What SQE1 Preparation Taught Me About How to Study

I came into the process with a legal background and experience of professional examinations, so initially I thought the main challenge would simply be covering the syllabus. Read the material properly, make good notes, revise it, and then practise questions.

SQE1 has turned out to be more complicated than that.

Understanding a rule while reading it is one thing. Remembering it when it appears in a completely different factual scenario is another. I often find that I know the relevant law, but the difficult part is deciding which of two very similar answers is actually the better one. I have had to adjust my preparation around that.

Starting with the law

I started, as I think many candidates do, by concentrating heavily on the underlying content.

That is still an important part of my preparation. In fact, at the moment my main focus is on getting through the text properly and making sure I understand the law before moving much more heavily into quizzes, mocks and SBAQs.

I also realised quite early that finishing a chapter doesn't necessarily mean you can answer questions on it. There were plenty of occasions when I finished reading something feeling that I understood it, only to get caught out when the same principle appeared in an SBAQ.

That was when I began appreciating the importance of practising questions alongside learning the law.

Where Law Drills fitted into my preparation

I looked at different SQE preparation resources because I didn't want to depend on one particular way of learning.

This was one of the things I liked about Law Drills. When I got a question wrong, I didn't have to just read the answer and move on. I could look more closely at where my reasoning had gone wrong and spend some time on that particular point.

That sounds like a small difference, but for SQE1 I think it matters.

Sometimes I get a question wrong because I simply don't know the rule well enough. Other times I know the rule but misread the facts. And sometimes I understand both the law and the facts but still choose the wrong answer because another option looks more attractive.

Those are three different problems. Treating every wrong answer as simply "I need to revise this topic" doesn't necessarily fix them.

The AI tutor

The feature I found particularly interesting was the AI tutor.

For example, imagine getting a Contract question on consideration wrong. A normal answer explanation might tell you what the correct option is and briefly explain the relevant rule.

With the tutor, I could go further and question the reasoning behind the answer. I could look at why my approach was wrong, explore the distinction I had missed and then move into the wider topic if I needed to.

I found that much more useful than simply memorising that "B was the correct answer."

For me, the important part is the conversation after getting something wrong.

If an explanation doesn't convince me, I don't just move on. I usually ask another question or go back to the answer I chose and work out exactly why it doesn't fit. I've found that I remember the point much better when I've had to work through the mistake myself.

Of course, I don't treat an AI explanation as an authoritative statement of law. Where something is important or doesn't look right, I go back to my course materials or the relevant primary source. For a professional examination, I think that distinction is important.

Learning from wrong answers

Another feature I have found useful is being able to return to areas where I am making mistakes.

A broad score can sometimes hide the real problem. Knowing that I am weaker in, say, Land Law is not particularly helpful on its own. I need to know what within Land Law is causing the difficulty.

Is it priorities? Registered dispositions? Overriding interests? Co-ownership?

Once the weakness becomes specific, revision becomes much more useful.

I also like being able to request more questions similar to one that has caused me difficulty. If I get one difficult question wrong, doing another few questions around the same principle helps establish whether it was an isolated mistake or whether I genuinely have a gap in my understanding.

That is the sort of feedback I want from question practice.

Why SBAQs need a different mindset

One lesson from my SQE preparation so far is that SBAQs require their own technique.

It isn't enough to know which answer is legally possible. You are looking for the single best answer.

That means reading the facts carefully, identifying what the question is actually testing and resisting the temptation to choose an option simply because it contains a legal proposition you recognise.

Some of the most useful questions are actually the ones where I narrow the options down to two and choose the wrong one.

Those mistakes tell me much more than an easy question that I answer correctly in ten seconds.

The explanation I want in that situation isn't just: Option C is correct. I want to understand: Why was B so tempting, and what exactly made C better?

That is where detailed feedback becomes useful.

Macro topics and mixed questions

Another challenge with SQE1 is the sheer breadth of FLK1 and FLK2. The subjects may be divided neatly in textbooks and course materials, but legal problems do not always arrive in neat boxes.

A question can appear to be about one subject while containing an ethics or professional conduct issue that changes the answer.

That is why I increasingly see value in practising across topics rather than spending too long answering questions from one narrow chapter.

When I am learning something new, topic-specific questions make sense. But once the underlying rules are reasonably secure, mixed practice is much closer to the mental switching required in the actual assessment.

Mocks will be the next major stage

I am not pretending that I have reached the end of this process. My preparation is still developing.

Right now, I am deliberately concentrating more heavily on the text content. I want the underlying legal framework to be secure rather than rushing into hundreds of questions simply to increase a number on a dashboard.

The next stage will be much more question-intensive: quizzes first, followed by larger SBAQ sets and then timed mocks.

I expect the mocks to be particularly important because SQE1 tests something that ordinary revision cannot reproduce: stamina.

Knowing the answer to a question when you're fresh is one thing. Maintaining concentration and judgment after working through question after question under time pressure is another.

That is something I want to train rather than discover on exam day.

What I like — and what I would improve

I don't think any preparation platform should be described as perfect.

What I like about Law Drills is the combination of questions, feedback and the ability to dig further into mistakes rather than simply moving on to the next question.

The adaptive element is also useful because I would rather spend my limited study time on genuine weaknesses than repeatedly answer questions on topics I already understand.

There are limitations.

There have been occasions where I would have liked greater depth in particular areas, and AI-generated explanations still require judgment. If an explanation conflicts with something I have learned from authoritative materials, I would never assume that the AI must be right.

And ultimately, no question platform can replace learning the underlying law.

For me, Law Drills works best as a practice and diagnostic tool, not as a substitute for proper study materials.

What I would do differently

If there is one thing I would change about my approach, it would be to introduce SBAQs earlier alongside the text.

I originally saw the process too sequentially: learn the law → finish the syllabus → start questions.

I now think there should be more overlap.

Learn a topic, test it, find the weakness, return to the law, and test it again.

That cycle exposes gaps much earlier.

I don't think there is much value in doing thousands of questions just for the sake of reaching a big number. If I keep making the same mistake and don't understand why, doing another hundred questions isn't going to solve the problem. I would rather spend time reviewing the questions I got wrong and make sure I understand them before moving on.

Where I am now

At the moment, most of my time is still going into the actual course content. I want to get the law properly settled in my mind first rather than rushing through the material just so that I can say I have finished it.

As I move forward, I will gradually spend more time on quizzes and SBAQs and then move on to timed mocks. I am already using Law Drills alongside my studies, but question practice will become a much bigger part of my preparation once I have covered the content.

One thing this process has already taught me is that reading and understanding the law is only part of SQE1 preparation. I also need to be able to recognise which rule a question is testing and apply it to the facts quickly. That's what I'm working on now.