SRA reveals SQE exam subject area results divide
updated on 19 December 2022
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A new report from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has revealed the subject areas in which aspiring solicitors have excelled or struggled with in the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) assessments.
The findings show that candidates who took the SQE1 between September 2021 and August 2022 gained higher scores on questions about ethics and contract law. However, topics such as dispute resolution and business law gained fewer marks on average.
SQE1 is assessed by 360 questions split between two Functioning Legal Knowledge Exams (FLK). Reports from the first exam (FLK1) show that students achieved their best marks in the ethics and contracts practice areas, with the average score between 69% to 73% for ethics and 66% to 70% for contracts.
Counter to this, business law and practice saw an average score of between 50% to 59%, which is at least 10% lower than the average score for ethics-based questions. While dispute resolution scores differed marginally between 53% to 56%. FLK2 saw comparable results, with candidates scoring on average between 65% to 75% for ethics and 59% to 72% for criminal liability.
The SRA’s report shows similar “patterns of performance” between passing and failing candidates, and first and second-attempt candidates, across most practice areas included in each assessment. “This suggests both stronger and weaker candidates perform well/less well in the same practice areas,”, according to the SRA’s report.
In terms of SQE2, the practical skills element of the SQE assessments, candidates performed the best in legal research for dispute resolution with an average pass mark of 85%. Criminal litigation advocacy and case analysis in business also saw high marks, 79% and 78% respectively. Similarly, to SQE1, writing in dispute resolution saw a lower average at 57%, the only average sat below 60%.
The SRA has emphasised that this report “should be viewed in full so that stakeholders can look at data that is of importance to them and draw their own conclusions.” Nevertheless, it proves a useful tool for providers to see which areas may need more focus for incoming cohorts of candidates set to sit the exams.
