The Score You See Is Not the Score You Think You See
When SQE1 results land, every candidate logs into the SRA portal hoping for a clear number — the percentage they got right, the marks they lost, an obvious comparison with the pass mark. That is not what they receive.
What you actually see is a scaled score out of 500, a quintile ranking, and a pass / fail outcome. There is no raw percentage. There is no breakdown by subject. There is no list of which questions you got wrong. The information feels deliberately stripped down, and to candidates expecting an exam result that looks like a university transcript, the format can be confusing.
It is not arbitrary. The scaled score system is one of the cleanest design decisions the SRA made when it commissioned Kaplan to deliver the assessment, and once you understand it, your results email tells you everything you actually need to know — including, in many cases, a clearer signal about what to revise next than a raw percentage ever would.
This guide explains exactly how SQE1 scoring works in 2026: the pass mark, the raw-to-scaled conversion, what quintiles mean, what borderline candidates should make of close calls, and how to use your result to plan a resit or move on to SQE2.
The SQE1 Pass Mark: 300 Out of 500
The SQE1 pass mark is a scaled score of 300 out of 500 on each paper. You need at least 300 on FLK1 and at least 300 on FLK2 to pass SQE1 overall. The two papers are graded independently. A 350 on FLK1 does not compensate for a 290 on FLK2 — the latter is a fail and you will need to resit FLK2.
The 0–500 scale is symmetrical around the pass mark. A score of 250 sits 50 points below the pass mark. A score of 350 sits 50 points above. The scale is not a percentage; do not read 300 as "60%" or 400 as "80%." We will come to the actual conversion shortly.
Two facts about the pass mark that surprise candidates:
- The pass mark is fixed at 300 every sitting. It does not move with the difficulty of the paper.
- The raw mark required to reach 300 changes every sitting. That is the whole point of scaling. If a sitting is harder than average, you need fewer raw correct answers to reach a scaled score of 300. If it is easier, you need more.
This is what protects candidates from sitting variance. You are not penalised for happening to take a harder paper than the candidates ahead of you, and you are not given a windfall for taking an easier one.
How Raw Marks Become Scaled Scores
There are 180 single-best-answer questions on each paper. Your raw score is simply the number of those questions you answered correctly out of 180. There is no negative marking, so unanswered questions are functionally the same as wrong answers — always attempt every question, as we cover in the SQE1 MCQ technique guide.
The SRA then maps your raw score to a scaled score using a method called the modified Angoff procedure. In simplified terms:
- A panel of expert assessors reviews every question in advance and estimates the probability that a "minimally competent" candidate would answer it correctly.
- Those probabilities are summed to derive a raw pass mark for that specific paper.
- The raw pass mark is mapped to scaled score 300.
- Every other raw score is then scaled relative to that anchor — your raw score is converted to a 0–500 number that maintains its position relative to the pass mark.
Historically, the raw pass mark for SQE1 papers has fallen in the range of roughly 95–103 correct answers out of 180, which works out to roughly 53–57% raw correct. The exact threshold varies by sitting. The January 2026 papers landed within this range; July sittings have sometimes been slightly tougher.
A useful mental model: getting roughly 60% of questions right is a comfortable pass; getting 50% is the danger zone; getting 65%+ puts you in the top quintile.
The Quintile Ranking
Alongside your scaled score, your results email shows your quintile. Quintiles divide candidates into five equal-sized groups based on performance:
| Quintile | Position | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Top 20% | You are scoring in the top 20% of all candidates this sitting |
| 2 | Next 20% | You are above the median |
| 3 | Middle 20% | You are around the median; usually a clear pass |
| 4 | Next 20% | Below the median; possibly still a pass |
| 5 | Bottom 20% | Bottom of the cohort; usually a fail or marginal pass |
The quintile is a relative measure — it tells you where you sat compared with everyone else who took the paper at the same time. Two candidates sitting in different windows with the same scaled score will have the same pass/fail outcome but possibly different quintiles, because the cohorts are different.
A few things worth knowing about quintiles:
- You can pass and still be in quintile 4 or 5. This happens whenever the pass mark falls below the 20th-percentile cohort score. In recent sittings, candidates in quintile 4 often passed; quintile 5 was a near-universal fail.
- A quintile 1 result on FLK1 and a quintile 3 result on FLK2 is normal. The two papers differentiate candidates differently, and the bands are computed separately.
- Quintile is a softer signal than scaled score. It tells you where you sit; it does not tell you how far above or below the pass mark you actually scored.
If you passed and are planning SQE2, the quintile gives you a quick sense of whether your foundation is solid (Q1 or Q2) or whether the SQE2 prep should include some FLK refresh (Q4 or just-passed Q3).
What Your Results Email Actually Looks Like
The standard SQE1 results communication contains:
- The date the results were released.
- Your scaled score on FLK1 (0–500).
- Your scaled score on FLK2 (0–500).
- Your quintile ranking on each paper.
- Your overall SQE1 outcome: pass or fail.
What it does not contain:
- A raw mark or percentage.
- A subject-by-subject breakdown.
- A list of which questions you got wrong.
- A list of which topics you struggled with.
The lack of subject-level detail is the design choice candidates struggle with most. The SRA's reasoning is that the SQE1 questions integrate facts across multiple subjects within a single scenario, so a clean per-subject mark would be misleading. In practice, this means that when you fail and need to plan a resit, you will not get a roadmap from your results email. You will need to reconstruct your weak areas from your own practice question logs and mock results.
How to Read a Borderline Result
The most common results-day question is: "I scored 305. Is that close to fail or comfortably a pass?" Or in the other direction: "I scored 295. How close was I?"
Both deserve a careful answer.
