Secondary Six students across Hong Kong are getting their results on Wednesday for the city’s university entrance examinations.
They are returning to their schools to collect result slips for the Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE), which grades most subjects on a seven-level scale from 1 to 5**.
A total of 24 top scorers from 15 schools were recorded this year. Fourteen male and 10 female students achieved a perfect score of 5** in six subjects, along with an “attained” result in citizenship and social development. Of these, 11 were “super top scorers”, having also obtained 5** in the extended mathematics module.
The top scorers come from St Paul’s Co-educational College, King’s College, St Paul’s College, Ying Wa Girls’ School, Queen’s College, Wah Yan College Hong Kong, Diocesan Girls’ School, St Mary’s Canossian College, Heep Yunn School, La Salle College, Pui Ching Middle School, PLK Laws Foundation College, HKBU Affiliated School Wong Kam Fai Secondary and Primary School, Sha Tin Tsung Tsin Secondary School, and Po Leung Kuk Tang Yuk Tien College.
This year, 56,853 candidates sat the exams, about 5 per cent more than the 53,895 recorded last year.
Of these, 46,106 were school candidates, while the remaining 10,747 were private candidates.
Among elective subjects, biology, chemistry and economics had the highest number of candidates.
Most DSE subjects are graded on a seven-level scale from Level 1 to Level 5**.
Students who achieve Level 5 in a subject are further classified as 5, 5* or 5**. Level 5** is awarded to the top 10 per cent of candidates, 5* to the next 30 per cent, and 5 to the remaining 60 per cent within the top band.
Reporting by William Yiu, Emily Tsang, Kristen Cheung, Kelly Fung, Charlotte Kwan, Caroline Lin, Sean Cheng, Cherish Chiu, Connie Liu, Kate Chan, Benjamin Fuller
More from our coverage:
– Record 24 students ace DSE, but weaker language scores shrink admission pool
– AI and economy fuel stress for 40% of DSE candidates: Hong Kong youth group poll

