How to pass RES5 in 2026: a 4-week plan for both parts

To pass RES5, you need 75% on Part I and 80% on Part II of the same 150-question paper, so study it as two tests. Part I is 110 questions on the rules in chapters 1 to 13. Part II is 40 questions on ethics and advising skills in chapters 14 to 27, and 9 wrong answers there fail the whole paper. Four weeks is enough if you track each part's score on its own and study the current text, Version 1.3.

RES5 format at a glance

SCI writes it as RES5, short for Rules, Ethics and Skills for Financial Advisory Services. It replaced the old M5, so M5 notes and question sets won't prepare you for it.

Passing also earns you 3 CPD hours, and there's no limit on resits, though every attempt costs the full fee: S$185.30 at the member weekday rate, up to S$236.53 for a non-member after 5pm.

27 wrong in Part I, 8 in Part II: the score maths

Your total across both parts decides nothing, because SCI marks each part against its own line.

• Part I: 75% of 110 is 82.5, so you need 83 right. You can drop 27.
• Part II: 80% of 40 is 32, so you need 32 right. You can drop 8.

Part II is where most of the risk sits. Score 95% on Part I and 79% on Part II and you've failed, even though your combined mark looks safe. Our RES 5 pass marks guide works through more of these cases.

So, from the first practice session, write down two numbers, never one. A blended 85% can hide a Part II score of 75%.

What Part I tests: chapters 1 to 13

Part I is the regulation half, and SCI's own chapter list names the MAS notices and guidelines behind it:

Learn each notice by number and subject, because questions name them. MAS's own titles for the four that carry most scenarios: FAA-N16 is Recommendations on Investment Products, FAA-N03 is Information to Clients and Product Information Disclosure, FAA-N06 is Prevention of Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism, and FAA-N20 sets the Balanced Scorecard remuneration framework and the independent sales audit unit.

These chapters reward precision. A question often turns on whether a duty falls on you or on your firm, or on exactly what has to be disclosed and when. "Roughly right" picks the wrong option.

Master the applied questions in Part II

Part II is ethics and the advice process. Chapters 14 to 20 cover professional ethics, professionalism, conflicts of interest, fair dealing and ethical sales. Chapters 21 to 27 follow one client from first meeting to portfolio review: the relationship, fact-finding, the analysis of their finances, your recommendation, how you present it and the review that comes later.

The questions read like short cases. A client says something, you did something, and the question asks what you should have done. Read the case, pick out the facts that matter, then ask which duty those facts trigger. When a client wants a product and the fact-find is incomplete, the question is usually testing whether you finish the fact-find before you recommend anything.

Fourteen chapters share those 40 questions, which is why one weak chapter can use up the whole 8-question margin by itself.

Separate the look-alike terms

Several Part I questions turn on two terms that sound alike but point different ways. Learn each pair together, with the line MAS draws:

• Customer Knowledge Assessment or Customer Account Review. Both come from Notice FAA-N16. The CKA reviews a client's knowledge and experience before an unlisted Specified Investment Product. The CAR reviews their knowledge and experience in derivatives before a listed one.

• Excluded or Specified Investment Product. FAA-N16 lists the Excluded Investment Products in its Annex 1, and every other investment product is a Specified Investment Product. So check the list before you trust what a product is called.

• Licensed or exempt financial adviser. FAA-N26 calls a firm exempt when the Financial Advisers Act exempts it from holding a licence, as it does for banks and insurers. Exempt from the licence doesn't mean exempt from the conduct rules.

• Selected client or not. Under FAA-N16's amendment of 29 December 2025, a client is a selected client when at least two of these hold: they're 62 or older, they aren't proficient in English or the language you'll advise in, or they don't have GCE O or N Level or an equivalent. You then go ahead only with a trusted individual alongside them, or with the client's written statement declining one. Check how your Version 1.3 eBook covers it.

Each pair has caught enough candidates to turn up in our RES 5 exam traps guide.

Using old RES5 notes? Check the version first

SCI's notice puts every RES5 exam from 22 September 2026 on the 1st Edition, Version 1.3, released on 20 July 2026. The eBook link arrives by email after you register and pay, and the Version Control Record at the back lists what changed. MAS amends the notices behind Part I, and recent changes are easy to miss in older notes. MAS's notice pages show FAA-N06 replaced by a new notice dated 30 June 2025, in force from 1 July 2025, and amendments to FAA-N16 and FAA-N20 taking effect on 29 December 2025. Whether a change is in your exam depends on the study text version, so check the Version Control Record rather than a summary. When notes and the eBook disagree, the eBook wins in the exam.

