SQE1 time management: 1m40s per question

Run out of time on SQE1 and it doesn't matter how much law you knew. A blank answer scores the same as a wrong one, and the clock doesn't wait for you to finish a thought.

The good news is that SQE1's pacing problem is a solvable one. Each session gives you 2 hours and 33 minutes for 90 multiple-choice questions, which works out to roughly 1 minute 40 seconds per question. That number is tight, but it's also predictable, and a bit of pacing strategy goes a long way toward stopping the exam from turning into a scramble in the last 20 minutes.

The maths behind the pressure

SQE1 is sat across two days, each with two sessions. Every session covers 90 questions from that day's Functioning Legal Knowledge area, and the clock runs for 2 hours 33 minutes, which is 153 minutes in total.

153 minutes divided by 90 questions gives you about 1 minute 40 seconds per question, on average. That's the number worth carrying into the exam room, because it turns an abstract time limit into a concrete pace you can check yourself against.

The average matters more than any single question. Some questions you'll answer in 20 seconds because you know the point cold. Others, usually the longer factual scenarios with several moving parts, will eat three or four minutes if you let them. The goal isn't to hit 1m40s on every question. It's to make sure the fast ones bank you time for the slow ones.

Why candidates run out of time

A few patterns show up again and again in how SQE1 candidates lose their pacing:

• Re-reading long scenarios from scratch. Some questions run to a full paragraph of facts before the question stem even appears. Reading it twice because your mind wandered the first time costs real minutes across a session.
• Getting stuck on one question. Spending six minutes on a question you're genuinely unsure about, when you could have flagged it and come back, is the single biggest cause of a rushed final stretch.
• Second-guessing answered questions. Going back over questions you've already committed to, without new information to justify it, eats time that's better spent on questions you haven't seen yet.
• Losing track of the clock. The on-screen timer is there throughout the session, but it's easy to stop glancing at it once you're absorbed in the questions, only to look up and find 40 minutes have gone in what felt like 15.

None of these are knowledge problems. They're pacing habits, and habits can be practised before exam day rather than discovered during it.

Flag and return: the core tactic

SQE1's exam software lets you flag any question and move on, then return to flagged questions later in the same session. This is the single most useful pacing tool you have, and it's worth using deliberately rather than only when you feel stuck.

A simple version of the tactic:

1. If you can answer a question within roughly 1m40s, answer it and move on, even if you're not 100% certain.
2. If a question is going to take noticeably longer, whether because the scenario is dense or the law is genuinely unclear to you, make your best guess, flag it, and move on immediately.
3. Keep going through the full 90 questions first. Don't let one hard question block your access to fifty easier ones sitting after it.
4. Use whatever time remains at the end to return to flagged questions, starting with the ones you feel closest to getting right.

The logic is straightforward: every question is worth the same, regardless of how long it takes to answer. Spending eight minutes getting one hard question right, at the cost of not reaching three easy questions at the end of the session, is a bad trade every time.

Because SQE1 has no negative marking, always leave an answer selected before you flag and move on. A flagged question with a guessed answer beats a flagged question left blank, in case you run out of time to come back to it.

Building a checkpoint habit

Rather than watching the clock constantly, which can be distracting, try checking your pace at set points in the session. A natural rhythm is to glance at the timer after every block of 20 or 30 questions and compare where you are against where you'd expect to be.

As a rough guide at 1m40s per question:

• After 30 questions, roughly 50 minutes should have passed
• After 60 questions, roughly 100 minutes should have passed
• After 90 questions, you're at the full 153 minutes

If you're noticeably ahead of pace, you can afford to slow down slightly on the questions that deserve a second look. If you're noticeably behind, that's your signal to flag more aggressively rather than trying to claw back time by rushing everything equally.

Practising pace, not just knowledge

Timing pressure on exam day is rarely the first time a candidate has felt it, because most mock question sets and question banks let you sit full-length, timed sessions before the real thing. Doing at least a few full 90-question timed sessions during revision, rather than only untimed practice, is what turns 1m40s from an abstract number into a felt sense of pace.

Untimed practice is still valuable for building knowledge, but it doesn't train the skill of deciding, in the moment, whether a question is worth your remaining minutes. That decision-making only sharpens under a real clock.

A free SQE study planner can help you build timed mock sessions into your revision schedule alongside your syllabus coverage, so pacing practice doesn't get squeezed out by content review in the final weeks. For the fuller picture of what exam day itself looks like, including arrival times and the break between sessions, see our guide to SQE exam day at Pearson VUE.

What to do in the final 10 minutes

If you reach the last 10 minutes of a session with flagged questions still unanswered, or unresolved, shift into damage-control mode rather than trying to reason through anything new in depth.

• Make sure every question has an answer selected, even a guess, since blanks are the only guaranteed zero
• Prioritise flagged questions you feel closest to solving over ones you were genuinely unsure about from the start
• Don't start reading a fresh, unflagged question you haven't seen yet unless you're confident you can finish it

A calm, mechanical checklist in the last few minutes beats a panicked read-through. That's true whether you're ahead of pace or behind it.

Frequently asked questions

How much time do you get per question in SQE1? Each SQE1 session runs 2 hours 33 minutes for 90 questions, which works out to roughly 1 minute 40 seconds per question on average. That's an average to pace against, not a hard limit for every individual question.

What happens if you run out of time on SQE1? Any question left unanswered when the session ends scores zero, the same as a wrong answer. Since there's no negative marking, it's always better to select an answer, even a guess, before time runs out than to leave a question blank.

Can you skip questions in SQE1 and come back later? Yes. The exam software lets you flag a question and continue to the next one, then revisit flagged questions later in the same session, as long as time remains. This flag-and-return approach is the main tool for managing pace.

How many questions are in each SQE1 session? Each session contains 90 multiple-choice questions. Across the full SQE1 assessment, sat over two days with two sessions each, that totals 360 questions in four sessions.

Is SQE1 more about time pressure or knowledge? Both matter, but time pressure catches candidates who assume knowledge alone is enough. Practising full-length, timed mock sessions during revision is what usually closes the gap between knowing the material and being able to apply it inside the time limit.