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How to pass SQE2

To pass SQE2, write timed answers in each skill and have them marked against the SRA's criteria. Redraft the weakest parts, revise the law the marking shows you missed, and finish with full written sessions and a mock.

Updated 1 October 2026 · Checked against the sources listed below

Sample script: driving offence letter

Legal writing · Criminal Litigation · 30 minutes

Sample, tap anything

SkillsC3 / 5

LawC2.7 / 5

Station 57%

477 words

Skills and law count equally. No single station has a pass mark: the exam result is the average of all 16.

Dear Imran Re: Your court case Thank you for your instructions. I understand that on 4 August 2026 at 6.12am you were caught by a mobile camera driving your work van at 38mph in a 30mph limit on Melton Road.1 You were late for a job because you had overslept. You already have 9 points on your licence from three speeding offences in 2023 and 2025. Your mother has dialysis three times a week at Leicester General Hospital and you take her. You work for Ashfield Heating as a gas engineer earning £38,000 a year and you pay the rent of £850 a month. Your hearing is on 22 October at Leicester Magistrates' Court. Will you be banned? This offence is likely to get 3 points. That would put you on 12 points. If you get 12 points within three years the court has to disqualify you for a minimum of 6 months under the totting up rules. You asked if the 2023 points have expired. They have not. Points stay on your licence for four years (your DVLA record shows they will not be removed until 18 September 2027)2, so they will still be counted and you will be on 12. Can you keep your licence? You can ask the court not to ban you because of exceptional hardship. This means the hardship has to be more than the normal hardship anyone suffers when they lose their licence. In your case you would explain to the court that you need to drive for your job3 and that your mother relies on you to get to her dialysis. The magistrates will decide whether this is exceptional. I cannot say for certain what they will decide.4 Your friend mentioned special reasons. This does not apply to you, as special reasons are for things connected with the offence itself, not your work or family situation. Your employer's letter We cannot tell the court that you will be sacked, because Dawn's letter says they would give you a job in the stores. We are not allowed to mislead the court. We will need to tell the court about the stores job if it comes up.5 Do you need to attend? Yes, you should attend court on 22 October.6 You will need to explain your hardship to the magistrates yourself, so it is important that you are there. I will come with you. At court you will be asked to enter a plea. As you accept you were speeding you will plead guilty.7 The court will then decide on the fine and the points, and will hear our argument about exceptional hardship. Next steps Please send me any evidence you have about your mother's treatment and your job before the hearing so that I can prepare.8 Please contact me if you have any questions. Yours sincerely Siobhan Kerr Holbrook Mistry LLP

Tap a highlight to read its comment.

Work on next

Criminal Litigation: exceptional hardship, applying the burden, sworn evidence, job loss and alternatives to the client's facts

  1. 1.Explain the three-year rule as offence date to offence date, not the DVLA removal date
  2. 2.Apply exceptional hardship fully: burden, sworn evidence, job loss not enough given the stores offer, and the alternatives for his mother
  3. 3.Replace the opening recital with a short introduction and end with a specific, dated list of evidence
  • You spotted 2 of 4 key issues.
    • Partly: Will he be banned? Band A speeding gives 3 points; the 2023 points still count because the three years run offence to offence; 12 points means a minimum six-month totting-up ban
    • Partly: Can he keep his licence? Exceptional hardship (burden, sworn evidence, job loss not enough and he would be redeployed, his mother's dialysis and the alternatives, points stay, three-year bar on reuse); special reasons not available for personal circumstances
    • Partly: The hearing on 22 October: plead guilty for a one-third fine reduction that does not shorten a ban; exceptional hardship heard with his evidence; he must attend because the court cannot ban in his absence without adjourning
    • Partly: His request to tell the court he will be sacked and to keep the stores offer quiet
  • Not everything asked was answered: What he needs to do before the hearing is left vague; Why he must attend (no ban in his absence without an adjournment) is not explained
  • Reaches 12 points and rejects special reasons, but the three-year rule is applied by the DVLA removal date rather than offence dates, and exceptional hardship is stated rather than applied to the stores offer and the alternatives.
  • Says the outcome is uncertain, but gives no view on prospects, does not identify the evidence the court will test (patient transport, taxis, Farah) and closes with a vague request for 'any evidence'.
  • The opening paragraph retells the file note (time of offence, salary, rent) which Imran already knows.

Grades by criterion

Skills

Application of law

Tap a grade to see only its highlights. Tap a criterion to read the reason for its grade.

Law points

2 of 9 covered. Tap a point to read it in full.

