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Message: <blockquote data-quote="average_jo123" data-source="post: 213724" data-attributes="member: 15838"><h3>SQE2 Mocks</h3>No matter which provider you are with (except maybe QLTS), the one complaint you will hear is that there are not enough mocks available. I think the reason why mocks are so scarce is because even when I look at my ULaw mocks I realise that it is very difficult to come up with a question for each station that is robust and effective as a mock. I'm sure providers will have heard the same complaint over and over, so they are probably also working on expanding their question bank for SQE2, but I will share briefly how I approached mocks as someone at ULaw.<h4>Copyright infringement</h4>I get that when you are desperate for mocks you are kind of willing to do anything and everything to help you pass, but I think it is important to bear honesty in mind. If you are with a provider, chances are you have signed an agreement that you will not distribute course materials (including mocks) without prior authorisation. I see people swapping materials and have gotten private messages on Reddit asking to swap mocks as well — I would approach this with caution. I have seen rumours on Reddit re QLTS cracking down on password sharing and reporting dishonesty to the SRA lol idk how true it is. I figured the right thing to do would be not to get myself in any trouble with copyright infringement and being dishonest, so unfortunately it does mean that if you want extra mocks, you need to buy them. There are some mocks you may be able to share with others e.g. my friends and I all chipped in to buy the ReviseSQE pack in hardcopy and we will just lend the books to each other and rotate the books around.<h4>Asking your firm to buy more mocks</h4>It did feel very frustrating to not have enough mocks, and at some points we did raise the issue to our firm asking if they can provide additional financial support to access extra materials. I think that eventually fell flat because if you are sponsored, I am GUESSING (not a fact, just a theory) your firm probably will have some sort of exclusivity agreement with that provider so their hands will be tied as well. In all fairness when you are nervous and stressed you do tend to catastrophise it seriously think that your provider isn't doing enough to help you pass, but if you are with a reputable provider, chances are they will come back to you with a relatively high pass rate and tell you to chill out lol - that's one of the comments we were met with when we complained — essentially our firm thought that if ULaw has helped their previous cohorts to pass without them having to subsidise extra materials, then they have every reason to believe that ULaw's materials and teaching alone should suffice, which is a fair point. Though I do wonder if most of these cohorts who have passed actually relied solely on one provider or if they used their own money to purchase other resources without their sponsoring firm knowing — that, we don't know. But if your entire cohort really seriously believes that your provider is seriously lacking in mocks or any other aspect of SQE2 prep, then I suppose it is a valid concern to raise with your firm (they will want you to succeed anyway), but you will need to put your case across well and probably be prepared to be rejected lol.<h4>SQE2 prep course at ULaw</h4>I posted here a while back asking for advice on SQE2 prep with ULaw and how to make the most out of it but didn't get any replies RIP so having gone through the process myself I thought I might shed some light. This might not be directly applicable to you if you are with another provider, but if your teaching takes a similar mode, then some of this may apply to you as well.Prepping for workshops:The mode of the workshops are pretty much still similar to SQE1 prep. You do your prep task, go to class to engage and come back to consolidate. The first two or so workshops for each station is pretty redundant imo (though I'm quite sure ULaw would have gotten loads of negative feedback on this and will improve this going forward) - literally teaches you punctuation and grammar and spending way too much time telling you what the assessment is about when you can easily read that yourself on the SRA website - definitely feel like they are just padding those few workshops out. So I remember I did kind of just zoned out for those workshops - literally had workshops where we sat round a table proofreading something, splitting stuff into paragraphs and writing headings for each paragraph lol. But once the workshops get FLK-dense and less common sense, make sure your head is in the game and you are giving it a good shot.There is a lot of chat about there being not enough mocks but if you actually compile all of ULaw's materials (including workshop materials, if you treat those as mocks), there's actually a decent amount of materials to work through. The only way you can make the most out of it is making sure that you prep yourself very well for workshops. This was one thing I definitely regret not doing. Essentially, as you progress through the course you will realise that the workshops are pretty much time for you to attempt mocks in real time and receive feedback right after (at least this was how it was when I did the course, not sure if they will have changed it by the time you read this post). So if you are not prepared for the workshop, it means you are not prepared to sit for the mock and you are wasting that opportunity.Before the workshop, have a skim of the prep and engage tasks. If they look useless (e.g. grammar, punctuation, proofreading) then don't waste time on it - just use your time on FLK revision instead. But if the prep tasks tell you to look at specific bits of FLK, just stick to it and drill down on those - because you will need them to attempt the mock in the workshop. I know you're generally not supposed to look at the engage tasks because you're meant to look at the material for the first time and test yourself on the spot in the workshop. But I found that it would be helpful to at least know what topic FLK you will be tested on and really memorise the FLK beforehand, so that when you attempt the mock in the workshop, you are actually practising your skills and marrying your law and skill