A 305 Pass: Comfortable, But Not Bulletproof
A scaled score of 305 is, by definition, a pass. The SRA does not condition the pass on anything else. Your record will list you as having passed FLK1 (or FLK2), and you can move on to SQE2.
But scaled scores have a confidence interval. The SRA does not publish a precise standard error per candidate, but Kaplan's psychometric work suggests that the 95% confidence interval on a single SQE1 paper is in the order of 15–20 scaled points either side of your actual mark. So a 305 result is genuinely "around 305" with some sitting noise — and a candidate who scored 305 on their first attempt would not necessarily score above 300 on a hypothetical re-sit of the same content.
The practical implication for borderline pass candidates: for SQE2 preparation, treat your FLK foundation as patchy in places and budget some time to re-do mocks during your SQE2 prep.
A 295 Fail: Close, But Still a Fail
A 295 is one of the hardest results to receive because the gap to 300 is small enough to feel like a near-miss. It is. The candidate who scored 295 was within striking distance of a pass, and a different five questions on the day might well have produced a different outcome.
But 295 is still a fail, and the resit is a full repeat of that paper at the next sitting. The closeness of the score does not give you a partial credit, a do-over of just the borderline questions, or a discount on the resit fee.
The right interpretation of a 295 fail is: your preparation was 95% of the way there, and the remaining 5% is what the resit window is for. That is a very different story from a 220 fail, where the prep itself needs a serious re-think. The SQE1 resit guide walks through how to triage based on how far below the pass mark you scored.
Why Scaled Scoring Is Actually Fair
Candidates often resent the lack of a raw percentage. A few minutes thinking about why scaled scoring exists tends to resolve the resentment.
Imagine two candidates of identical ability. Candidate A sits a paper that — by random luck of the question pool — happens to be slightly easier. Candidate A scores 110/180 raw. Candidate B sits a paper of the same nominal specification but with slightly trickier questions and scores 100/180 raw.
Without scaled scoring, Candidate A passes and Candidate B fails by raw mark. With scaled scoring, both candidates land at roughly 300 — because the panel of assessors estimated the pass-mark probability for each paper, and the raw threshold was adjusted accordingly. The scaled score is a fairer measure of ability than the raw mark precisely because it strips out paper-difficulty noise.
The same logic protects candidates against:
- Question-bank rotation effects. Some sittings draw from a slightly harder slice of the bank than others.
- Cohort composition effects. The scaled score is anchored by Angoff judgement, not by the cohort's relative ranking, so a stronger or weaker cohort does not move the pass mark.
- Subject-mix effects. If one sitting happens to weight Property Practice more heavily than the previous, candidates strong in Property are not unfairly advantaged because the scaling neutralises the effect.
The cost is the loss of an intuitive raw percentage. The benefit is a result that is genuinely comparable across years.
Common Misconceptions
A few myths persist in the SQE1 candidate community.
Myth 1: "300 is 60%." The scaled score is anchored at 300 = pass mark, not 60%. The actual raw percentage required varies by sitting and is typically in the 53–57% range.
Myth 2: "I need to score better than the median to pass." Wrong. The pass mark is fixed by Angoff, not by cohort percentile. The median is usually well above 300 (319 on FLK1 and 312 on FLK2 in January 2026), but the pass mark is below the median, which means many below-median candidates pass.
Myth 3: "Quintile 5 always means fail." Almost always, but not strictly. In a high-performing cohort, the bottom 20% can sit just above the pass mark. In recent sittings the overlap has been small but non-zero.
Myth 4: "Failing by 5 points means I am 5 questions away from a pass." Roughly, but not exactly. Because of scaling, a 5-point shortfall might map to anywhere from 2 to 4 raw questions depending on where on the curve you are. The lesson is the same — close — but the raw question count is not a clean conversion.
Myth 5: "My scaled score tells me which subjects to revise." It does not. The result is a single composite number per paper. Subject-level diagnosis comes from your own practice mocks and topic-level performance tracking.
What to Do With Your Result, in Order
When your scaled score and quintile arrive, the action sequence is the same regardless of outcome.
If you passed both papers:
- Note your scaled scores and quintiles in writing. They will inform your SQE2 preparation pacing.
- Decide your SQE2 sitting. The next sitting is typically 8 weeks out — see our SQE1-to-SQE2 bridge guide.
- Begin SQE2 preparation before the booking deadline.
If you passed one paper and failed the other:
- Identify the failing paper and the gap to 300.
- Decide whether to resit at the next sitting (if your gap is small and you have eight weeks) or the one after (if the gap is large and your prep needs a reset).
- Book the resit and structure prep around the failing paper specifically. The resit guide has a full triage protocol.
If you failed both:
- Take a week off before re-engaging. The instinct to immediately replan is rarely productive.
- Audit your preparation honestly — were you under-hours, under-mocks, or under-application?
- Plan a longer runway for the next sitting. The 6-month study plan is the right baseline if you have the time.
Where to Go From Here
Scaled scoring and quintiles are the SRA's way of saying that one number cannot tell the whole story — which is why your results email gives you two. Combine the scaled score (how far above or below the pass mark you sat) with the quintile (where you sat in the cohort) and you have a fair picture of where your preparation stood.
- Test where you sit on the scale: SQE1 quick quiz
- Full mock exams in scaled-score conditions: pricing plans
- Study notes mapped to all 13 subjects: study notes
- Read the latest results in context: SQE1 January 2026 results analysis
- If you need to resit: Failed SQE1 resit guide
- After passing: Passed SQE1, now what? The SQE2 bridge
A 300 is a 300, regardless of how it feels on the day. Your job is to land somewhere safely above it on both papers — and the only way to know whether you are there is to keep mocking, keep tracking, and keep adjusting.