  • Covered
  • Wrong
  • Partly
  • Missed
  • Partly
  • Covered
  • Missed
  • Partly
  • Partly

A sample script written for this demonstration and marked against the SRA's assessment criteria.

Try the free SQE2 diagnostic

SQE2 at a glance

stations: 4 oral and 12 written
16
for each written half-day of four tasks
3h 15m
out of 500, one pass mark for SQE2 as a whole
300
passed SQE2 in April 2026
83%
Sources for these figures

Learn what the marker is looking for

Each station is marked against published criteria, graded A to F. Half of the station score is skills, such as "Use a logical structure" in legal writing. The other half is law: applying it correctly, applying it comprehensively and dealing with any ethical issue. Read the criteria for each skill before you write a word in it. The marking criteria page lists them all, with what separates a C from a D.

The SRA's own sample questions show the standard. Each has a candidate answer with a commentary against the criteria. Read one per skill early, and read the commentary as closely as the answer.

The weekly cycle

For most of the preparation period, a week has the same shape.

  1. Write two or three timed answers, in different skills or practice areas.
  2. Have each one marked against the criteria, or mark it yourself against the performance indicators the SRA publishes.
  3. Redraft the weakest section of each answer, with the feedback beside it.
  4. Revise the law points the marking showed were missing or wrong.
  5. Keep a list of the criteria you keep losing marks on, and read it before the next answer.

The redraft is the step most candidates skip. A mark tells you where the answer fell short. Rewriting that paragraph is how you learn to write it right the first time.

A method for each written skill

SkillTimeWhat to practise
Legal writing30 minAnswer the question asked in the first paragraph, then explain. Write for the named reader: a client gets no jargon, a partner gets the law.
Case and matter analysis60 minPlan for 10 minutes. List the issues, the options for each and the risks, then recommend. Every point ties to a fact in the file.
Legal drafting45 minDraft the operative clauses first, then the rest. Check every name, date and figure against the instructions.
Legal research60 minSkim every source before reading any closely. Some are irrelevant. The answer is advice to the client, not a summary of the sources.

The oral stations

The client interview is 10 minutes of preparation and 25 minutes with the client, who is an actor and marks your skills. Then you write the attendance note by hand in 25 minutes. The law marks for the station come only from that note. Practise the note as hard as the interview.

Advocacy is 45 minutes of preparation and 15 minutes of submissions to a judge. Structure it in the order the court needs: what you ask for, the facts that matter, the law, then the answer to the other side's best point. Recording yourself is the most useful single practice method.

The law you need

The law in SQE2 is part of the SQE1 syllabus, applied in five practice areas. Business Law and Practice has a whole written day, and every station has an ethics criterion. The question never flags the ethical issue. The SQE2 syllabus page maps each area to the SQE1 subjects behind it. If a marked answer shows a gap, revise that topic from the SQE1 material, then write the answer again.

The final four weeks

Sit at least one full written half-day under time: four tasks in 3 hours 15 minutes, as one written day. Then sit a full mock of all three written days. Use the result to pick the two weakest skill and area combinations, and spend the last fortnight on those.

Questions candidates ask

The SRA sets no preparation period. Counted from the January 2027 SQE1 results on 9 March, there are about six weeks to the April SQE2 and about four and a half months to July. What matters more is the number of timed answers written and marked in that time.

No. The SRA does not require one. What every candidate needs is timed practice in each skill and feedback against the criteria. Some get that feedback from a course, some from a supervisor or study partner and some from a marking service.

83% passed in April 2026, but every candidate had already passed SQE1. The difficulty is the skills: writing for a client under time, drafting a document that works and finding the point in a source pack.

Yes. The final score is the mean of all 16 stations, with one pass mark for the whole exam. A weak station is offset by stronger ones, so the aim is to have no very weak skill or practice area.

For advocacy, prepare a submission in 45 minutes from a sample brief and record yourself delivering it in 15. For the interview, run it with a study partner playing the client, then write the attendance note by hand in 25 minutes.

Half of every station's score comes from the law criteria, including the attendance note. The law is a subset of the SQE1 syllabus, applied to a client's facts rather than recalled.

Sources

SQE Practice is independent of the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Rules, dates and fees can change: the SRA is the authority, and this page is checked against it.

Start with one marked answer

The free SQE2 diagnostic takes about 20 minutes: a short writing task marked against the SRA's criteria, A to F, and quick questions across the other written skills. The marking is automated.

Try the free SQE2 diagnostic

a marked writing task and 8 quick questions · about 20 minutes · free, no card details

Try the free SQE2 diagnostic20 min