together instead of fumbling about your FLK notes still trying to recall law. It's not ideal, having to attempt a mock in a roomful of people (there are many distractions) but it's as good as you can get for anything resembling a mock, so try to make the most out of it. The tutor will usually run through feedback after this - this is sometimes useful because you can ask questions about the skills element e.g. "is it ok if I phrase it like this?", "is this acceptable language?" but I did find the workshops way too long, especially when the tutors go over in too much detail about the FLK itself even though most of us already have quite a good grasp on the FLK itself, so to go through it again just feels like a waste of time, but I can't blame them as they do just need to cover their bases.Study plan:Unlike SQE1 where week by week ULaw spells out which chapters you need to tick off to cover the whole spec, there is no big study plan for SQE2. Alongside doing the prep for the workshops, you need to be very proactive in making sure you are still covering your FLK for the rest of the spec. Because there are only a few workshops ULaw can only cover a tiny tiny part of the spec — this is far from enough. I would say FLK-wise the FLK covered in the mocks / questions during the course vs the FLK tested by the questions I got during my exams - there is only maybe 30 to 40%-ish of overlap - 60% of FLK I managed to blurt out during the exam was pretty much just dry FLK that I had in my head, that I had to apply to the question on the spot - definitely not answers that I knew only because ULaw had a mock / question that was similar. I don't blame ULaw for this, of course, because just like SQE1, no one provider can actually craft a mock out of every single possible topic in the spec. And I think ULaw just didn't really drum into our heads how important FLK revision in the background is like they did for SQE1 because everyone who has sat the SQE1 pretty much knows this already - but I am just adding this here as an extra reminder. Make sure you have go through the same style of spec-checking exercise you have done in SQE1 to make sure you are covering enough ground for SQE2 as well.<h4>Mock shortage — what should I do? </h4>As mentioned above, if you seriously prep for workshops and attempt the mocks in workshops, you will have actually gone through a decent amount of mocks. The issue is you are still left with a whole month+ of revision time where you don't have an unattempted question bank sitting there ready for you to bash through — this is why it feels like there are not enough mocks. You will also feel very unsettled because you have not attempted mocks for every possible topic in the spec.At the time of writing this I have not found out whether I've passed SQE2 so I don't know if what I put down actually got me over the line. But my honest feeling as of now, having written the exam, is that I low key overestimated the importance of the number of mocks you attempted. I'm not saying the mocks aren't important — they are extremely important. I think they are very important to help practise your time management and also practising them until it all becomes intuitive to you so when you actually see the exam question, you can jump straight in and know what structure to take and how you want to approach it - all because you've practised it quite a few times. And as mentioned above, by all means, you should try to do a full practice sit and figure out whether you are capable of finishing everything on time and that you are able to think on your feet when faced with a brand new question with a piece of FLK you have not just revised 10 minutes ago. But ultimately you cannot count on SQE2 mocks to help get you through the FLK hurdle and you cannot expect any one provider to come up with every single topic possible and think of a different factual scenario to help quiz you on it — undoubtedly you will go into the exam and face a new factual scenario you have not seen before. You just need to know enough FLK to start with and have had enough practice applying the FLK to the question.I found that after I had gone through all of ULaw's SQE2 materials and attempted all the extra mocks I had, the skills element was already pretty intuitive to me at that point and there wasn't more I could do to improve it (if that makes sense). For example at the start I could not for the life of me even string a sentence together for advocacy but by the end because I had already done 10+ practice rounds, it didn't really matter what question you threw at me — I knew by heart what my structure should be, where to look for information in my bundle etc. So at that point it wouldn't have really mattered if I had actually attempted a mock for every single possible topic that might come up (not that this was possible anyway). In fact, towards the end I remember because I was so pushed for time I didn't really fully attempt every single mock I had — some I literally just skimmed, wrote a skeleton answer, checked the answer right away and moved on. Being pushed for time and just skimming certain mocks was not just something I did; when I chatted to my friends about it it did seem like quite a common experience. So from this I gather that yes, mocks are very important to help you build up your skillset for answering SQE2 questions in the few months running up to your exam, but once you get the hang of the structure, the general skills you need and have had some practice applying the relevant FLK to a new factual scenario, you don't necessarily need to attempt 50 more mocks to help you pass. Besides, even if you did have loads of mocks from different providers, some of the FLK tested will overlap across e.g. two different mocks from two different providers anyway, so even if you did attempt both, (1) you are not actually testing yourself on more FLK outside the FLK you already know - which can very possibly happen in the actual exam; and (2) you are just repeating the same writing / oral skills you have already practised > 10 times that you are already familiar with - so overall just not the best use of your time. For some of the mocks I had on hand I straight up skipped because just from skimming the question I knew that the FLK tested I already knew very well and I didn't think I needed more practice on (e.g. writing a letter to a client about which business model to choose) and I would rather use that time to drill down on FLK that I no longer remembered very well. But if the question was slightly different (e.g. writing a letter to an opposing party's solicitors to tell them about the client's proposed next steps re forfeiture of lease or drafting a new form of document I had not seen before) which required a slightly different skillset or a piece of FLK I'm not familiar with, then I will have attempted the mock to make sure I get some revision of FLK as well as some practice of the skill in.