The mistakes that fail prepared candidates

Three habits explain most resits.

Studying to an average. Reading the text cover to cover spreads your hours evenly across chapters you already know and chapters you keep getting wrong. You end up with a comfortable average and a Part II problem you never measured.

Reading instead of testing. Read a chapter once, then spend most of your hours answering questions on it rather than rereading. Keep a mistake bank: every question you miss goes on a running list with one line naming the rule you should have applied, and you reread the list each week. The misses cluster into a handful of confusions, and those are what week 4 is for.

No full-length practice. Three hours of reading rules-based cases takes stamina. If the real exam is your first unbroken 150-question sitting, expect your accuracy to slip in the last hour. Before you trust a second-hand question set, check which version of the text it was written for.

Your 4-week RES5 study plan

The plan gives Part I and Part II a week each before the first mock, so Part II's 40 questions get study time of their own.

Week 1: Part I, chapters 1 to 13

Read the rules chapters in order and answer questions on each one the same day. Learn each notice by its number and what it governs. A rule you understand comes back under time pressure, and Part II's cases assume you know the reasoning behind it.

Week 2: Part II, chapters 14 to 27

Give Part II more time than its 40 questions suggest. Work questions chapter by chapter and read the explanation on every answer, the right ones included. Write a one-line rule for each type of case you meet, such as what fair dealing requires when a client wants a product that doesn't fit them.

Week 3: one full timed paper

Sit 150 questions in 3 hours with no notes and no pausing. Then split your result: count your Part I and Part II scores separately against 75% and 80%. If Part II is under 32 out of 40, that's next week's work.

Week 4: your weakest chapters

Don't reread the whole text. Take your three or four weakest chapters from the mock and drill only those until the scores climb, then sit a second full paper to see whether the gains held under the clock.

Pace the 3 hours so Part II gets its time

150 questions in 3 hours is about 72 seconds each. That's comfortable for recall questions and tight for the cases, so move quickly through the rules you know and leave room for Part II. If a question stalls you, choose your best answer and keep going. A blank scores nothing, so never leave one empty.

Read the qualifiers. "Except", "not", "always" and "only" change the answer, and Part II's cases are written to reward the candidate who notices them. SCI's exam rules ask for two IDs: your Singpass ID shown through the Singpass app, and one physical photo ID. Test the app's face login the week before. Bring your own calculator if you want one, from SCI's approved list.

Don't just pick a date, be ready for it

Book when both parts clear their line on two full timed mocks in a row: 83 or more out of 110 in Part I and 32 or more out of 40 in Part II. A single good mock can be luck, so wait for the second, and for a mistake bank that has stopped growing new kinds of error.

SCI allows no cancellation or refund. Your first change of date, made 7 or more working days ahead, is free, and later changes cost S$32.70, so book a date you can keep. Our RES 5 booking guide has the steps.

Know exactly which RES5 chapter to drill next

Our RES 5 practice has full mocks of 150 questions in 3 hours, chapter practice across all 27 chapters and an explanation on every answer. The mock is marked against 80%, the higher of the two pass marks. After each mock, your results list up to three chapters where you scored below the pass mark, and a retest brings back the questions you got wrong, 30 at a time.

See what's covered on the RES 5 paper page, try some RES 5 sample questions first, or start RES 5 as a single paper.

Sources

• SCI, RES5 exam details, contents, fees, study texts and registration policies, read 4 November 2026
• SCI, release of new versions of study texts for regulatory examinations, read 4 November 2026
• SCI, examination rules and regulations, read 4 November 2026
• MAS, Notice FAA-N16 on recommendations on investment products, with the amendment of 29 December 2025, read 4 November 2026
• MAS, Notice FAA-N03 on information to clients and product information disclosure, read 4 November 2026
• MAS, Notice FAA-N06 on prevention of money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism, read 4 November 2026
• MAS, Notice FAA-N20 on the remuneration framework and independent sales audit unit, read 4 November 2026
• MAS, Notice FAA-N26 on competency requirements for representatives of financial advisers, read 4 November 2026