How to Pick the Right SQE2 Prep Resources for You

  Walk into the SQE2 prep market and you’ll find courses, outlines, mock packages, video libraries, flashcard decks, textbooks and everything in between. It’s overwhelming — and it’s easy to end up buying everything and using nothing properly, or buying the wrong things entirely. Here’s how to actually choose. Start with how you learn Before you look at a single resource, look at yourself. How do you actually absorb information best? Not how you think you should learn, or how someone else in your cohort learns — how do you learn? If you’re a visual learner, well-structured written notes are your foundation. Seeing the law laid out clearly on a page, in a format you can return to and test yourself against, is what works for you. If you learn better through audio — if things click when you hear them explained rather than when you read them — then video lectures or audio content are worth prioritising. Watching someone walk through a legal framework can land in a way that reading the same information doesn’t. Neither is better than the other. But buying a resource that doesn’t match how you actually learn is an expensive way to find that out two weeks before your exam. Know your active recall method Active recall is non-negotiable for SQE2 — but the format it takes can vary. Some people work best with brain dumps: closing their notes and writing out everything they can retrieve on a subject. Others find flashcards more effective — short, sharp prompts that force retrieval in a different way. Others prefer explaining concepts out loud, either to themselves or to someone else. Figure out which active recall method actually works for you — and then make sure the resources you buy support it. If flashcards are your thing, a resource that includes them is genuinely useful. If you prefer brain dumping against a structured outline, a clean, well-organised set of notes is what you need. Buying a resource that doesn’t map onto your active recall method means you’re unlikely to use it the way it was intended — and that’s a waste of both money and time. The two things that are non-negotiable Whatever else you buy or don’t buy, two things are essential for every SQE2 candidate regardless of how they learn: Short reference notes covering the FLK subjects. Not textbooks. Not dense academic reading. Concise, exam-focused notes that cover what SQE2 actually tests — the kind you can learn from, test yourself against and return to quickly when gaps appear. You can make these yourself if you have the time and prefer to — the process of creating your own notes can itself be a useful revision exercise. Or you can buy them. Either way, you need them. They are the foundation your active recall sits on. Mocks. There is no substitute. SQE2 tests your ability to apply the law under timed conditions — and the only way to build that skill is to practise it repeatedly. Mocks give you the scenarios, the time pressure and — crucially — the model answers to review your performance against. Without mocks, you are going into the exam without having practised the thing the exam actually tests. No amount of notes or videos changes that. What you don’t need You don’t need every resource available. You don’t need the most expensive package if a simpler one covers what you actually need. And you don’t need resources that duplicate each other — two sets of notes covering the same subjects isn’t twice as useful, it’s just twice as much to wade through. Buy what matches how you learn. Make sure the two non-negotiables are covered. Use what you buy properly rather than accumulating resources you never open. The bottom line The best SQE2 prep resources are the ones you’ll actually use — in a format that works for how your brain absorbs and retrieves information. Know yourself. Buy accordingly. And make sure mocks and solid reference notes are always part of the picture. inhousew’s SQE2 outlines are concise, exam-focused reference notes built for active recall — find them here. The full mock package covering every FLK subject and assessment type is here. Or if you want outlines, mocks and video content in one place, the Advantage Package has everything here.