<h4>Which provider has the best mocks? </h4>The caveat I wish to make here is that anything I say here is just my personal opinion — others may have varying experiences with these providers (if you do, please share below) and bear in mind this is only one out of thousands of other reviews. I don't want anyone to be put off from purchasing from a certain provider just because of what I wrote here —  the best thing you could do is probably read other reviews online and ask around your friends and see what their reviews are, then make your own judgment on whether you want to purchase additional materials.As for similarity of any of the mocks I tried to the real thing, overall I would say my comment is the same as my thoughts on SQE1 mocks — no one provider gets it just right. You can only get your hands on as many different mocks as possible and make sure you get enough practice of applying your FLK to a new set of factual scenarios under time constraints. With any mock you attempt, just treat the difficulty level as the floor and not the ceiling, so you are prepared for the worst in the real exam. A lot of people ask if SQE2 questions are broad or niche; the simple answer, unfortunately, is the same as my thoughts on SQE1 above — is it is in the spec, there is every chance that it may come up. It may come up as a small element of one question in one station, it may also come up as the single element of an entire question in one station — the only way you can prepare for it is to know your FLK inside out and try your best to apply it when you do see the question.SRA sample SQE2 questions:It is worth attempting the SRA sample SQE2 questions. The difficulty level for each station in the sample question vs the real thing was quite random for me. Some felt easier, some felt harder. You really can't predict it. You can only attempt the SRA sample question and from there hope for the best but prepare for the worst.Other providers' mocks (my experience):For other SQE2 mocks on the market it is even more arbitrary to say which provider has 'good' mocks which provider has 'worse' ones because it really does just depends on what you look for in a mock and what you value from it. I didn't buy the full suite of QLTS mocks because it costs over £2,000 but just from looking at the SQE2 mock matrix that they have I suppose their selling point is that their mocks cover a broader range of FLK, which is great. But bear in mind a good set of mocks is not just about testing you on the broadest range of FLK possible, but also having robust enough of a factual scenario to allow you to practise applying your FLK in a meaningful way. And in all honesty I do feel that the fact patterns in ULaw's questions are pretty robust and do hit all the important spots on the key FLK tested in each mock. For example the QLTS free advocacy and some of the inhousew advocacy mocks had really short bundles as well — you can immediately tell this is not true to the SRA sample at all and certainly not true to the actual exam.I pretty much relied primarily on ULaw's workshop materials, revision workbook and mock exams. However as mentioned above I did end up buying ReviseSQE for SQE2. I don't have much to say about the ReviseSQE books for SQE2 except for I feel the books were pretty sparse. I can understand why though, as the books focus on just the skills / mocks rather than the FLK. But I did find that a good part of the questions did overlap with the FLK tested by ULaw's mocks, so I remember for those I just skipped right past it. But there were also a few which concerned FLK that ULaw had not covered in their SQE2 mocks, so I just attempted those instead. I also bought inhousew (costed around £70+, which I paid for myself and didn't share with anyone). I only bought inhousew because some people have told me they are quite similar to the real thing and also I was just desperate to get my hands on any mock I could and inhousew was the only other thing I could remotely afford just one step below QLTS. I personally felt inhousew was a bit of a mixed bag. Again, there was some overlap in FLK with ULaw so I just skipped those. There were a good handful of tricky questions, which I appreciated, mainly to help re-jog memory on FLK on the spot but also practise my critical thinking and writing my answers under time constraints. There were also some questions testing FLK that perhaps fell outside of what I would expect would come up and actually ended up coming up in my actual exam — I will stress though that some of these mocks basically just gave me an idea of perhaps a niche bit of law that might come up and gave me a rough idea of what type of factual scenario might accompany it, but again, you cannot count on mocks to cover all of the FLK you need to know (I could only answer that question in the exam only because I went away and drilled down separately on the FLK itself after attempting the inhousew mock). There were also some not so great questions e.g. fact patterns were either too short or one-dimensional and some questions that fell quite far in terms of level of difficulty you would expect to encounter in the exam. I would say that the "too-easy" mocks are quite easy to spot though, especially after attempting the SRA sample questions. For example, I saw mocks (from both ULaw and inhousew) where most of the mock is literally just asking you to plug client instructions into blobs on a document as a drafting task lol — obviously way too easy. Though this may form part of the drafting exam, common sense will tell you to expect not just plugging but also additional elements of picking the right precedent + incorporating client instructions to draft something that is legally correct and effective.</blockquote>

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