In Super Mario World what is the trick for getting 1ups on the vertical bonus levels?

In Super Mario World for the SNES, getting 100 stars allows access to a bonus level with five vertical platforms, each with three coin boxes. If you hit the boxes in the right order the third box reveals a 1up. What is the pattern for this and is it the same for everytime you encounter this bonus level?

Unfortunately there is no pattern. The box that contains the 1up is assigned randomly to one of the three on that tier and doesn't change the location of other 1ups on that bonus level.

However, there is a method to con the boxes into being "the right one", be it a glitch or otherwise. This method involves hitting the corner of a box with your cape (while spin jumping), but without jumping too high and making it into the next section.

Edit: Here's a video of someone executing this method:

According to this video, you just need to time it so that you hit the block when the question mark is centered in the box. The order of the blocks doesn't matter.