Qualifying exams should have nothing to do with increasing accessibility to the legal profession and everything to do with identifying those most capable. They are not meant to be easy, they are meant to be hard. It would appear that the forerunner of the SQE has been far too easy.

That is not to say that accessibility is not important. Clearly it is. No able applicant should be denied the opportunity to qualify and practise as a lawyer on the grounds of background, race or means.

This. The clamour of the mediocrity does not represent a fair assessment of a qualifying exam designed specifically to weed them out.

Can you rewrite this in English please?

That does sound pretty awful tbf.

The point stands, dimwit.

“Single best answer questions are a terrible way of assessing a day 1 NQ.”

What the hell do you think working in the law is like?

The exam is hard, there’s no getting round it. I have a high 2:1 (BA) from Durham and an LLM; SQE was slightly easier than the LLM for reference. The preparation was a nightmare and the SRA are in my view to blame for that. This seems a relatively simple fix: just release the past questions. Providers can see what’s coming up and provide materials that cover the appropriate material in the requisite depth and candidates know what they’re up against.

The thing that bothers me most is firms’ approaches to this. From rescinding TCs to simply failing to fund an SQE pathway (as in my firm’s case). I work at a top 25 UK and international firm and have had zero support either financially or otherwise to help with this. I had to take annual leave to take the exams and had to work preparation around a demanding 1600 chargeable hour per annum role just to afford it. There is a total lack of understanding of the process and its utility – it’s baffling.

The SQE doesn’t strike me as a bad process – though black students seem to be struggling disproportionately, which is worrying – but the way it is being run and adopted in practice is really letting everyone down. A lot of people failing and complaining about it is not reason enough to can it for me, but the SRA does need to have a good look at what those that are failing are and how firm’s are responding. The mark breakdown is a good start, so there’s hope yet that there’ll be further improvements

Well said…

Hmmm I used BPP. I found their questions to be similar to the actual exam in terms of format. Content-wise there were some discrepancies, albeit so minor that it’s impossible for them to impact your score. My BPP tutors were great. Some friends complained about theirs. I have nothing but props for BPP’s prep.

What a very unhelpful narrow minded immature comment.

As for the exams itself, they aren’t bad if you’re prepared or have experience under your belt. But even then i’ve seen posts about how people without work experience are passing more than those who have which is concerning. Also, what’s with the secrecy about the ordering of the exams? does it matter if i know if i’m doing drafting or writing first? the method of booking the exam is, having to fight out which assessment centre is archaic. The sample answers on SRA website felt misleading. some of it was totally weird i’ll be honest.

yup, experienced computer freezing and 5 minutes taken off writing. mitigating circumstances was rejected which is pretty shocking! even if assessment went well i was still deprived of 5 minutes. this was raised collectively as a group that sitting by Pearson Venue tol…

What is even more ridiculous is that so many firms granted BPP and Ulaw exclusivity to train their delegates but failed to specify the course requirements. This is why so many sponsored delegates (like me) are now desperately seeking SQE mock exams with other training providers. And nobody cares that we need to pay ourselves for extra resources.

The exam papers are 2 hours 33mins not 90mins.

However.

I cannot get behind the “too many people are failing SQE” argument. Go to any jurisdiction in the EU and you will find out about absolutely brutal set of exams that sometimes see 80% of the cohort fail. And yes, people get angry, but ultimately it is understood that such exams should be bloody hard. I passed SQE and compared to my friends from European jurisdictions, I feel like I cheated the system. It is so much easier to the nightmares that folks from Germany, Poland, France or the Netherlands described to me. We have it so easy in England it is almost laughable.
In my opinion, it should go like this:
– A candidate for a solicitor should have a qualifying law degree from England & Wales. Foreign law degrees should not be accepted without a “top up” in the form of GDL or something similar.
– SQE1 should be dropped in favour of more robust version of SQE2.
– SRA should be more transparent on exam requirements and should more carefully vet approved SQE prep providers.
– Exam cost should be halved.
– Kaplan should not be involved at all, they are a joke, a most of issues stemming from SQE are admin errors on their part. Get rid of them now.
– You’d need to get 60-65% at the very least in order to pass.

The above will be unpopular but at least I got it off my chest. Once again, if you fail SQE once, twice or god forbid, thrice then instead of moaning better get to work. I worked full time crazy hours whilst studying for SQE and passed both exams at first attempt. And no, it is not a survivorship bias or megalomania for me to say the above, it is just that I know how other jurisdictions handle legal exams and WE HAVE IT EASY IN COMPARISON.

There, I’m done.

It works similarly to the CFA. And most other professional exams state side.

I passed the SQE without any academic education in law. It’s just not that difficult. I’ve sat much harder exams than this.

However, I do foresee a problem. The old system didn’t do a very good job at filtering out the best trainees to work in fields like intellectual property, corporate or tax. However, it was probably hard enough for the average aspirant in conveyancing or family law. The reality is that a lot of people just aren’t that interested in spending years studying the law to earn £30k doing local searches and if this is where their legal career is headed, they will do something else entirely. Filtering out the conveyancer aspirants is more likely to cause a labour shortage than a glut of would be corporate lawyers completing house sales.

As someone without an LLB or PGDL who passed SQE1 using a cheap prep course, I can honestly say the exams really aren’t hard enough and I certainly wouldn’t want to hire a solicitor who couldn’t pass on the first attempt, especially if they held an academic law qualification already.

Maybe the problem is that MC and SC all recruit a certain type which means the cohort isn’t really representative of everyone who wants to practise law and so shouldn’t be used as the yardstick for the ability of your average student?

Might be that the way the SQE is set up still favours MC and SC trainees… I suspect many will still find it a hard exam despite putting the time and hours in.

I am sorry that your experience of university was one that lacked rigorous standards – I’m sure there are probably some that are like that somewhere… but you’re now using that one exception to judge everyone else’s LLBs which are typically achieved by obtaining 360 credits across 3 gruelling years across a range of subjects involving orals research dissertations written exams and coursework. It’s rigorous. Your knowledge is tested. You only pass if you meet the high standards set.

If you decide to use someone else’s work as your own, it’s called dishonesty and plagiarism. Either and both will mean you don’t pass character and fitness assessments even if you don’t get kicked off your course. Again, sorry to hear the lack of standards in your example but most universities don’t stand for that kind of thing.

So anyone with an LLB or equivalent should be exempt – despite your arguments.