FLK1 practice questions and topics
FLK1 is the first SQE1 assessment: 170 single best answer questions in two sessions of 85, across Business Law and Practice, Dispute Resolution, Contract, Tort, the Legal System with Constitutional and Administrative Law, and Legal Services. Practise FLK1 below by session, then read what each area covers.
Updated 24 September 2026 · Checked against SRA sources listed below
SQE1 at a glance
- questions in each FLK
- 170
- per question on average
- 1.8 min
- out of 500 to pass each FLK
- 300
- SQE1 fee for sittings from October 2026
- £2,006
FLK1 mixed · 10 questions, adaptive order
1 of 10
Question 1 · Business Law and Practice · FLK1
A woman instructs a solicitor to form a private company limited by shares for her new catering business. She will be the only shareholder and a director. The company will adopt the model articles.
She asks the solicitor to name her brother, who lives abroad, as a second director because she thinks this will reassure the company's bank. Her brother does not yet know about the business, but she is sure that he would not object. He has already verified his identity with Companies House as a director of another company.
The solicitor has prepared the application for registration, the statement of capital and initial shareholdings and the statement of compliance.
What should the solicitor do about the woman's request to name her brother as a director?
Question 2 · Constitutional and Administrative Law and EU Law · FLK1
A private limited company runs a weekly street market under a licence granted by a local authority. Last month the authority revoked the licence after receiving complaints about noise. It did not tell the company about the complaints or give it any opportunity to respond before revoking the licence.
The company wants to reopen the market as soon as possible. A solicitor is preparing a claim for judicial review on its behalf. The company's managing director, who has run markets for 20 years, instructs the solicitor to claim only damages of £40,000 for lost trade, because he believes that the court will not interfere with the authority's decision itself.
What advice should the solicitor give about the remedy to seek?
Question 1 · Contract Law · FLK1
A woman bought a new sofa online from a furniture retailer for her home. Before she ordered it, the retailer's website stated that the sofa's frame was made of solid oak. Relying on that statement, she ordered the sofa.
It was delivered with a printed care label stating the frame was, in fact, a mix of oak veneer and manufactured board. She did not notice this until months later, when a leg cracked. The retailer says the website description was 'just marketing' and that the care label reflects the true materials.
Is the retailer's website description of the frame as solid oak a term of the contract?
Question 4 · Dispute Resolution · FLK1
A company issued a claim form against a man for the price of goods it had sold him. The claim form stated that particulars of claim would follow. It was deemed served on the man on Tuesday 7 September, and the particulars of claim were deemed served on him on Thursday 16 September.
The man disputes the claim and wants to defend it.
By when must the man file an acknowledgment of service or a defence to avoid the risk of default judgment?
Question 5 · Legal Services · FLK1
A consumer charity believes that the regulator of solicitors in England and Wales is failing to protect consumers when it makes rules on the price information that firms must publish. The charity has also received complaints from its members about poor service by individual firms of solicitors. It wants the regulator's performance to be reviewed by the body with statutory power to oversee it.
Which body has statutory power to set performance targets for, and give directions to, the regulator of solicitors?
Question 6 · Legal System of England and Wales · FLK1
A minister makes a statutory instrument under powers conferred by an Act of Parliament. The enabling Act provides that instruments made under it are 'subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.'
What effect does this wording have on the statutory instrument?
Question 7 · Tort · FLK1
A furniture retailer employs a man as a delivery driver. The retailer's written rules, which it enforces strictly, forbid drivers to reverse a lorry unless a colleague is guiding them. The man had been fully trained and had a clean driving record.
While making a delivery to a customer's house, the man reversed the retailer's lorry without a guide and hit a pedestrian, who was badly injured. The pedestrian was not a customer and had no dealings with the retailer. The retailer says that it was not at fault in any way.
Which of the following facts is most relevant to whether the retailer is liable for the man's negligence?
Question 8 · Business Law and Practice · FLK1
A solicitor acts for a private company in negotiating a long-term supply contract with a customer. The company has three directors, who are also its only shareholders. One of the directors, a woman who holds 20% of the shares, has been the solicitor's main contact on the matter.
The woman now tells the solicitor that she may sell her shares to an outside buyer. She asks for advice on how the supply contract will affect the value of her shares, and she offers to pay for that advice herself.
Who is the solicitor's client in the negotiation of the supply contract?
Question 9 · Constitutional and Administrative Law and EU Law · FLK1
In 2016, while the United Kingdom was a member of the European Union, a haulage company brought a claim in the High Court against a public body. It relied on a directly applicable EU Regulation which entitled it to a refund of certain charges it had paid.
The public body relied on a section of an Act of Parliament passed in 2010, which prohibited any such refund. The section was inconsistent with the Regulation. Nothing in the 2010 Act referred to EU law or to the European Communities Act 1972. The public body argued that the 2010 Act, as the more recent statute, should prevail.
Which of the following best explains how the court should have resolved the conflict?
Question 10 · Contract Law · FLK1
A man contracted to buy a specific vintage car from a dealer for £45,000. In breach of contract, the dealer sold the car to someone else and could not deliver it. A car of the same specification was available elsewhere for £51,000, and the man bought that substitute car for £51,000. No money had been paid under the original contract before the dealer's breach.
What is the man's expectation loss?
SQE1 at a glance
- questions in each FLK
- 170
- per question on average
- 1.8 min
- out of 500 to pass each FLK
- 300
- SQE1 fee for sittings from October 2026
- £2,006
What FLK1 covers
FLK1 is the first of the two assessments that make up SQE1. The letters stand for Functioning Legal Knowledge, and the paper tests the ability to apply law to facts at the standard of a newly qualified solicitor. Kaplan SQE runs the assessment for the SRA, and it is sat on screen, closed book, at Pearson VUE test centres.
