10 students attain perfect scores in Hong Kong university entrance exams, up from 4 last year

Ten students have achieved perfect scores in Hong Kong’s university entrance exams, up from last year’s record low of four, with roughly 94 per cent of all candidates passing a core subject introduced to emphasise patriotism after the 2019 social unrest.

Examination authorities said on Tuesday they believed the nearly complete pass rate for the new citizenship and social development subject reflected the test was “easy”, which might have also allowed students to spend more time preparing for other exams.

The 10 top-performing pupils were among 49,000 candidates who sat for the Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) this year. The youngest candidate was nine years old and sat for the exam in one subject, while two of the oldest, aged 67 and 70, wrote seven and two papers respectively.

A day before the individual results are to be announced, the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority revealed that 18,392 of all candidates – or 37.5 per cent – had attained the minimum entrance requirements of eight public universities, compared with 16,914, or 34.7 per cent, last year.

The result translates into 1.5 students competing for a government-funded undergraduate place at public universities this year, a slight increase on the 1.4 recorded last year.

But Wei Xiangdong, the authority’s secretary general, urged students not to focus too much on the results.

“For candidates who are anxiously waiting for the DSE results, I hope they understand that while HKDSE results are undoubtedly important, candidates should not only focus on the grades,” he said. “Candidates with different abilities can choose their own paths based on their results, interests and aspirations.”