Advice on preparing for EQE 2019 Paper D in about 160 hours

I often get asked about how best to prepare for Paper D. Ideally, you should start no later than September. Here is the minimum you should do before the exam.

The main differences with Pre-Exam:

• More subjects they can ask about
• You have to decide based on the question which law to consider and which to apply (no possible answers are given)
• You have to deal with DII (a very large, open question advising the client worth 60 marks)

1) Study DI methodology - 8 hours
Learn how to efficiently answer = to get the most marks in time available.

• Ask someone else or get a book (see below). 
• Do the DI questions of 2013 one-by-one (don't do Q.2 - law is obsolete) and really study them: what is being asked, how is it being asked, what should be in your answer. 
• Look in the Examiners Report for the minimum required (statements + legal basis) for full marks. 
• You get marks for giving an answer, and explaining how you got to the answer using the facts you have been given in the question. 
• Figure out if you missed a major issue or a minor issue - concentrate on learning lessons about major issues. 
• Study Candidates Solution for tips on writing your answer - the phrasing used, the detail level and organisation. Note that these are candidates getting almost full marks on each answer - you do not need to be at this level on all answers to pass. But you need to be able to get close to full marks on the legal subjects you know well. 
• You don't need to write full sentences - bulleted short statements are acceptable. 
• Note that the compendium is never updated, so some legal provisions may be out of date, and the fees will also be incorrect in many cases. 

2) Learn core of legal subjects (EPC and PCT) - 60 hours
Learn how the law fits around them, learn how to find things quickly in your legal book.

• Knowledge is tested by answering questions
• Do the 150 selected questions from the DeltaPatents D Book (see page 9 of the Questions part).
• Do most of them fully, but to save some time do some of them quickly by concentrating on the most relevant part of the answer. 
• For the modules with 1 or 2 questions, you can do them all. For the ones with 5 or more, just do every other one - you can go back and do the missed ones in a second run through.
• Copy some of the answers as templates into your legal books.
• Do additional questions in important area where you may be weak (like PCT)

(** 16 Oct 18: see below for updated comments about doing DII **)

EQE2018 Examiner Reports with expected solutions

For those who want to practice the papers, or to analyse their own performance, the EQE 2018 compendium is now almost complete:

• Survey Results
• Statistics

Examiners Reports show the expected solutions and some of the alternatives that were accepted:

• Pre-Exam (recently corrected after appeals)
• Paper A
• Paper B
• Paper C
• Paper D

For anyone who unfortunately failed, a marking sheet will be provided with the official results letter, showing the number of marks per question awarded by each marker. 

Candidate's Solutions are usually added after the summer (one in each language). These are usually someone who scored about 80 points. In most cases, they are made by a native speaker who wrote a lot, so don't consider these to be typical. But they can be a good source of terminology and phrasing.