RES Exam Format & Pass Mark Explained (2026)

The Real Estate Salesperson (RES) examination is the licensing exam you must pass to register as a property agent in Singapore. It is run for the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) and is sat as two separate papers. Here is exactly how it is structured.

Two papers, four competency units

The syllabus is divided into four Competency Units (CU1–CU4), split across two papers:

• Paper 1 (CU1–CU2):real estate agency industry overview, basic land law, law of contract and agency, landlord & tenant, and real estate economics & planning.
• Paper 2 (CU3–CU4): regulation of the estate agency industry, ethics and professional conduct, anti-money-laundering, marketing and advertising rules, property transactions, HDB, leasing, stamp duties and property finance.

Each paper: Section A + Section B

Both papers follow the same structure:

• Section A — 60 standalone multiple-choice questions.
• Section B — 20 multiple-choice questions based on case studies / scenarios.
• Duration — 2 hours 30 minutes per paper.
• Pass mark — at least 60% in each paper.

That means 80 questions per paper, all multiple-choice. There is no essay or open-ended writing — but Section B tests whether you can apply the rules to realistic situations, which is where many candidates lose marks.

Why the format matters for your prep

Because the whole exam is multiple-choice with a 60% bar, the most effective preparation is doing a large volume of exam-style questions under time pressure, then reviewing the explanations for everything you get wrong. Practising Section B case-study questions specifically is important — they are worth a quarter of each paper and are harder to wing.

On RESPrep, the full mock exams mirror this exact format — 60 Section A + 20 Section B questions, timed at 2h30m — so practising feels like the real sitting. You can also drill individual topics first, then move to full mocks as the exam approaches.

For the full breakdown by competency unit, see the RES syllabus page. Always confirm the current exam details and dates on the official CEA website, as they can change.