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SQE2 mock exam: how to build, time and score a full mock

There are no official SQE2 past papers. A useful mock copies the real timings, mixes skills and practice areas, and is scored as the exam is: the average of station percentages, with skills and law equal in each station.

Updated 1 October 2026 · Checked against the sources listed below

Sample script: struggling company report

Case and matter analysis · Business Law and Practice · 60 minutes

Sample, tap anything

SkillsC3 / 5

LawC2.7 / 5

Station 57%

874 words

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

REPORT TO NADIA HUSSAIN Re: Grace Adeyemi, Kestrel Packaging Limited Introduction Grace is the sole director and shareholder of Kestrel Packaging Limited, which makes corrugated packaging in Wakefield and has 18 employees. In May 2026 it lost its biggest customer, Fernside Foods, which was 40% of turnover1, and it has made losses every month since then (£4,800 in May, £19,600 in June, £22,300 in July and £21,100 in August). At 31 August the balance sheet showed net liabilities of £176,700. The overdraft with Wharfedale Bank is £104,600 out of a £120,000 limit and is secured by a debenture, and Grace has given a personal guarantee of up to £75,000. She is hoping to sign a contract with Arden Garden Centres. Lindqvist, the main supplier, has served a statutory demand, and Brookfield are due to pay £52,000 on 9 October. 1. Grace's position as director The main risk for Grace is wrongful trading under s214 Insolvency Act 1986. If the company goes into insolvent liquidation and she knew or ought to have concluded that there was no reasonable prospect of avoiding insolvent liquidation, the court can order her to contribute to the company's assets. So the fact that it is a limited company does not fully protect her. The accountant's email of 29 September makes it clear that the company cannot pay its debts as they fall due and has more liabilities than assets. Arden is not signed and would not bring in money until February. From now on she is therefore at real risk.2 The defence is that she took every step to minimise the potential loss to creditors. She should stop ordering on credit (such as the £22,000 from Tern)3 and stop taking deposits like the Tallis £12,000, because those people may not be paid. She should get advice from an insolvency practitioner straight away and keep records of her decisions. 2. The statutory demand Lindqvist has served a statutory demand for £46,300 under s123(1)(a). The company has 3 weeks from service on 24 September, i.e. until 15 October, to pay or secure or compound the debt. Otherwise it is deemed unable to pay its debts and Lindqvist can present a petition to wind it up. Grace accepts she owes the money so there is no point disputing it. Lindqvist has suggested £15,000 now and the rest in instalments. This might be a sensible way to buy time, but the company does not really have the cash and it would be paying one creditor ahead of the others. Grace should take the IP's advice first. If a petition is presented the bank is likely to freeze the account.4 3. Grace's proposals Repaying her father: this would be a preference under s239 IA 1986. A preference is where the company puts a creditor in a better position than they would be in on an insolvent liquidation. Samuel is Grace's father and so is a connected person, so the relevant period is 2 years before the insolvency, not 6 months5, and it is presumed that the company was influenced by a desire to prefer him. The company is insolvent now. If the company goes into liquidation or administration, the liquidator could get the money back from Samuel. Grace should not repay him; he will have to claim as an unsecured creditor. Overdraft: Grace wants to put £12,000 against the overdraft. The bank is not connected and paying the bank is in the ordinary course, so this is less of a problem than the payment to Samuel6, but it would still be favouring one creditor and she should get advice before doing it. Deposits: she should not keep taking deposits for Christmas orders that may never be made. Backdated charge: Grace asks us to draft a charge for Samuel dated February 2025. We cannot backdate a document to make it look as if the loan was always secured. This would be misleading and dishonest and would breach SRA Principle 4 (honesty).7 We should tell Grace we cannot do this. 4. Options There are three main options. CVA - a company voluntary arrangement is an agreement with the creditors to pay part of the debts over time. It is proposed by the directors and supervised by an insolvency practitioner. It needs 75% of creditors by value to approve.8 If approved it binds the unsecured creditors. It could work if Arden signs, but HMRC and Lindqvist are large creditors. Administration - the directors can appoint an administrator, who will try to rescue the company as a going concern. There is a moratorium which stops creditors taking action against the company, including Lindqvist. The bank has a floating charge so it would be involved.9 Liquidation - the company would stop trading and the assets would be sold. This would not achieve Grace's aim of keeping the business going. Recommendation: Grace should see an IP this week. Administration seems the best option because of the moratorium10, which will protect the company from Lindqvist, and the administrator may be able to rescue the business and save the jobs. If Arden signs, a CVA could be considered later. 5. Other matters Grace should send the bank the management accounts by 9 October. She has missed the HMRC payment and should contact HMRC.

Tap a highlight to read its comment.

