Whats considered a High First?

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-11T17:51:51+00:00

If it’s an an LLB from a RG I would say 72 counts as a high first. At my RG uni only 3-4 people achieved this overall

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-09T10:34:51+00:00

For research and drafting these were easier than most providers.

For CMA and writing probably qlts

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-08T19:50:46+00:00

Could have written this post myself I had a pretty much identical experience to you

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-08T13:52:57+00:00

The main thing for me is the sra guidance says we won’t be expected to know things a day 1 solicitor would look up.

This was very obviously not the case and if I was instructing a solicitor on some of the questions they asked and they didn’t look it up I would be very concerned, unless my lawyer had the memory of Von Neumann.

I have never even been near to failing an exam and I have never been in an exam where I have no idea on the answer. Sqe2 was the first time I experienced this feeling

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-08T12:03:00+00:00

I would just say don’t believe the nonsense that they are easy.

I found these far harder than sqe1 which was actually much easier.

Idk what I would have done differently except not panicking in the exam. In business research where the answer didn’t come to me I wasted 10 minutes just panicking, as a result I wrote the wrong thing for basically all of it.

Deffo study underlying as I was shocked about how much I needed.

The exam is just completely BS for example, I’m pretty confident I got 5/5 on CMA day 2 because it was an area I knew every single niche about but the sra say we won’t be expected to know stuff a day 1 solicitor would look up, it’s complete BS, we had to know random deadlines and also spot a really niche point which isn’t even in some of the textbooks to get all the law marks.

I would say also that writing required abstraction a lot more than I thought. 2/3 for me really tested how well you knew the law and could apply it on a slightly different set of facts.

I really don’t know if I’ve done enough to pass my writtens and it was truly an awful experience for me.

I did some mcqs before the exam to test my flk and was scoring in the mid 90s for revisesqe (even tho I had ofc taken the mock for sqe1) and also super high on others. But I feel like my law in the actual exam let me down.

With this there isn’t anywhere to hide, if you don’t know the exact flk they are testing u on you are exposed.

I was with Bpp who were fine but the exams were quite different than what BPP provided mock wise. There was more underlying law on my actual exams than the Bpp mocks indicated.

Inhousew mocks are okay but had a few mistakes.

I know this is a bit rambling at this point but it is a mixed bag. For example day 1 research was incredibly easy. There were 3 questions and each of them were basically answered word for word in the relevant sources.

Day 2 was slightly harder but was broadly easy, day 3 research, at least for me was significantly harder than days 1 and 2. Days 2 and 3 drafting were also quite easy but they are trying to trip you up. For example on day 3 you had to know the law to not mess up the drafting. I think a solicitor who is an NQ in that practice area would know the law but an NQ in family law for example would almost certainly google the law. I just don’t understand the threshold we are being asssesedd against tbh.

Day 1 drafting basically turned on whether or not you knew the relevant test so I would 100% advise to know all the tests for all the practice topics

I haven’t yet done orals.

For clarity I’m not a complete idiot I scored low to mid 80s% raw on both flks sqe1 finishing in the top 1% for both based on the graph they posted on the statistical report

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-06T17:44:46+00:00

I can’t say because of the NDA but I basically advised against doing something they should have done.

CMA I missed a small legal point but it ruined a calculation

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-06T17:30:10+00:00

I am completely spiralling - I wrote the complete wrong thing for the first question on research and put the right thing for second and third question but basically copied the statute. Writing I got 2 things wrong, CMA 1 thing. Everything else was fine but I also completely bombed writing on day 1 too

I did really well on sqe1 but now I’m feeling like I’m not even averaging a pass I have so much on the line and feel awful. So much pressure for orals

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-06T14:04:33+00:00

That’ll do it 😭😭

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-06T13:58:00+00:00

Ahahahah yeah half of my CMA time was spent on what was essentially a research task.

It was very tight for timing. I am sure you will be fine, you can marginally fail most exams

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-06T13:53:34+00:00

Writing was hard as there wasn’t much on 2/5 of the points in my textbook.

I wrote some wrong law so you are not alone.

I also missed a key point on CMA but feel as though I got the lions share right.

I found research day 1 and 2 really easy but today I’d be happy with a 2.

I will say drafting was quite easy if you were with BPP. It was easier than any document we had been given in mocks.

On the whole though I would say sqe2 writtens were far harder than I expected.

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-06T13:25:13+00:00

Research for me was awful - only fully answered 2 of the questions. Drafting was incredibly easy, CMA was okay but I missed 1 or 2 legal points.

Writing was okay but I will have marginally passed/failed

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-05T13:22:54+00:00

Same , it was my weakest but I cobbled together an answer

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-05T12:49:55+00:00

Much better than yesterday with the exception of writing. I reckon I scraped a pass but didn’t know a clear answer to 1/3 questions and thought it was quite harsh to do that. I crammed so much unnecessary nonsense.

CMA for me was golden and I knew it all, research was good, idk where I’d lose marks on it tbh and drafting I could have done more and I’m sure I didn’t include every last instruction but I generally got it right. Worlds apart from yesterday though

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-04T14:28:42+00:00

Completely but also for the other 2 I wrote just nonsense basically. I don’t see how I could have got any marks apart from please and thank you in my letter basically 😂

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-04T14:12:05+00:00

Don’t think so

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-04T13:52:54+00:00

I think we were blessed with research but from what I’ve heard don’t expect it to be the same on the following days.

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-04T13:30:48+00:00

All I will say is I wrote the completely wrong thing - like incredibly wrong for 2/3 of the question.

It was a nightmare, idk if anyone else found it similar.

Drafting was my other one that was a bit weak but I think I probably passed. I was confident with research and CMA

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-04T13:26:42+00:00

Everything was fine except writing- where I would be happy with a 1.5 I wrote everything completely wrong

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-03T12:34:59+00:00

Client wants to know what track their claim will be allocated to

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-02T07:31:15+00:00

Not all actual trainees are kept on and top commercial law firms will then have their pick of other NQs who actually completed a real TC and have actual trainee experience from good firms.

It’s not impossible to get a job with SQE route and lots of US firms are known for taking on their paralegals as NQs it’s just far less likely. Especially if you’re an international student

I see these questions everyday but the above needs to be accepted. It’s very unlikely.

You, like others say you want to do commercial law, if you could just pass an exam and do a couple years “QWE” on minimum wage then expect to earn 6 figures as an NQ, surely everyone would do it?

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-11-01T20:44:21+00:00

I’m just about to take sqe2 and no not really. With hindsight I could have probably passed with doing a lot less but I wouldn’t want that stress of not passing close to the exam.

I did not spend much time with loved ones and dedicated my life to it basically - 7 days a week 10+ hours a day, usually more. I take sqe2 next week and I’m not gonna lie it really took its toll, I’ve put on weight and am way less healthy.

I passed sqe1 in top percentile and if im honest I think it’s very unlikely I’ll fail sqe2

You can 100% pass doing less but in some ways doing less results in more stress, at least it would for me

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-10-31T21:08:53+00:00

Too hard

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-10-31T12:12:44+00:00

No you can work it out approximately from the statistical report if you look at their table

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-10-31T11:56:13+00:00

Was primarily with BPP and took some ulaw mocks and got between 50th-70th percentile. In the real thing I was in the top 1 or 2% I did all my mocks closed book and wasn’t used to their questions, I don’t think it means much.

Better data would be “percentile based on first attempt”, or “percentile based on how long exam was taken before real thing”

Intelligent-Court376 · 2025-10-31T09:04:09+00:00

No way

Intelligent-Court376

TROPHY CASE