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Hong KongElimination technique for HKSI Paper 1, step by step
Read the stem, decide what the answer should be before you look at the options, then cut. Absolutes, over-corrections and wrong-body options go first. Most Paper 1 questions come down to a final two, and that is where the marks are won. Budget 1.5 minutes and move on.
Elimination has a bad reputation because people use it as a substitute for knowing things. It is not that. Used properly it is a way of protecting the knowledge you do have from the pressure of a ninety-minute clock and four options that were written to look alike.
The method below has four steps. It takes about twenty seconds on an easy item and most of your allowance on a hard one.
Step one: answer the question before you read the options
Read the stem. Cover the options if you can, or just refuse to look at them. Then say what you think the answer is. On a naming or mapping question that takes a second and a half, and if your prediction is sitting there as option C you can select it and move on with your budget intact.
This matters more than it sounds. Options are engineered to be attractive. Reading four plausible statements before you have committed to anything lets the wrong ones colonise your thinking, and candidates routinely talk themselves out of an answer they knew.
Step two: cut the structurally weak options
Some options are wrong in a way you can see without knowing the underlying rule. These are the free cuts, and they usually take you from four options to two before you have thought about the law at all.
| Tell | Why it is usually wrong | Example wording |
|---|---|---|
| Absolutes | Regulation is full of exemptions and safe harbours, so options with no give in them tend to fail | "in every case", "must always", "is never permitted", "has no obligation at all" |
| Over-correction | The rule usually manages a risk rather than banning the activity | "the firm must cease the activity entirely", "the relationship must be refused" |
| Duty denied | If a topic is on the syllabus, an option saying there is no duty is rarely the answer | "nothing is required", "there is no obligation" |
| Guarantee | No Hong Kong regulator guarantees an outcome or a price | "guarantees solvency", "ensures the price rises" |
| Wrong body | The named body does not do that kind of work at all | The Companies Registry as a conduct regulator; the HKSI Institute as licensor |
| Nonsense rationale | The stated reason for a rule is commercial or tax-driven when the rule is protective | "to reduce the firm's tax liability", "to allow the firm to use the funds" |
One warning about absolutes. They are a tendency, not a law. Some Paper 1 answers genuinely are absolute: a client agreement must be in place before services are provided, and every executive director of a licensed corporation must be approved as a responsible officer. Use the tell to order your suspicion, never to make the final decision.
Step three: the final two
This is where the exam actually happens. You will reach a last pair on a good third of the paper, and how you handle that pair is the difference between the high forties and a comfortable pass.
Stop comparing the two options to each other. Compare each of them to the stem, one at a time, and ask what would have to be true for that option to be the answer. The winning question is usually not "which is more right" but "what is the difference between these two, and did the stem tell me which side of that difference I am on".
- Name the difference between the two survivors in your own words. If you cannot, you have misread one of them.
- Go back to the stem and find the word that decides it. There is almost always one: immediately, before, professional investor, listed corporation, executive director, unsolicited.
- If the difference is scope, ask who is inside the rule and who is outside it.
- If the difference is timing, ask when the duty starts and whether it continues.
- If one option describes something true that does not answer the question, cut it. That is the partial-compliance pattern and it is the most common trap in the whole paper.
A prospective client of a licensed corporation is a senior government official from another jurisdiction and is well known internationally. What does the anti-money laundering regime require of the firm?
- The relationship must be refused because the client is a politically exposed person
- Simplified due diligence may be applied because the client's identity is a matter of public record
- Enhanced due diligence must be applied, including establishing source of wealth and senior management approval
- No customer due diligence is needed because the client is publicly known
Step four: commit, flag, move
Answer every question you look at, even when you are guessing. There is no negative marking on Paper 1, so a blank is strictly worse than a guess. Select your best option, flag it if you are unsure, and go. The habit of leaving a question unanswered while you "come back to it" is how candidates end up with three unanswered items and four minutes left.
More on this in flagging and returning to questions and guessing strategy.
What elimination cannot do
Here is the opinion, and it cuts against how technique is usually sold. Elimination is worth perhaps three to five marks on a sixty-question paper. Useful, sometimes decisive, and nowhere near enough on its own. Candidates who lean on it are usually avoiding the part of preparation they find unpleasant, which is learning the neighbours: the four clearing houses, the enforcement Parts, the professional investor categories, the codes and who they bind.
The concession is that those three to five marks are real, and the pass mark is 42 of 60. Plenty of people fail this paper by one or two questions. If the technique is free and the marks are close, take them.
- Budget per question
- 1.5 minutes, 90 minutes for 60 questions
- Negative marking
- None - never leave a question blank
- Free cuts
- Absolutes, over-corrections, denied duties, guarantees
- Where the exam is decided
- The final two options
- Deciding move
- Find the one word in the stem that separates them
Drilling the technique
Practice elimination separately from practicing knowledge, otherwise you never find out which one is failing. Take a set of ten questions you have already answered correctly, cover the options, and write down your predicted answer for each. Anything where your prediction was vague is a knowledge gap wearing a technique costume. Then take a set you have not seen and narrate the cuts out loud as you make them.
Two sessions of that is usually enough. It is a habit, not a syllabus.
Common questions
Is guessing penalised on HKSI Paper 1?
No. Paper 1 is marked on the number of correct answers, with no deduction for a wrong one, so leaving a question blank can only cost you. Always select something before you move on, even on a question you have no idea about.
Are longer options more likely to be correct?
Not on a well-built paper. Option length is a weakness of poorly written banks rather than a feature of the exam, and relying on it will cost you marks against carefully constructed items. Decide on the content, not the character count.
Should I eliminate before or after reading all four options?
Predict the answer first, then read all four, then eliminate. Predicting before you read protects you from being pulled towards an attractive wrong option, and reading all four before you commit stops you selecting the first option that looks acceptable.
How long should I spend on a question before guessing and moving on?
About two minutes is the practical ceiling. The average allowance is 1.5 minutes across 60 questions in 90 minutes, so anything much beyond two minutes is borrowed from questions you have not seen yet, which are probably easier.
Does elimination work on negatively worded questions?
It works differently. On a "which is NOT" question you are hunting the odd one out, so you eliminate the options that clearly do belong. Rewrite the stem as a positive statement first, or you will eliminate in the wrong direction under pressure.