Work on next

Business Law and Practice: preferences to a guarantor (s239(4)(a), s241(1)(e)) and the directors' out-of-court administration route (notice to the QFCH, para 25(a))

  1. 1.Analyse the overdraft paydown as a preference to Grace as guarantor, with clause 9 and s241(1)(e).
  2. 2.Link the statutory demand to administration: a petition blocks an out-of-court appointment (para 25(a)) and the bank needs five business days' notice.
  3. 3.Complete the ethics handling: what happens if Grace insists, independent advice for Samuel and why a charge granted now would also fail.
  • You spotted 3 of 6 key issues.
    • Partly: Grace's personal exposure if trading continues: wrongful trading (when the point was reached, the standard, the every-step defence) and the creditor duty
    • Partly: Lindqvist's statutory demand: deadline of 15 October, effect of a petition, and Lindqvist's instalment offer
    • Missed: Grace's plan to pay down the guaranteed overdraft: a preference to herself as guarantor; the guarantee survives any insolvency
    • Partly: Options: CVA or administration (and liquidation as the fallback), with a recommendation
    • Partly: Grace's request for a backdated charge for her father (ethics), and why a charge granted now would not help either
  • You answered everything you were asked.
  • Wrongful trading and the father's preference are applied to the facts; the overdraft and the options are stated generally and the overdraft analysis is wrong.
  • Recommends an IP this week and administration, but gives no timetable tying the administration route to the 15 October deadline or to the bank's notice period.
  • The introduction recites background and monthly figures the partner already has.

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

5 of 14 covered. Tap a point to read it in full.

  • Covered
  • Partly
  • Covered
  • Missed
  • Covered
  • Partly
  • Partly
  • Covered
  • Covered
  • Wrong
  • Missed
  • Partly
  • 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
passed SQE2 in April 2026
83%
out of 500, one pass mark for SQE2 as a whole
300
SQE2 fee for bookings from October 2026
£3,086
Sources for these figures

What a realistic mock copies

SQE2 has 16 stations: 12 written and 4 oral. The written stations are sat in three half-days at Pearson VUE centres. Each half-day has one task in each written skill, 3 hours 15 minutes in total.

Written skillTime per taskTasks in the exam
Case and matter analysis60 minutes3
Legal research60 minutes3
Legal drafting45 minutes3
Legal writing30 minutes3

The practice areas follow the half-day: Dispute Resolution and Criminal Litigation on day 1, Property Practice and Wills and Probate on day 2, and Business Law and Practice throughout day 3. The oral stations are two client interviews with attendance notes and two advocacy tasks, held at venues in Birmingham, Cardiff, London and Manchester.

A mock that copies this needs four things. They are the real time limits, a plain on-screen editor with no formatting help, practice areas you have not chosen, and the full half-day in one sitting. The last one matters most. The fourth task in a half-day is written by a tired candidate, and a mock is the only place to learn how that feels.

There are no past papers

The SRA does not publish past SQE2 papers. It publishes sample questions: one or more for each skill, with the documents, a sample answer, commentary and an analysis against the criteria. The SQE2 sample questions index lists them by skill and practice area. They are useful for seeing the standard. They are less useful as a mock, because once you have read the commentary you know the answer.

Building your own written mock

  1. Choose four unseen tasks, one per written skill, in one practice area pairing.
  2. Sit them in a single block of 3 hours 15 minutes, in a plain text editor, with the timer visible.
  3. Do not stop to look anything up. Use only the materials in the task, as in the exam.
  4. Mark each answer against the SRA's criteria, or have it marked, before reading any model answer.
  5. Repeat for the other two half-days, on different days if you need to.

Scoring a mock

Score a mock the way the exam is scored. Grade each criterion A to F, turn the skills grades and the law grades each into a percentage, and average the two for the station. The mock score is the average of the station percentages. The marking criteria page has a decoder that does this from your grades.

Then compare with care. Since January 2025 the SRA reports results as a scaled score, with the pass mark at 300 out of 500, and does not publish the percentage that equals 300. The last percentage pass marks published, for 2024 sittings, were 61% to 62%. A written-only mock also leaves out the four oral stations, which count equally in the real result. Treat a mock score as a guide to which skills and areas need work, not as a prediction.

Recent SQE2 pass rates

The SQE2 pass rate page has every sitting and the first-attempt figures.

SittingCandidatesPass rate
April 20262,96683%
January 20261,14180%
October 20251,34278%
July 202595976%
April 20252,75382%

The mock on SQE Practice

The marked answer above shows how each station in a mock is graded. In the paid plans, the written mock has 12 stations in three sessions, which you can sit on different days. Results are released when all three sessions are complete, as in the exam, and each answer is marked against the SRA's criteria with comments on your own lines. The marking is automated. The SQE2 hub describes the full course and plans and prices sets out the options. If you are also preparing for SQE1, the SQE1 mock exam works in the same way for the multiple-choice papers.

Questions candidates ask

There is no official target. The SRA does not publish the percentage that equals the scaled pass mark of 300. The last percentage pass marks it published, for 2024 sittings, were 61% to 62%. Aim to be clearly above that, and look at which criteria pull your score down.

Ideally, yes. The four oral stations count equally with the twelve written ones in the real result. If you cannot arrange live practice, sit the written stations as a mock and practise the interview and advocacy separately with a study partner.

Yes. In the exam the three written half-days are on separate days. The written mock on SQE Practice has three sessions that you can sit on different days, and the results are released when all three are complete.

The SRA publishes free sample questions for every skill, with sample answers and commentary, and the written samples can be tried on the Pearson VUE practice platform. They are not marked for you. The free SQE2 diagnostic on SQE Practice gives you a timed task that is marked.

There is no official number. Most of the benefit comes from timed tasks in each skill with feedback, then at least one full written mock to test stamina across three half-days. Leave time after each mock to redraft your weakest answers.

After you have done timed tasks in each written skill and seen them marked, so that the mock tests stamina and timing rather than the format. Leave enough time before the exam to act on what the mock shows.

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 a short marked task

The free SQE2 diagnostic takes about 20 minutes: a short marked writing task plus quick questions across the other written skills. The marking is automated and grades each criterion.

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