What the exam looks like, what it actually tests, and what that means for how you study before your course.
Two exams, one question style
SQE1 is two exams, FLK1 and FLK2. FLK stands for Functioning Legal Knowledge. Each one is a day of computer-based questions split into two sessions. From January 2027 the SRA has said each exam will have 170 questions, in two sessions of 85. Check the SRA site for the sitting you are aiming at, because the format has changed before.
Every question is single best answer. You get a short scenario about a client, a question, and five options. One option is the best answer.
What is in each paper
- FLK1. Business Law and Practice, Dispute Resolution, Contract, Tort, the Legal System of England and Wales, Constitutional and Administrative Law and EU Law, and Legal Services.
- FLK2. Property Practice, Wills and the Administration of Estates, Solicitors' Accounts, Land Law, Trusts, Criminal Liability, and Criminal Law and Practice.
- Ethics and professional conduct is not a separate paper. It can come up in any subject, in either exam.
What a question is really testing
Very few questions ask you to state a rule. Most ask what a solicitor should advise, what is most likely to happen, or what step comes next. The exam is testing whether you can apply the law to facts quickly and accurately.
So you need rules that are precise enough to apply, and you need to recognise which rule a set of facts is pointing at. You do not need to write essays, argue both sides or know the academic debate.
What you do not need to know
The SRA's specification says you do not need to recall case names or cite statutes, unless the case or statute is the usual name for a principle or procedure. Examples are Rylands v Fletcher and a Part 36 offer.
That one point should change how you take notes. Learn what a case decided, not what it is called. Keep a case name only if the specification uses it, or if it genuinely helps you remember the principle.
Why start before your course
SQE courses move fast and cover a lot. People who arrive already knowing the shape of each subject, the key vocabulary and the main tests spend the course sharpening rather than catching up. That is the whole idea of Head Start. You are not trying to finish the course early. You are trying to make the course feel familiar.
Try this now
Do a handful of free practice questions now, before you study anything. Note which subjects felt like guessing. That is your starting map, not a score.
Check yourself
Answer each one out loud before you open it.
What two papers make up SQE1?
FLK1 and FLK2. Each is 170 questions from January 2027, split into two sessions of 85.
Which FLK1 session holds Business Law, Dispute Resolution and Legal Services from 2027?
The first FLK1 session. Contract, Tort and Legal System sit in the second.
An original summary written for Head Start from the SRA specification and the law. Check the detail against your course materials. This is not legal advice.