The final week: staying steady in the run-up to your SQE

If you are sitting the SQE next week, you are in a different kind of pressure now, one that is harder to plan for than the weeks before it. The nerves that build in these last few days are sharper, closer, harder to reason with, whether you still have content to work through or you are already deep into your final preparation. Now it is all about how to get through the days that remain: steadily, and without running yourself into the ground before you even sit down.

1. Notice how you respond to pressure

It is completely normal for nerves to build in these final days, and a bit of adrenaline can actually sharpen focus rather than hinder it. What is worth paying attention to is not the nerves themselves, but the shape they take in you. Some people respond to this kind of pressure by over-preparing frantically: another read-through, another practice question, never quite able to stop. Others respond by avoiding it altogether, finding every possible reason not to open the revision folder.

Neither response is a flaw. But noticing which way you tend to lean can help you catch it early, rather than being carried along by it for a week you cannot afford to lose. If this is something you find interesting to think about, Brené Brown’s Unlocking Us podcast has a good episode on anxiety, and on over- and under-functioning under stress, that maps onto exactly this pattern.

2. What to actually do with the days you have left

By this point, there is little value in trying to learn new topics from scratch. The final days are for consolidation, not expansion. If there is a subject area you know is genuinely weak, give it focused attention, but choose two or three areas, not everything you feel uncertain about, or you will spread yourself so thin that nothing gets properly reinforced.

Prioritise active recall over re-reading. Sitting timed practice questions does more for you now than working back through notes; it rebuilds the specific skill you will need on the day: retrieving information under time pressure, not simply recognising it on a page. If you have question banks or past papers left unused, this is where they earn their keep.

It is also worth tapering rather than intensifying. Many candidates do the opposite instinctively, working longer hours as the date gets closer. But an extra hour of sleep the night before typically does more for your recall and judgement than an extra hour of revision. If you have prepared properly over the preceding weeks, the final days are for keeping yourself sharp, not for trying to cover new ground.

3. On the day itself

A short breathing exercise before you go in can genuinely help settle your system: four counts in, six counts out, for a minute or two. The longer exhale is doing the work here: it signals to your nervous system that the immediate danger has passed, which is a useful thing to signal to yourself just before an exam.

It is also worth expecting a brief blank moment when the exam starts. That is normal, and it passes. Having a simple first move ready, reading the first question through twice before you answer, for instance, gives you something concrete to do in that moment, rather than sitting in it. Momentum is easier to find than calm; find the momentum and the calm tends to follow.

4. Trust the numbers, not the feeling

One thing worth knowing before you go in: how you feel walking out of that exam is not reliable evidence of how you did. I have coached candidates who were convinced they had failed and passed comfortably, and candidates who came out euphoric and did not. Adrenaline, fatigue and the particular strangeness of exam-brain distort your own read of your performance almost every time; it is simply not a trustworthy instrument, in either direction.

So try not to hand down a verdict on yourself on the walk home. The evidence that actually counts is the percentage you get in September, not the story you tell yourself in the taxi.

5. Watch your language

One small but genuinely useful shift is in the language you use with yourself in these final days. Try replacing ‘I must not fail’ with ‘I have prepared for this.’ The first puts you in threat mode: your whole system organising itself around avoiding a catastrophe. The second reminds you, accurately, of the work you have already done.

If it helps to have something short to hold onto on the day, you might try: ‘I have prepared for this. One question at a time.’ Feel free to make it your own; the best mantra is the one that feels true to you, not the one that sounds best on paper.

6. If it feels like more than nerves

There is a difference between the ordinary, sharpening nerves of exam week and something heavier: anxiety that is affecting your sleep, your appetite, your ability to function day to day. If you are somewhere in that second category, please do not wait it out alone. LawCare is there. Your university’s student services are there. Your GP is there.

Reaching out is not a sign that you cannot cope with the exam. It is what allows you to.

You have done the preparation. Next week, all that is left is to sit down and show what you know. Look after yourself while you do. And remember you are capable of amazing things.

Jane Bradley-Smith is a learning coach with BARBRI, a qualified solicitor, and a LawCare Co-opted Trustee and Peer Supporter.