Free SQE1 practice questions: what is actually free

There are more free SQE1 questions than most candidates realise, and most of them are worth less than the official couple of hundred. How to tell the difference.

Updated 6 min read

Start with the SRA’s own samples

The SRA publishes sample SQE1 questions for both FLK1 and FLK2, free, on its SQE website. There are a couple of hundred of them, and nothing else on the internet is as good a guide to the style, the length of the scenarios and the standard you are being held to.

Sit them properly — timed, without notes, reviewing every option — rather than skimming them. And sit them early: they are the cheapest way to find out what the exam actually feels like, and everything you buy or use afterwards can be judged against them.

Judging a free question bank in three questions

Every provider offers something free, and the quality range is enormous. Open three questions and ask:

  1. Does the explanation cover all five options? The distractors are where the learning is. A bank that explains only the key is a bank that teaches you one fifth of each question.
  2. Does it cite anything? A statute, a case, a rule. Explanations that assert without authority cannot be checked, and an explanation you cannot check is one you cannot learn from.
  3. Is it written for the current format? From January 2027 each FLK is 170 questions across two sessions with subjects grouped by session. Material built for the old shape rehearses a paper that no longer exists — see what changed in 2027.

Two warning signs worth adding: questions much shorter than the SRA’s samples, which usually means they test recall rather than application; and banks advertising tens of thousands of questions, which is almost always volume standing in for explanation.

Using free questions well

  • Do not hoard them. Free questions are most useful early, when they are still telling you something you did not know.
  • Answer in timed sets. Ten questions with a clock teaches more than fifty without one.
  • Review the options you did not choose, every time. This is the habit that separates candidates who improve from candidates who accumulate.
  • Record what you got wrong somewhere you will see it again. A free question you miss and never revisit is a mistake you have scheduled for the exam.
  • Do not mix them up with the specification. A free set covers what its author chose to cover. Check your coverage against the syllabus, not against the questions you happen to have.

Where free stops being enough

Two limits arrive in roughly this order. First, coverage: free sets cluster around the same popular topics, and the exam does not. Second, freshness: once you have seen a question, it stops measuring anything, and a few hundred questions go quickly when you are practising daily.

The third limit is quieter and matters more. Free sets rarely track what you got wrong, which means you carry the job of remembering your own weak spots — and that is exactly the job people are worst at. Without a record, revision drifts towards the subjects you enjoy.

What we give away

Every SQEpractice account gets free warm-up sets for FLK1 and FLK2 — real questions from the same bank the paid papers draw on, with the full explanation and the authority behind every option, and no card required. They exist so you can apply the three tests above to us before paying anything.

Beyond the warm-ups, an access pass opens the rest for your sitting and the next one; what that includes is on the pricing section, and how many questions you actually need covers what to do with them. Start with a free set.

Common questions

Does the SRA publish free SQE1 sample questions?
Yes. The SRA publishes sample single best answer questions for FLK1 and FLK2 on its SQE website, free and without registration. They are the most reliable guide to the style and standard of the real assessment.
Are free SQE1 question banks any good?
They vary enormously, and the variation is almost all in the explanations. A question with a one-line answer teaches you one thing; a question explaining why each of the other four options fails teaches you four.
Can I pass SQE1 using only free questions?
It is possible and it is hard. The constraint is volume and repetition: free sets are small enough that you start re-answering questions you remember, which measures memory of the set rather than knowledge of the subject.

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