RE5 exam day: what to bring, what to expect, and how to use your 2 hours

The RE5 is a 2 hour, 50 question paper based exam, written under invigilation at a venue Moonstone books for the sitting, usually a morning start in a hired community or church hall. It is closed book, and no material is allowed in the examination room.

Everything else is logistics, and logistics are where candidates lose attempts. What follows is the day, rule by rule, from Moonstone's own documents.

How long is the RE5 exam?

Two hours, for 50 multiple-choice questions. That is an average of 2 minutes 24 seconds per question.

Every question has four options and exactly one correct answer, and there is no negative marking. The Preparation Guide budgets half a minute for a recall question and up to two minutes for an application question, so two hours is enough. Candidates who run out of time did not run out of minutes, they spent eleven of them on one question.

What to bring to the RE5 exam

The original identity document you registered under, with a name that matches your registration. A name or ID mismatch is the common reason candidates are turned away at the door. Moonstone accepts a green barcoded ID book or the new ID card, a passport, or an unexpired driver's licence with an identifiable photograph. No copies, no certified copies. A candidate without one is sent away by the invigilator, forfeits the R1 300 paid, and has to register and pay again.

• An HB pencil and a spare. The sheet is marked electronically, and pencil lets you change an answer cleanly rather than scratching one out, which the scanner reads as wrong.
• A ruler. Moonstone's own suggestion: slide it down the bubble sheet row by row so question 31's answer does not land in question 32's bubble.
• Your booking confirmation email, or at least the venue directions in it. It carries the exam name, venue, date, session and format.
• Not notes, textbooks, summaries or your phone. The exam is closed book, and unauthorised material means any written, printed or electronic material that is not part of the official answer book. A calculator is on no published list of permitted items, and the RE5 has no arithmetic in it.

On food, water and where belongings go, the published material is silent: check your Moonstone confirmation email and ask the exam body for the terms and conditions.

What the RE5 exam venue is actually like

A hall, not a test centre. Moonstone hires church halls, community halls, guesthouses and clubs for the day and sets out trestle tables and stacking chairs. No reception desk, no cafeteria, often no dedicated parking, just a suburban street that fills up by 08:30. Which venues exist, and how to choose between two on the same date, are in our guide to RE5 exam venues. For the day, leave more time than the map says.

What happens in the room

Be at the venue 30 minutes before your start time. That half hour is the registration and identification procedure.

The briefing begins 15 minutes before the start and the doors close at the same moment: no candidate may enter later than 15 minutes before the exam is due to commence. Venues may run CCTV, and only registered candidates are admitted.

Then it is a question paper and a bubble answer sheet. Mark one option per question: the scanner reads a double mark as wrong. You may not leave in the first 30 minutes, and once the paper is collected it is gone, because candidates are not permitted to see the paper or their answers afterwards.

How to use your 2 hours

This part is advice rather than regulation, and it is the part that moves marks. Take a first pass answering only what you know cold, marking anything you skip. The handful of questions that would eat five minutes each are easier on the second pass, once the rest of the paper has reminded you of the wording.

Never leave a question blank. The bar is 33 of 50 correct, so 17 wrong answers is your entire margin. With four options and no negative marking, a blank is a certain zero and a guess is a one in four shot at a mark. The RE5 pass mark page explains why 65% and 66% are one rule, not two.

Read the qualifiers. The RE5 turns on must versus may, on 30 days versus 30 business days, and on the all or nothing words: all, any, most, only. The Preparation Guide warns about exactly these, and about negatively phrased questions.

Keep the last 10 minutes for the answer sheet rather than the questions: every final answer in the row it belongs to, every question filled in, nothing double marked.

What happens if something goes wrong

Arrive after the doors close and the rule is not kind: a candidate turned away forfeits the fee and has to re-register and pay again. The same applies to arriving without acceptable identification, and no discretion is published for either.

If illness or another unforeseen circumstance stops you writing, there is a documented route. Contact the exam body in writing within 10 working days of the exam date with your reasons and supporting evidence, including a medical certificate where illness is the reason. An accepted application is rescheduled at no cost; without evidence it is not considered and the fee is forfeited. Accommodations for a disability must be arranged at registration, not raised on the morning. Moonstone's contact channels are in our guide on how to book the RE5 exam.

After you hand in

Results are emailed within a maximum of 20 working days, often sooner, and collected from the Moonstone portal with the ID number you registered under. What arrives is a result, not a marked paper: see our guide to RE5 results. There is no limit on attempts, though a rewrite costs another R1 300 and another 11 working day registration window. If that is where you land, read what to change before the rewrite.

RE1 exam day for key individuals

Same venues, same 30 minute arrival, same identification rules, same R1 300. The paper is longer: 80 questions in 2 hours 30 minutes, with a 65% pass mark, which is exactly 52 correct of 80. That extra half hour is why Moonstone presents the RE1 in the morning session only. The complete RE1 exam guide covers the syllabus and RE1 exam dates has the sittings.

The week before is for checking, not new material

Nothing you learn in the last seven days beats knowing where you actually stand. PassPath's free readiness check takes about 15 minutes, needs no card, and scores you against every FSCA qualifying criterion the RE5 tests, returning a readiness score and a red to green topic heat map that points at your three weakest topics. Run the free readiness check and walk into the hall knowing you are ready.

PassPath is an independent study platform. The RE1 and RE5 are written through Moonstone; PassPath is not affiliated with Moonstone or the FSCA.