Part A Singapore Bar Exam 2027: 5 Papers, 60 MCQs, Open Book

Independent — not affiliated with SILE (the Singapore Institute of Legal Education) or the Ministry of Law. The exam facts on this page come from SILE’s own web pages and its 2027 Session 1 application guide, read on 31 October 2026 and listed at the end. Our practice questions are written by us from Singapore legislation; they are not SILE questions.

What Part A is, and who has to take it

SILE describes Part A as a conversion examination for graduates from overseas scheduled universities who intend to apply for admission to the Singapore Bar. Passing it is one of the requirements for becoming a “qualified person” under the Legal Profession (Qualified Persons) Rules; another is at least six months of relevant legal training, practice or work, completed within a continuous eight-month period after passing the final examination for your law degree. Ordinarily only a qualified person may attend the Part B Course and sit the Part B Examinations, unless the Minister for Law grants an exemption. Graduates of the local law schools do not take Part A; they go straight to Part B once they are qualified persons.

To apply for the 2027 Session 1 papers you had to be a Singapore citizen or permanent resident, and to have graduated with an applicable law degree from an overseas scheduled university with at least lower second-class honours, or a ranking among the highest 70% of your batch where that is the test for your university. Final-year students could apply but had to graduate and meet the ranking requirement by 26 February 2027. Where your university must certify your ranking (Australia, New Zealand, the US), SILE’s guide says not to apply at all if the university cannot rank you and issue the ranking letter, in SILE’s set template, before 26 February 2027; apply for the next session instead. If you do not meet the citizenship/PR or degree requirements, you must already have applied for, or obtained, an exemption from the Minister for Law when you apply for Part A; for 2027 Session 1 the approved exemption had to reach SILE by 26 February 2027, and you must tell SILE the outcome within 3 working days of hearing it, granted or not. The Ministry of Law says exemptions are granted sparingly.

The five papers and the 2027 Session 1 timetable

SILE lists six compulsory subjects, five of them examinable papers. All examinable papers are open book. In the 2027 Session 1 guide each paper is 60 multiple-choice questions, sat in the afternoon on consecutive weekdays:

Sixty questions in 120 minutes is two minutes a question. Open book helps less than it sounds at that pace, because frequent look-ups eat into the two minutes quickly. A sensible strategy is to know where every topic sits in your materials, so the book is for confirming a section number or a test rather than learning it.

The Ethics quiz you must pass first

From 2026 Part A Session 2, SILE added a mandatory Ethics and Professional Responsibility online module. It is the sixth compulsory subject, examined by an online quiz only. You must complete Ethics and score 100% on the quiz before you may sit the Part A papers, and SILE allows unlimited attempts. SILE says the module gives effect to a recommendation in the Ethics and Professional Standards Committee’s January 2025 report that suitable ethics-related content from the law schools be made available to overseas graduates through an online course.

Key dates for 2027 Session 1

Fees

SILE charges one examinations-only fee for everyone and a higher fee if you also take the optional Part A Course. Both include GST. The fees also include physical access to the NUS Libraries (for 2027 Session 1, via an NUS QR code for the CJ Koh Law Library), a personal LawNet account and access to SILE Campus, SILE’s online learning portal.

The optional Course runs outside office hours. Singapore citizens aged 25 and above can put Base-Tier SkillsFuture Credit towards the optional Course fee, but not if they have already paid the Course fee in full themselves; the balance screenshot goes in with the application, the claim is made after SILE’s invoice arrives, within 13 November 2026 to 11 January 2027 (late claims are not accepted), and you must then log in to SILE Campus by 25 January 2027. Singapore citizens can also apply for reimbursement of examination and Course fees from their Post-Secondary Education Account from 11 to 31 January 2027, and to qualify must attend the Opening Brief on the first day of the Course, even if sitting the examinations only. Any withdrawal refund is at SILE’s sole discretion. The guide lists the examination and any Course fees, less a S$545 withdrawal fee (inclusive of GST), as refundable up to 3 January 2027; the examination fee only, less S$545, from 4 January to 25 February 2027; and no refund after 26 February 2027. It does not spell out the position for a withdrawal on 26 February itself, so check with SILE before relying on a refund that day. Deferral is not allowed.

Failing a paper and retaking it

Each paper is passed or failed on its own. SILE runs a retakers’ registration for each session, and a candidate who failed must register and pay for all of their failed subjects at once; you cannot spread them out by choice. Retakers pay less when only one or two subjects are left:

There is no appeal against Part A results, and you cannot start the Part B Course while waiting to retake: SILE says you can only sit Part B once you have passed Part A and become a qualified person. Deferring candidature is not allowed either. A candidate who cannot continue may withdraw and reapply later, or retake missed papers in a later session.

Pass rate and pass mark: what SILE’s pages show

People search for the Part A pass rate, but we found no examination pass rate, pass mark or cohort size on SILE’s Part A pages, in the 2027 application guide or in SILE’s notices (the only 100% requirement is the Ethics quiz). We have not verified figures published elsewhere, so we do not quote one. What SILE did publish for 2026 Session 1, on 22 May 2026, is a commendation list naming three candidates with three distinctions, five with two distinctions, and the best (or joint best) candidate in each paper. That tells you distinctions exist; it tells you nothing about how many people pass.

How to prepare in the weeks before April

This plan is our suggestion, not SILE guidance. Because the papers are on consecutive days, practise more than one paper in a row at least once, so the Thursday Land Law paper does not feel like a surprise after three days of exams.

Sample questions

Independent — not affiliated with SILE (the Singapore Institute of Legal Education) or the Ministry of Law. The exam facts on this page come from SILE’s own web pages and its 2027 Session 1 application guide, read on 31 October 2026 and listed at the end. Our practice questions are written by us from Singapore legislation; they are not SILE questions.