SQE1: what to expect on the day

What to expect on SQE1 exam day

You arrive at a test centre, are checked in and identified, lock your belongings away, and sit at a computer for two sessions of 90 questions with a scheduled break between them. Each session is 153 minutes, which is 102 seconds a question, and the whole day including check in and the break usually runs to around six hours.

The day is longer than the exam. Test centres ask you to arrive well before your start time so that identification, the security check and seating can be done without eating into anyone's exam clock. Arriving late can mean losing your slot entirely, so treat the arrival time on your confirmation as the real appointment time rather than the exam time.

FLK1 and FLK2 are separate days within the same sitting window, and each one has this same shape. That means two long days rather than one, usually a couple of days apart, and the second day is noticeably harder because you are already tired. Plan the gap between them as recovery rather than as revision time.

Where you sit SQE1

SQE1 is a computer based exam sat at a Pearson VUE test centre. It is not an online exam you take at home, and it is not sat on paper.

Pearson VUE runs a network of test centres across the United Kingdom and internationally, and you choose your centre when you book. Popular centres in large cities fill early in a booking window, which is the practical reason to book as soon as booking opens rather than as soon as you feel ready. A centre two hours away is not just travel, it is an overnight stay before an exam that starts early.

International candidates can sit SQE1 at overseas centres, though the list of countries and centres varies by sitting. Check what is available for your sitting on the booking system itself rather than relying on a list published for an earlier one.

• Computer based, at a Pearson VUE test centre
• You pick the centre when you book, subject to availability
• City centres fill first, so book early if location matters to you
• Overseas centres exist but the list changes between sittings
• Check the exact address and arrival time on your confirmation, since large cities often have more than one centre

What to bring, and what stays in the locker

Bring valid photographic identification in exactly the name you booked under. That is the one item you cannot substitute or talk your way past, and a mismatch between your ID and your booking is the most common reason candidates are turned away.

Everything else you carry goes into a locker. Test centres are secure environments, so phones, smart watches, bags, notes and books do not come into the room. Materials you need for the exam, such as something to make notes on and a calculator function if the assessment provides one, are supplied at the desk or built into the exam software rather than brought by you.

Rules on what is allowed at the desk vary, and they change. What is typical is that food and drink stay in the locker and are consumed during the break outside the room, and that any medical item or accessibility requirement needs to be arranged in advance rather than presented on the day. Read the confirmation email and the candidate instructions you are sent for your own sitting, because that document, not this page, governs what you can take in.

• Photographic ID matching your booking name. Check the accepted document types on your confirmation, and check the expiry date now rather than the night before.
• Your confirmation details. Centre address, arrival time and any reference number.
• Nothing else you need in the room. Phones, watches, bags, notes and books go into the locker.
• Food and water for the break. Kept in the locker and used outside the exam room.
• Adjustments arranged in advance. Any reasonable adjustment or medical item must be approved before the day, not requested at check in.

The break, and how to use it

There is a scheduled break between the two sessions. It is genuinely part of the day rather than an afterthought, and how you spend it makes a measurable difference to your second session.

Do not revise in it. There is nothing you can learn in a break that will help, and reviewing questions from the first session only guarantees you spend the second one thinking about a question you can no longer change. Eat something, drink water, get out of the chair and, if the centre allows it, get outside for a few minutes.

Treat the first session as finished the moment you leave it. The most common self inflicted damage in SQE1 is carrying a bad first session into the second one. The two sessions are marked as one paper, so a poor stretch in the morning is recoverable in the afternoon, and it is only unrecoverable if you spend the afternoon on it.

• Eat and drink properly, because five hours of concentration is a physical task
• Do not discuss questions with other candidates in the break
• Do not revise. Nothing learned in twenty minutes will appear in the next 90 questions
• Reset your pace plan for the second session rather than carrying over how the first one felt
• Follow the centre's rules on leaving the building, since they differ by centre

Cancelling or rescheduling your SQE1 booking

You can cancel or reschedule an SQE1 booking, but only up to published deadlines, and what you get back depends on how close to the exam you do it. The mechanism is a sliding scale: cancel early and you recover most or all of the fee, cancel later and you recover less, and past the final deadline you recover nothing and the attempt may still count against you.

