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I am a notorious over-prepper. Why write something out once when you can write it as notes, flashcards, and then from memory several more times for good measure? Those methods helped me pass SQE1, but they were not terribly efficient. It was only when preparing for SQE2 that I realised something I wish I had known earlier: even for SQE1, recognition is not enough. The more securely you can recall the core legal principles, the easier it becomes to answer single best answer questions with confidence, rather than educated hope.
Disclaimers
Before we delve into my secret recipe, my advice comes with a couple of caveats:
- Everyone learns differently and the methods that worked for me, won’t necessarily work for you. I am not encouraging you to deviate from a tried and tested method that has worked for you in the past, but if you are feeling overwhelmed or perhaps a little stumped in your revision strategy, this may offer something to try.
- Upon writing this article, I am still waiting for the results of my SQE2 exam, and whilst I felt comfortable with the exam content, the “pudding has not yet been eaten”!
How SQE1 and SQE2 differ
SQE1 and SQE2 are very different beasts. SQE2 tests your ability to apply legal knowledge in client-based scenarios, where key principles need to be readily available.
SQE1, by contrast, presents itself as a multiple-choice exam. That can make it tempting to treat it as a recognition exercise: read the question, scan the options, and wait for the right answer to wave from the page. In reality, SQE1 still demands secure legal knowledge and professional judgement. Without the underlying principle, the options quickly become a small crowd of plausible imposters.
My SQE1 preparation relied heavily on repeated immersion. I returned to the material again and again, hoping each visit would leave a little more behind. It worked to an extent, but it was not especially efficient. I gradually absorbed the core legal concepts, rather than learning the syllabus in a deliberate, structured way.
SQE2 forced a different approach. I kept the understanding I had developed for SQE1, but added a focused layer: learning the key legal tests and principles for each assessed area. Once I broke it down, the syllabus felt less intimidating. The number of legal tests I actually needed to recall was smaller than it first appeared; they had just been hiding in a very large forest of material.
Why this is relevant to SQE1
You may quite reasonably be wondering: “If SQE1 and SQE2 are so different, why is this relevant?”
The answer is that the method changed the way I approached single best answer questions. Once I began embedding core principles into memory, my SBAQ scores improved significantly. I went from a pre-SQE1 average of around 75% to scores of 85–90%. More importantly, I felt less stumped by questions, less inclined to guess, and more confident in my reasoning.
Instead of choosing the answer that simply looked or felt right, I found myself reciting the relevant legal principle in my head and then applying it to the facts in front of me. That small shift made the questions feel less like guesswork and more like legal analysis.
How the method works
The method itself is simple and composed of two stages:
- Knowledge Gap Identification; and
- Blurting
Knowledge gap identification
The purpose of this stage is to identify where your legal knowledge is threadbare, so that you can spend your revision time more intelligently: less time polishing strong areas, and more time repairing the wobbly shelves.
You can do this using provider or university tools that analyse your practice question statistics. My preferred method, discovered during SQE2 preparation, was to use AI as a quickfire revision partner.
I asked it to put hypothetical client-based questions to me across the syllabus, forcing me to respond quickly and expose hesitant areas. The important health warning is that AI can get things wrong, so you should always check that the questions are within the syllabus and that the answers are legally accurate.
A morning of this was usually enough to reveal the weak spots.
Blurting
“Blurting” is the practice of forcing everything you know about a topic out of your head and onto the page without checking your notes first. It is not elegant, but it is effective: the revision equivalent of emptying a handbag onto a table and seeing what is actually in there.
For example, for pure psychological harm in tort, you might write: “Alcock test for secondary victims; close ties of love and affection; proximity in time, space and relationship; witnessed the accident or immediate aftermath with own senses; recognised psychiatric injury; psychiatric injury reasonably foreseeable…”
After identifying my gaps, I would revise the relevant principles, blurt everything I could remember, compare it against the textbook, and repeat. Over time, I could recall topics I had previously struggled with, such as bad character evidence, much more easily.
That freed up valuable time in the exam. Instead of rummaging around in my grey matter for the principle, I had more time to consider the facts, apply professional judgement, and choose between the plausible-looking answers.
Final words
That is really all there is to it. It sounds simple, but when you are faced with a syllabus as vast as SQE1, simple methods are often overlooked precisely because they seem too rudimentary.
I hope some of you find this technique helpful and, however you prepare, I wish you the very best of luck.