Last updated: 4 November 2026 · The Legal Blueprint

Short answer: yes, you can prepare for SQE1 without a prep course; the SRA doesn’t require one. Use the SRA’s free specification, blueprint and sample questions as your syllabus, choose one text per subject and one question bank, test yourself on each topic within days of reading it, and keep your own record of what you’ve covered, tested and need to review.

Plenty of candidates prepare on their own, usually to save money or because a course doesn’t fit around work. It can be done, but it puts two jobs on you that a course would otherwise do: deciding what to study, and keeping track of where you are. This guide sets out a practical way to do both.

SQE1 key facts (from January 2027)

Source: SRA announcement of 10 September 2026. Check the SRA’s site before you plan, in case anything has moved since.

Which subjects are in each SQE1 session?

From January 2027, according to the SRA:

• FLK1, session 1: Business Law and Practice, Dispute Resolution, Legal Services.

• FLK1, session 2: Tort, Contract Law, Legal Systems.

• FLK2, session 1: Wills and the Administration of Estates, Solicitors Accounts (wills), Trusts Law, Land Law.

• FLK2, session 2: Property Law and Practice, Solicitors Accounts (property), Criminal Liability, Criminal Law and Practice.

• Ethics and Professional Conduct can be tested in any subject and either session.

What free resources does the SRA provide for SQE1?

• The SQE1 assessment specification lists the Functioning Legal Knowledge (FLK) assessed in each subject. Treat it as your syllabus.

• The assessment blueprint (Annex 4) shows roughly what share of questions each subject area gets. Use it to decide where your time goes.

• Sample questions show the single-best-answer format.

How do you plan SQE1 self-study? Five steps

1. Choose a small set of resources. One main text per subject (a library copy is fine), one question bank with SQE1-style questions and explanations, and your own notes or flashcards. More sources usually means the same topics covered three times and others not at all.

2. Leave a revision window at the end, typically a few weeks before the exam, for reviewing and full mocks rather than new material.

3. Work out a weekly rate of new topics. Divide the topics you still need to start by the weeks left before your revision window. Check it every week, so you see slippage early.

4. Weight subjects by the blueprint, so larger areas get more time.

5. Test yourself from the start. After reading a topic, test yourself on it within a few days, and come back to it again a few weeks later.

Why should you test yourself early instead of rereading?

The most common self-study mistake is reading everything first and leaving questions until the last month. Research on learning has shown for years that testing yourself on material (retrieval practice) strengthens memory more than rereading it, and that spacing reviews out works better than cramming them together.

So count two kinds of work separately. A topic you’ve read is covered. A topic you’ve answered questions on is tested. You want both, for every topic.

How do you track SQE1 progress without a course?

For every session, note the topic (using the specification’s headings), what kind of work it was, any score and the date. Once a week, list:

• subjects you’ve hardly started;

• topics you’ve read but never tested;

• topics you haven’t touched for a few weeks.

Those three lists are your next week’s plan.

The free SQE1 Subject Tracker from The Legal Blueprint is a Notion template that maps every SQE1 topic to the SRA specification and tracks each one from first read to MCQ practice and review. The free SQE Handbook covers the assessments, how to study, assessment day and resits. Both are on our Free resources page.

When a tracker isn’t enough

A spreadsheet or template records what you’ve done. It doesn’t tell you what to do tonight. StudyFlow, made by The Legal Blueprint, is a study app for SQE1 and SQE2 candidates that keeps your record across every source and, each day, suggests what to study in the time you have: what’s due a review, what’s weak and what you haven’t started, with the reason for each. It works alongside whatever books and question banks you choose.

StudyFlow is opening to a first group of candidates in November 2026, with a 14-day free trial. Join the waitlist.

Frequently asked questions

Can you pass SQE1 without a prep course?
The SRA doesn’t require a prep course, and candidates do prepare on their own. Whether self-study suits you depends on your time, discipline and access to a good question bank.

How many questions are in SQE1 from January 2027?
170 per FLK paper, answered in two sessions of 85, so 340 in total. It was 180 per paper before January 2027.

How long is each SQE1 session?
2 hours 33 minutes, unchanged by the January 2027 changes.

What’s the biggest self-study mistake for SQE1?
Reading everything first and leaving questions until the end. Test yourself on each topic within days of reading it.

Sources

• SRA, Important changes to SQE1 for January 2027 onwards (10 September 2026)

• SRA, SQE1 assessments: specification and sample questions

• Roediger, H. L. and Karpicke, J. D. (2006), “Test-enhanced learning: taking memory tests improves long-term retention”, Psychological Science 17(3)

• Cepeda, N. J. et al. (2006), “Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: a review and quantitative synthesis”, Psychological Bulletin 132(3)