Understanding what’s included in your SQE1 results

Summary

The key sections of the SQE1 results page are the:

• assessment results overview,
• detailed SQE1 full breakdown of performance, and
• further information.

There is also a short video that provides a quick explanation of your SQE1 results page. There is also an on-demand webinar on this area.

Assessment results overview

At the top of each set of results it will show your Candidate name you are registered with and the Candidate ID you have been allocated.

Results are then presented separately for FLK1 and FLK2.

For each FLK assessment taken from January 2024 you will see the following information:

Date of assessment

The date that the assessment took place.

Date of transcript

The date that results for the SQE assessment were released.

Attempt number

The number of attempts you have had at the assessment.

Deadline to pass SQE

How long to have left to pass the SQE. You have six years from the date of your first attempt of an SQE assessment.

Scaled score to pass

The score required to pass the assessment expressed as a scaled score out of 500. This will always be 300.

So that we can offer more choice to you on when you can sit the assessment, but maintain the integrity of the assessment, there will be multiple papers in an assessment window. The system of scaled scoring enables us to still achieve accurate and fair comparisons between test takers. The number of questions you answer correctly on each FLK is called the ‘raw’ score. If two candidates with the same ability take different papers their raw scores might differ due to the varying difficulty of the papers. Converting the raw score to a scaled score allows scores to be directly compared to reflect the candidates’ relative performance, despite any differences between the papers.

Your scaled score

The score you achieved in the assessment expressed as a scaled score out of 500. This score is derived from the number of correct answers you scored (see below).

Correct answers

The number of questions you answered correctly out of the maximum available. This is also known as your “raw” score.

Note: If you see your raw score (i.e. the number of correct answers) for an FLK expressed out of a number less than 180 questions, this will be because we exclude any questions that our post-assessment checks show have become invalid. Any such questions are removed prior to standard setting taking place with a final passing standard set for a test with that slightly lower number of questions. This is done in order to maintain the validity of the assessment and its outcomes as approved by the Assessment Board.

Quintile

Quintiles are calculated by dividing the candidates into five equal groups based on performance in the assessment. This shows in which fifth of the data your score was placed relative to all of those who took the assessment with you, with 1 being placed in the highest scoring fifth and 5 in the lowest scoring fifth of the assessment’s scores.

Those five equal groups are:

• 1st (top) quintile received a score in the top 20% for that assessment (i.e. candidates in this quintile are in the top 20% of performers)
• 2nd quintile in the next 21-40%
• 3rd quintile in the next 41-60%
• 4th quintile in the next 61-80%
• 5th quintile in the final 81-100%

Result

This is the overall outcome of your assessment showing if you have passed the assessment.

There are also functions that you to save your results as a PDF document and to view your previous results.

SQE1 full breakdown of performance

For each FLK assessment taken from January 2024, this section provides a detailed breakdown of your performance by practice area as follows:

• FLK1: Business Law and Practice, Dispute Resolution, Contract Law, Tort, Legal System (including Constitutional and Administrative Law and EU Law), Legal Services, Ethics and professional conduct.
• FLK2: Ethics and professional conduct, Property Practice, Wills and Intestacy, Land Law, Trust Law, Criminal Liability, Criminal Law and Practice.

The marks are expressed as a scaled score out of 500. This will enable you to clearly see the practice areas you have performed best in and those where you may have not performed as well. By comparing these results against the information provided in the statistical report you can gain deeper insight on your relative performance. For those who may need to resit the assessment, this can assist in identifying areas of focus to help you prepare for your next attempt.

This breakdown is available for SQE1 assessments taken from January 2024 and below is an example. Please note that this is for illustrative purposes only and the marks will be different for your individual results page.

Further information

There are also links to other information provided at the bottom of your online results page, including a link to the page with the statistical report for each assessment. This will help you to book your next assessment or resit, understand how the pass mark is set for the assessment, review the assessment regulations and appeals policy, understand how you can apply to the SRA for admission to the roll of solicitors of England and Wales, and contact us if you have any queries.