What to Do in the Days Before Your First SQE2 Written Assessment

  The written assessments start next week. If you’re reading this, you’re probably somewhere between focused and quietly terrified. Both are fine. Here’s what to do with the time you have left. Active recall — every day, without exception This is not the time to switch to passive revision. Reading through outlines, re-reading notes, watching videos — none of that is going to help you now in the way active recall will. Close your materials. Pick a subject. Write down everything you can retrieve from memory — the legal framework, the key rules, the exceptions, the issues that commonly arise. Then open your outline and check. What came out cleanly? What was vague? What didn’t come out at all? The gaps you find are your focus for the next session. Not everything — just the things that aren’t sitting where they need to be yet. Keep rotating through subjects rather than spending a whole day on one. You need all of them accessible, not just the one you revised most recently. Speedy mocks — sharp and focused This close to the exam, full timed mocks aren’t the priority. Speedy mocks are. Read the instructions for a scenario, then quickly jot down the key points you’d cover in your answer — the legal issues, the applicable law, the advice or approach you’d take. Fast, focused, no frills. This is about training your brain to read a scenario and immediately identify what matters. Do several in an afternoon. Keep them short. Keep them honest. If a speedy mock reveals a gap — something you couldn’t identify or apply cleanly — that feeds straight back into your active recall the next morning. The two work together. Structure review — until it’s automatic Your answer structures for each written assessment type need to be completely automatic by the time you walk into that room. Not almost automatic. Not automatic when you’re calm. Automatic under pressure. Run through them out loud. For each assessment type, can you produce the full structure without thinking? Can you do it at 8am before your first coffee? Can you do it when you’re nervous? If there’s one assessment type where the structure still feels uncertain — give it focused attention now. A reliable structure is what holds your answer together when the pressure is on. It’s also what keeps your timing on track when the clock is running down. Drafting forms and templates — know your formats Now is the time to make sure most templates and formats are familiar. You don’t need to memorise them word for word. But you do need to know the key components, the correct layout and what a well-constructed draft looks like for each document type you might be asked to produce. Look at examples. Run through the format out loud. Make sure that when you see a drafting question in the exam, your first thought is clarity — not panic about whether you can remember how it’s supposed to look. The night before Keep it light. A short active recall session and a final run through your structures is enough. Nothing more. Sort your logistics the night before — know exactly where you’re going, how you’re getting there and what you need to bring. Prepare everything so the morning is as calm and frictionless as possible. Then rest. Your brain consolidates information during sleep. A decent night is worth more than another two hours of revision at midnight. The morning of Familiar routine. Eat something. Move if that helps you. A brief glance at your key structures is fine if it settles you — but brief. You’ve done the work. The days before the exam are where preparation happens. The morning of is where you trust it. Go in with your structure, know your law, and focus on the scenario in front of you. That’s all it takes. inhousew’s SQE2 outlines are built as active recall tools — structured exactly for the kind of focused sessions described above. Pair them with the mock packages for speedy mock practice in the final days.