

Most of my mock practice came from BPP workshops and inhouseW mocks.

4. Don't obsess over individual assessments afterwards​

At least one assessment will probably leave you convinced you've failed (speaking from experience!) That's normal. The exams are cumulative and one bad station is very unlikely to ruin your overall result.

If I Could Give One Piece of Advice​

Everyone feels overwhelmed. Everyone thinks everyone else is doing more revision than they are. Everyone has moments where they think they're going to fail. Focus on your own preparation, trust the work you've put in, and try not to compare your journey to anybody else's.