You sit down for FLK1, read the first question, and three of the five options look correct. Not one obviously right and four obviously wrong — three that all sound plausible. Your stomach drops. Which one does the SRA actually want? This is the single most common shock candidates report after their first practice set, and it tells you something important: the Single Best Answer format is not testing whether you can spot a true statement. It is testing whether you can spot the best one.
Understanding how these questions are marked changes how you read them. Let me walk you through the mechanics, then the traps that quietly drain marks from people who actually know the law.
How SQE1 marking really works across FLK1 and FLK2
Each SQE1 paper contains 180 Single Best Answer multiple choice questions, and you sit two papers — FLK1 and FLK2 — each lasting 5 hours and 20 minutes. Every question carries exactly one mark. There is no negative marking, so a wrong answer costs you nothing beyond the mark you did not gain. That single fact should shape your whole strategy: never leave a blank.
Here is the part people miss. The pass mark is set by the SRA after each sitting using a standard-setting process, and it can differ slightly between FLK1 and FLK2. Your two FLK results are reported separately, but the headline point is simple — every question is worth the same. A hard Trusts question on the rule against perpetuities is worth precisely one mark, the same as a gentle question on the limitation period for a simple contract claim. So the candidate who chases the difficult questions and rushes the easy ones is making a losing trade.
Treat every mark as identical currency. The quickest route to a pass is locking in the questions you find straightforward, not heroically cracking the two or three nightmares.
Why "Single Best Answer" is not "the only correct answer"
A well-constructed SBA question gives you a scenario, a clear question stem, and five options. The examiner deliberately builds in distractors — options that are partly right, right in a different situation, or right as a general statement of law but wrong on these particular facts. Often two or three options are legally accurate statements. Only one applies correctly to the client in front of you.
Take a negligence question rooted in Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562. An option saying "a duty of care arises because the parties are neighbours in law" might be a true general principle, but if the question stem is really asking about breach or causation, that option is a distractor. It is correct law answering the wrong question. The skill being marked is matching the right rule to the precise issue raised.
So when you see several attractive options, do not panic — that is the format working as designed. Your job is to ask: which option resolves this client's actual problem most completely and most accurately?
Trap one: answering the law you revised, not the question asked
The most expensive trap in FLK1 and FLK2 is reading the scenario, recognising the topic, and reaching for the rule you spent all weekend memorising — before you have read what the stem actually asks. A Business Law and Practice scenario about a partnership might tempt you to pour out everything you know about the Partnership Act 1890. But the stem might only ask who is liable for a particular debt incurred by one partner. Read the last line first. The question stem controls everything. Answer that, and nothing else.
Trap two: absolute words like "always" and "never"
Options containing "always", "never", "must" or "cannot" are not automatically wrong, but the law is full of exceptions, so absolute language deserves suspicion. An option stating a court "must" grant a remedy is often false where that remedy is discretionary — think of injunctions or specific performance, both equitable and never granted as of right. Pause whenever an option closes every door. The law rarely does.
Trap three: changing a correct answer under doubt
You finish, you have time, you re-read, and a previously confident answer suddenly looks shaky. Resist the urge to change it unless you can name a concrete reason — a rule you misread, a date you miscounted, a fact you skipped. Doubt alone is not a reason. Many candidates talk themselves out of correct answers in the final twenty minutes. Mark questions you are unsure about as you go, and only revisit those.
Timing: the silent FLK1 and FLK2 trap
Five hours and twenty minutes for 180 questions sounds generous. It is not. That works out at a little under 1 minute 47 seconds per question, including reading time, and some scenarios run to a full paragraph of facts. If you sink six minutes into a single Land Law puzzle on overriding interests, you have borrowed that time from three other questions you could have banked.
Build a rhythm in practice. If a question has not yielded within roughly two minutes, choose your best current guess, flag it, and move on. Because there is no negative marking, a flagged guess is always better than an unanswered question. Come back with fresh eyes and your spare minutes at the end.
A useful checkpoint: aim to have completed roughly 90 questions by the halfway mark of each paper. If you are well behind that, speed up on the easy ones rather than abandoning the hard ones unread.
A reliable method for working each SBA question
Consistency beats cleverness here. The same disciplined approach, applied to all 180 questions, outperforms flashes of brilliance. Here is a method that travels well across every subject from Contract to Criminal Law and Practice:
- Read the stem first. Find out what is actually being asked before you wade through the facts. It tells you what to look for.
- Identify the legal issue. Is this about duty, breach, causation? Formation or breach of contract? Capital or income for Solicitor Accounts? Name the issue in your head.
- Predict the answer before reading options. If you can answer from your own knowledge first, the distractors lose their pull.
- Eliminate, do not select. Cross off the clearly wrong options. With five reduced to two, you raise your odds dramatically even when unsure.
- Match to the precise facts. Between the final two, pick the one that fits this client, not the one that sounds most textbook-correct in the abstract.
Does this take discipline? Yes. But it removes the panic that the format is designed to provoke. The questions that trip up strong candidates are almost never about gaps in knowledge — they are about misreading, mis-timing, or talking yourself out of a right answer.
A quick word on SQE2 — different marking entirely
Worth flagging so you do not carry the wrong instincts forward. SQE2 is not multiple choice at all. It assesses five practical skills — Client Interviewing, Advocacy, Case and Matter Analysis, Legal Research and Legal Writing/Drafting — and your work is marked by assessors against criteria, not against a single correct option. The closed Pearson VUE platform there has no internet and no Boolean search, just Ctrl+F, and the Legal Research task runs to 60 minutes. The mindset that wins SQE1 marks (eliminate and select fast) is replaced by structured, well-reasoned written and spoken answers. One step at a time — clear FLK1 and FLK2 first.
How CELE SQE can help
If you want to drill these instincts until they are automatic, practising under real timing is the only thing that works. Our SQE1 Question Bank subscription is £575 per month and lets you rehearse the elimination method across all 13 subjects, while our SQE1 courses run from £1,750 for the Short-term Course up to £3,720 for the Long-term Course, with a single-FLK option at half price if you only need FLK1 or FLK2. When you reach the skills stage, the SQE2 Course is £1,450 and includes 61 full mock questions built 1:1 to the official SRA format. Come and say hello at celebar.com or on WeChat SQE100 — no pressure, just answers.