HKIS LSD APC Part I Written Assessment study guide
HKIS LSD APC Part I Written Assessment · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Authorized Person (Surveying) Part I Written Assessment is the written component of the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors (HKIS) Land Surveying Division Assessment of Professional Competence. Passing it, together with the remaining APC requirements, is one of the routes by which a land surveyor in Hong Kong demonstrates the professional breadth expected of an Authorized Person (Surveying) under the Buildings Ordinance - someone who can take responsibility for site formation, earthworks and building-related surveying work and deal with the Buildings Department, Lands Department and allied authorities. The HKIS LSD APC Part I Written Assessment study guide has 10 sections and about 5,637 words.
01Professional Practice, Ethics and the Role of the Authorized Person (Surveying)
This domain tests whether you can hold apart two things that blur easily on a live job: the Authorized Person's statutory functions under the Buildings Ordinance and the ordinary commercial or contractual roles a surveyor may carry on the same project. Questions are usually scenarios - a developer wants a shortcut, a contractor deviates, a client pushes for early certification - and marks go to candidates who reason from the Ordinance rather than from client expectation.
550 words, about 3 min02Statutory Framework: Buildings Ordinance, Land Ordinance and Related Hong Kong Legislation
This domain tests whether you can place a surveyor's task inside the correct statutory instrument and sequence. Candidates lose marks by treating 'approval' as one event, when in Hong Kong a project may need planning permission, lease modification, Buildings Ordinance approval, environmental clearance, a construction noise permit and waste disposal arrangements, each under a different ordinance and department.
522 words, about 3 min03Land Boundary Survey, Boundary Determination and Boundary Disputes
Hong Kong has no conclusive cadastral boundary survey of the kind found in Torrens systems. Boundaries are defined by the Government lease and the plans and dimensions attached to it, and the surveyor's task is re-establishment from documentary evidence, not creation of new lines.
509 words, about 3 min04Geodetic and Engineering Surveying, Control Networks and Deformation Monitoring
This domain tests geodetic literacy: which datum and epoch you are working on, how a control network is designed and adjusted, and how to decide whether an observed movement is real. Deformation monitoring questions are usually marked on the significance test and on reference stability, not on the arithmetic.
517 words, about 3 min05Topographic and Cadastral Mapping
This domain tests whether you understand a map as a generalised, dated, specified product rather than a picture of reality. Topographic mapping questions focus on specification and quality control; cadastral questions focus on what a boundary plan does and does not prove.
514 words, about 3 min06GIS and Survey Data Management
This domain tests data stewardship: whether you can move survey observations into a spatial database without losing the things that make them usable - datum, epoch, accuracy, lineage and version. Exam questions often present a data-merging failure and ask you to diagnose it.
477 words, about 2 min07Setting Out, Construction Survey and As-built Verification
This domain tests the transfer of design geometry to the ground and the proof that it was achieved. Marks are earned by showing independent checks, correct datum control and an understanding of grid-to-ground scale, not by describing instrument buttons.
508 words, about 3 min08Land Administration, Lease Conditions, Land Exchange and Modification
This domain tests whether you can read a Government lease as an operating document - user restriction, building covenant, height and plot ratio limits, surrender and rent - and trace the administrative route when an owner wants something the lease does not allow. The lease is the private law instrument between the Government as landlord and the owner.
517 words, about 3 min09Survey Instrumentation, Calibration, Accuracy Standards and Quality Assurance
This domain tests whether you can state what an instrument actually achieves on site, how that is proven, and how accuracy requirements are converted into fieldwork decisions. Marks are lost by quoting catalogue figures as achieved accuracy and by ignoring the error sources that dominate in practice.
503 words, about 3 min10Site Supervision, Safety, Contract Administration and Professional Liability
This domain tests the boundary between the professional's statutory and contractual duties. Scenario questions typically place you between a contractor pressing for a variation, a client pressing for a certificate, and a site condition that is not what the drawings assumed.
1,020 words, about 5 min