Hi everyone! I'm studying to sit the SQE1 in January 2027 and would like to share how I'm approaching my studying. Switched from an LTC-prep-course plan for July to mostly self-study now. I'm on the lookout to buy the best mocks though, as I'm dedicating the entirety of December to exam simulation. I also have a common law LLB, so a lot of concepts are not new to me. My approach is therefore less about learning everything from scratch and more about figuring out what actually needs to be retained, what the exam is testing, and how to recognise the answer quickly. Now for method;
From IGCSEs and A levels I was taught a very efficient technique for studying for exams by my economics and maths teachers. For one, nothing beats practice questions and past papers. These are my scaffold for my entire journey. The logic we used in economics was, to focus on load bearing elements of the questions. Example: a question on the J curve principle expects your answer to explain 1. initial worsening, 2. caused by depreciation, 3. subsequent rise. Pretty obvious, but it's very easy to overcook your thinking, and start thinking about elasticity, trade deficits etc.--all relevant, but not the irreducible stuff.
Applied here, each study and revision session becomes both triaging the content and eliminating distractors in SBAs. So when I sit down to study, I do a first pass of practice questions and note down what each question is asking--a lot of free sources like past paper hero and Williams physics education (a Godsend imo!) also indicate the topic being questioned, and I make these questions my headings. Ex: a question gives you a ratio from the High Court and an obiter from the Supreme Court. The issue is which carries binding authority. Any answer prioritising the obiter over the ratio is automatically eliminated, regardless of the Supreme Court's superiority in the court hierarchy. You can condense your study scope to the functioning parts, and then the content doesn't look as ominous.
Also, condense, condense, condense. I like maths, so I've created my own system in the way of a formula sheet. Ex: "limits of parliamentary sovereignty" is written as limits(parliamentary sovereignty), or a higher court has made a decision AND the relevant ratio applies; THEREFORE the lower court must follow it, becomes Higher court decision ∧ relevant ratio decidendi ∴ lower court bound. Maybe kooky, but it helps me retain.
What's everyone's content/practice-question split by month? Also, anyone else out there with unconventional methods? I'd love to hear!
From IGCSEs and A levels I was taught a very efficient technique for studying for exams by my economics and maths teachers. For one, nothing beats practice questions and past papers. These are my scaffold for my entire journey. The logic we used in economics was, to focus on load bearing elements of the questions. Example: a question on the J curve principle expects your answer to explain 1. initial worsening, 2. caused by depreciation, 3. subsequent rise. Pretty obvious, but it's very easy to overcook your thinking, and start thinking about elasticity, trade deficits etc.--all relevant, but not the irreducible stuff.
Applied here, each study and revision session becomes both triaging the content and eliminating distractors in SBAs. So when I sit down to study, I do a first pass of practice questions and note down what each question is asking--a lot of free sources like past paper hero and Williams physics education (a Godsend imo!) also indicate the topic being questioned, and I make these questions my headings. Ex: a question gives you a ratio from the High Court and an obiter from the Supreme Court. The issue is which carries binding authority. Any answer prioritising the obiter over the ratio is automatically eliminated, regardless of the Supreme Court's superiority in the court hierarchy. You can condense your study scope to the functioning parts, and then the content doesn't look as ominous.
Also, condense, condense, condense. I like maths, so I've created my own system in the way of a formula sheet. Ex: "limits of parliamentary sovereignty" is written as limits(parliamentary sovereignty), or a higher court has made a decision AND the relevant ratio applies; THEREFORE the lower court must follow it, becomes Higher court decision ∧ relevant ratio decidendi ∴ lower court bound. Maybe kooky, but it helps me retain.
What's everyone's content/practice-question split by month? Also, anyone else out there with unconventional methods? I'd love to hear!