From January 2027 the paper has 170 single best answer questions, each with five options. Ethics and professional conduct is examined across every subject area, so a question that appears to be about civil procedure may turn on a solicitor's duty to the court.
Structure and timing
| Element | FLK1 from January 2027 |
|---|---|
| Questions | 170 |
| Sessions | 2 sessions of 85 questions, with a 60-minute break between them |
| Time per session | 2 hours 33 minutes |
| Question format | Single best answer, five options |
| Time per question | About 1.8 minutes (108 seconds) |
| Session 1 subjects | Business Law and Practice, Dispute Resolution, Legal Services |
| Session 2 subjects | Contract, Tort, Legal System with Constitutional and Administrative Law and EU Law |
| Result | Scaled score from 0 to 500, pass mark 300, marked separately from FLK2 |
From January 2027 each session covers a fixed group of subjects, and questions are randomised within the session. Before that, each FLK had 180 questions in two sessions of 90. The exam format guide covers the day in more detail.
FLK1 topics and subject areas
The SRA lists six subject areas for FLK1. The Legal System of England and Wales is examined together with Constitutional and Administrative Law and EU Law as one area.
| Subject area | Typical question territory |
|---|---|
| Business Law and Practice | Choice of business medium, directors' duties, shareholder resolutions, partnership authority, corporate insolvency, business taxation |
| Dispute Resolution | Limitation, pre-action conduct, track allocation, interim applications, disclosure, costs, appeals, enforcement |
| Contract | Offer and acceptance, consideration, terms and exclusion clauses, misrepresentation, frustration, remedies and remoteness |
| Tort | Duty of care, breach, causation, remoteness, occupiers' liability, nuisance, product liability, vicarious liability |
| Legal System, Constitutional and Administrative Law and EU Law | Courts, precedent, statutory interpretation, sovereignty, devolution, judicial review, the Human Rights Act 1998, EU law's place in the UK constitution |
| Legal Services | Regulation of the profession, money laundering, financial services, funding including civil legal aid |
The SRA publishes the weighting as ranges in a blueprint, Annex 4 of the specification, and the only version that can be read is the 2019 one. In the SRA's 2019 blueprint ranges the first five areas each make up 14 to 20 percent of FLK1, and Legal Services 12 to 16 percent. Ethics and professional conduct and money laundering together can make up to 20 percent of the questions, and money laundering is tested in FLK1 only.
How FLK1 questions are written
A typical FLK1 question opens with a client scenario of three to six sentences. It may describe a company director considering a transaction, a claimant approaching a limitation deadline, or a public body making a decision. The question then asks what advice is correct, what the likely outcome is, or what the solicitor should do next.
Distractors are built from real rules applied to the wrong facts, from rules that apply in a neighbouring area, and from outcomes that would be right if one fact were different. Reading every fact in the scenario is the first defence.
Where candidates lose marks in FLK1
The SRA's annual report for 2023/24 gives the mean scaled score by practice area. In FLK1 the lowest were Dispute Resolution (278) and Business Law and Practice (279), both below the pass mark of 300. Legal System (294) and Tort (299) were close to it, and Contract (335) was the highest apart from ethics (362).
- Business Law and Practice, where law graduates often have no background and the tax and insolvency topics are unfamiliar.
- Dispute Resolution, which turns on procedural detail such as time limits and track thresholds that must be known precisely.
The guide to how hard SQE1 is sets these scores beside the FLK2 subjects, and the SQE1 pass rate page has the FLK1 pass rate for every sitting.
How to prepare for FLK1
The full SQE1 syllabus lists what each subject contains. A workable order is to begin with the subjects that come out weakest in a diagnostic, cover the rest in turn, then move to mixed practice under time within each session group. FLK2 is sat in the following week of the same window, so the FLK2 guide belongs in the same plan, and the SQE1 study plan lays out the weeks.
Practice for FLK1 should be scenario-based from the start. Single best answer questions with a rationale for each option teach the reasoning the paper rewards, and the SQE1 practice questions page has a free set. The free diagnostic gives a first read on every subject in about 15 minutes.
Questions candidates ask
Functioning Legal Knowledge 1. It is the first of the two SQE1 assessments and covers Business Law and Practice, Dispute Resolution, Contract, Tort, the Legal System of England and Wales with Constitutional and Administrative Law and EU Law, and Legal Services.
From January 2027 FLK1 has 170 single best answer questions in two sessions of 85, each lasting 2 hours 33 minutes, with a 60-minute break between them. That is about 1.8 minutes a question.
No. FLK1 and FLK2 each have a pass mark of 300 on a scale of 0 to 500, and both must be passed. A candidate who passes one and fails the other resits only the one they failed, within the limit of three attempts in six years.
Sources
- SRA: SQE1 Assessment Specification (assessments from 1 September 2026)Checked 23 September 2026
- SRA: SQE1 Functioning Legal Knowledge assessment specification (August 2019), Annex 4 blueprintChecked 23 September 2026
- SRA: SQE changes (September 2026)Checked 23 September 2026
- SRA: SQE Annual Report 2023/24Checked 23 September 2026
- SRA: SQE1 January 2026 statistical reportChecked 23 September 2026
- SRA: SQE Assessment RegulationsChecked 23 September 2026
SQE1 Ready is independent of the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Rules, dates and fees can change: the SRA is the authority, and this page is checked against it.
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