Where to Find the Official IIQE Paper 1 Study Materials? Free to Download — Read Two Chapters Closely, Skim the Rest

Last updated 2026-08-10

Plenty of people search for a "Paper 1 textbook". The answer is simpler than most expect — you don't need to buy one.

The most important point first: the official materials are free

The examination syllabus and Study Notes for every paper are freely downloadable from the PEAK website and the Insurance Authority website (stated in Handbook clauses 2.1.4 and 14.1). These are the official study materials provided to candidates. Getting hold of them is the first step of preparation — and it costs nothing.

Two realities to know before you download

First, the examination authorities do not publish questions or answers. Handbook clause 12.6 states that the examination centre does not release scores, questions or correct answers — even after sitting the paper, all you learn is whether you passed. So "official past-paper collections" simply do not exist. Preparation stands on two legs: the official materials teach the concepts correctly, and practice reveals where you have not actually understood them.

Second, the questions are set in Traditional Chinese and English side by side — there is no Simplified Chinese version (Handbook clause 2.2.2). Whichever language you study in, the reading stage is exactly where you should first meet the official terminology: the cost of encountering an unfamiliar term for the first time is best paid while reading the materials, not in the examination room.

How to use the Paper 1 materials: read two chapters closely, skim the rest

Paper 1 is a principles-based paper, and its chapters are far from equal in value. Using the real answering data of 9 candidates to compute expected lost marks:

• Chapter 3 (Principles of Insurance): 30% of the paper's weighting, contributing 33% of expected lost marks
• Chapter 6 (the regulatory framework of the insurance industry): 21% of the weighting, contributing 23% of lost marks, with an accuracy rate of 65.7% — the lowest of the whole paper
• The two chapters combined: 56% of expected lost marks

So do not read the materials at a uniform pace from the first page to the last. The material for these two chapters deserves a close read — the six principles of insurance should be read until you can tell where each ends and the next begins, and for the regulatory part the easily confused bodies and their functions need to be separated group by group. For the remaining chapters, skimming is enough: read them through once, know what they cover, and be able to locate the right passage when a practice question goes wrong. Chapter 1, with the highest accuracy rate (79.5%), least needs line-by-line study. For the full seven-chapter data and the methodology, see the chapter-by-chapter data for Paper 1.

The reading–practice loop: chapter by chapter, not the whole book first

The most common inefficient way to use the materials is "read the whole book from cover to cover, then start practising" — by the time you finish, the early chapters are forgotten, and when a question goes wrong you cannot tell which chapter it belongs to. A better rhythm is a small loop, one chapter at a time:

1. Read one chapter;
2. Immediately practise that chapter's questions — your first-pass accuracy rate is the measure of whether the chapter actually sank in;
3. For the questions you got wrong, go back to the corresponding part of the materials and re-read it — this time reading with "why did I get this wrong" in mind, which is a different kind of reading from the first pass;
4. Revisit the wrong questions a few days later; only consecutive correct answers count as clearing them.

The materials answer "what it is and why"; the questions expose the places where you thought you understood but didn't — alternating between the two is faster than either alone.

As for how much time each chapter deserves and how to order the whole plan, the guide on how to prepare for Paper 1 covers that separately — that page is about dividing your time, this one is about finding and using the materials. Read them together.

⚠️ The accuracy rates mentioned on this page are practice accuracy rates, not pass rates. The two are not convertible. The sample is 9 candidates and 7,914 answers in total (4,057 on Paper 1) — still a small sample.

Sources and currency

The examination syllabus and Study Notes for each paper are freely downloadable from the PEAK website and the Insurance Authority website, stated in Handbook clauses 2.1.4 and 14.1; that questions are set in Traditional Chinese and English with no Simplified Chinese version is stated in Handbook clause 2.2.2; that scores, questions and correct answers are not released is stated in Handbook clause 12.6. In all cases the latest official version of the Handbook prevails. This page does not quote the internal content of the Study Notes; the study methods and conceptual explanations are organised and written by Mange and are not quotations from official materials or legislation. Chapter weightings are taken from the publicly available syllabus and study-note contents; answering statistics as at 2026-08-09.

Mange does not own, and does not claim to own, copyright in any official examination material; the content on this page is written by Mange. Nothing on this page is a promise about any examination outcome, nor does it constitute legal advice.