The specific deadlines and refund percentages are set for each sitting and they change, so do not plan around a number you read anywhere other than the booking system. Find the cancellation and refund policy for your own sitting on the SRA and Kaplan booking pages, and note the dates in your calendar at the moment you book, while you are already looking at them. Checked 9 September 2026.

There are separate provisions for candidates who cannot sit for serious reasons outside their control, such as illness or bereavement. These are handled as an application with evidence rather than as an ordinary cancellation, and they have their own deadlines, usually very shortly after the assessment. If something happens to you close to or during your sitting, look up that process immediately rather than waiting to see how the result comes out.

• Rescheduling within a sitting window may be possible subject to availability at your centre
• Refunds reduce as the exam approaches and stop entirely at a final deadline
• After the deadline, not attending usually means losing the fee
• Serious circumstances outside your control are handled by a separate evidenced process with a tight time limit
• Diary the cancellation deadline on the day you book, because nobody will remind you

Attempts, and whether SQE1 expires

Two rules govern the shape of your whole qualification timeline, and they are the ones candidates most often get wrong.

First, attempts are limited. You do not get unlimited resits at SQE1: there is a cap on how many times you can attempt each assessment, and once you reach it you cannot qualify by this route. The cap is generous enough that most people never approach it, but it is real, and it is the reason not to book a sitting as a trial run to see what the exam is like.

Second, there is a validity window. Passing SQE1 does not sit on your record indefinitely while you take your time over SQE2. There is a defined period within which you must complete both stages, and if it lapses you can lose the benefit of the stage you passed. That is what people mean when they ask whether SQE1 expires: the pass does not go stale on its own account, but it stops counting towards qualification if the window closes before you have finished.

Both the attempt limit and the validity period are set by the SRA and both can be revised, and there are limited provisions for extensions in exceptional circumstances. Check the current figures and any exception process against the SRA's own published assessment regulations for your position before you rely on them, and treat nothing here as advice on your individual case. Checked 9 September 2026.

• There is a cap on attempts at each SQE assessment, so a speculative sitting costs you more than the fee
• There is a validity window for completing both stages after your first attempt
• Letting the window lapse can mean losing the benefit of a stage you passed
• Limited exception processes exist and are decided on evidence, not on request
• Confirm both numbers on the SRA's published regulations, since they can change between sittings

When booking opens, and what to do the moment it does

Booking opens in a defined window ahead of each sitting and closes well before the exam. Windows are announced in advance on the SRA and Kaplan booking pages, and the practical rule is simple: book on the day the window opens if you want a choice of centre.

The reason is availability rather than deadlines. The booking window is usually long enough that nobody misses it by accident, but the centres in large cities go early, so late bookers get a choice between an inconvenient location and an inconvenient date. Neither is a good thing to be managing in the month before an exam.

Booking early has a second benefit. The sitting date is the anchor for the whole study plan, and the examinable law cut-off for your sitting hangs off it too. Until the date is fixed, any plan you write is provisional.

• Booking windows are published ahead of each sitting and close well before the exam date
• Book on the opening day if the location of your test centre matters
• Fix the sitting date before you build the study plan, not after
• Note the examinable law cut-off for that sitting at the same time
• Diary the cancellation deadline while you are in the booking system

Where to go next

The admin above is the easy half. The part that decides the result is what you did in the four months before the day.

If you have not built a plan yet, start with the study guide, and start doing questions in the exam's own format much earlier than feels comfortable.

• How to pass SQE1, study hours, a plan built backwards and the skills that decide it
• The SQE1 exam format, the papers, the sessions and how single best answer marking works
• Free SQE1 practice questions, real format questions with full explanations
• SQE1 pass rates, what the published figures are and what they do and do not tell you
• What is the SQE, the overview if you are at the very start