IIQE Paper I — Where Your Study Time Actually Belongs

Last updated 2026-08-09

The usual advice looks like this: "Build your foundation in Chapter 1, then work through in order."

Measured against the examination, that order is wrong.

What these numbers are

Everything below comes from real answering records of Mange users: 9 candidates, 7,914 answers in total, of which 4,057 were on Paper I.

⚠️ This is a practice accuracy rate, not a pass rate. The two are not convertible. The sample is also still small — nine people's answers cannot represent the whole candidate population. Read the figures on that basis.

The ranking method: not difficulty, but expected loss

Whether a chapter deserves your time is not a question of how hard it is, nor of how much of the paper it covers. It is the product of the two:

Expected loss = chapter weighting × (1 − accuracy on that chapter)

A hard chapter worth 5% of the paper gives you at most 5 marks even if you master it completely. An easier chapter worth 30% costs you 10 marks if you get a third of it wrong. The product is what decides where to go.

The actual distribution across Paper I

Chapters 3 and 6 together account for 56.4% of expected lost marks.

Three things this table says

1. Chapter 1 is the worst place to start.

It comes first in the syllabus and its 12% weighting is not small — but at 79.5% accuracy it is the strongest chapter in the paper. It therefore contributes only 8.0% of expected loss, less than Chapter 4, which carries a 9% weighting.

Working through the syllabus in order means spending the most time on material you already know.

2. Chapter 3 is the real centre of gravity, and it compounds.

Its 30% weighting is the highest in the paper, and its 65.9% accuracy is among the lowest. Both factors push the same way. This one chapter accounts for a third of all expected loss.

3. Chapter 6 is badly underrated.

The regulatory framework reads like rote material, so many candidates leave it until last. But a 21% weighting combined with 65.7% accuracy makes it the second-largest source of lost marks, and the lowest accuracy of all seven chapters.

So what order

Follow expected loss, largest first: 3 → 6 → 2 → (4, 1, 7, 5 to finish).

The first three alone account for 72.2% of expected loss. If your time is limited, concentrating it on those three returns considerably more than spreading it evenly across seven.

Sources and currency

One aside: the same data set gives the opposite conclusion on Paper III — it has no heavyweight chapter; the four main chapters lose marks almost evenly. Using one strategy for both papers is inefficient.

Chapter names and examination weightings are taken from the publicly available syllabus and study-note contents. Accuracy rates and answer counts are compiled by Mange, as at 2026-08-09, from a sample of 9 candidates and 7,914 answers (4,057 on Paper I). The sample will change and so will these numbers — we re-run the statistics whenever we revise this page rather than carrying old figures forward.

Mange does not own, and does not claim to own, copyright in any official examination material; the statistics and suggestions on this page are compiled and written by Mange. Nothing on this page is a promise about any examination outcome.