My job requires me to pass both exams in a little under 60 days or I am fired. I just signed a nice lease for an apartment in a prime area and have committed myself to various things to take this job..so I cannot fail. I am about 4 years removed from finance coursework, so while I am familiar with the topics, I am not current.
Does anyone have any advice on how to pass the Series 7/63?
Any general career advice for someone starting in PWM?
Thanks guys
Study the books they give you, Its pretty straight forward. The 63 is easy, Spend a little more time on the 7.
That gives you a month to study per exam. You fail one and your locked out of retaking it for 30 days. Hopefully your firm gave you the STC Books. Those tend to be the easiest ones to study.
My advice is read the STC Books twice and do all the questions in the book during the 1st two weeks. 78% of the Series 7 falls into 3 sections. While I'm not going to say focus on them intently, make sure you understand them clearly. Highlight, take notes, do whatever you gotta do. During the second 2 weeks take an Exam a day Monday to Thursday, take Friday off and do two exams on Saturday. Make sure to grade the exam and review your answers after you're done with the exam. On Sunday, you should spend your day reviewing your exams and seeing what topics gave you difficulty and reread the sections that you did wrong. For the next week, randomly select 6 tests in no particular order and take 1 a day between Monday and Friday. Spend Saturday reviewing your answers and brushing up. Relax Sunday and then take the exam the next day (or Tuesday if they let you take the day off to take the test). Rinse repeat with the Series 63. I'd see if they can let you take the Series 66 though. But that's just me.
TSK8, I disagree with that. The 63 is harder than the 7. Just because it's not as long of an exam (3 hrs, 100 questions vs. 6 hrs, 250 questions), does not mean it's any easier.
Frieds is right. Try to take the 66. Also the 3 month deadline can usually be extended why would a company spend money to interview, hire , relocate etc and then let you go because you push a deadline on licensing. At my firm it's pretty flexible but no one tells you that until after you're hired .
The 63 is less interesting, more focused on laws. I personally thought 63/65 were a joke, its just memorization.. I found the question bank the most effective way to learn that stuff.. Didn't take the 7, so can't really comment on that, though I'd imagine it is a somewhat similar level of difficulty/intensity to the 79.
Main difference to me is the 7/79 are more interesting and based on topics you may have a base knowledge in from finance classes in undergrad, whereas 63/65 are not. I'd say the former requires more prep (that was my experience), but I have often heard the opposite.
Practice tests, practice tests, practice tests. Make sure you don't take the same questions over and over or else you will just memorize the answers.
That's only good once you've gone through the material. Once you understand the material, then you can really burn through the tests and take them. As I said, you want to take all of 'em and then take 'em out of order the second (and third if you have the time for it) times you take 'em.
The 7 has more material than the 63, i would advice you glance through the books and get familiar with key terms, and spend all your time on the practice tests, each test for the 7 takes 3 hours, so you have to put in a lot of time on those. The 63 is not as difficult as the 7. Just work on practice tests on both and you will be fine. Studied for the 7 through the tests over 2.5 weeks and passed, spend 2 weeks on 63 tests and passed, all in one swoop. Good luck to you!
Series 7 and 63 - 3 months of my employment (Originally Posted: 02/10/2008)
I'll have to pass the series 7 and 63 within 3 months of my employment. I just wanted to know a little about any experiences any analysts have had when it comes to studying for/passing the exam. Thanks.
typically firms will enroll you in a course and/or training... it's not supposed to be hard to pass from what i've heard, though you do have to study for it
It's a bitch and a half of an exam. Technically, you need to pass the 7 within 3 months, despite being an apprentice and not being able to act until after the 3 months are done. The 63 is something of an easier exam, although I would highly recomend switching and taking the 66, as it covers you for the 65 as well.
Down to the nitty gritty, the exam is a hell of an exam to take. It covers alot of material, and the book is essentially "reality" for you while you are preping from this exam. There is a significant amount of disconnect between the real work and your materials. Here's a good example regarding short selling. My book (The STC released one), and every single practice test I've taken (Dearborn, Boston Institute of Finance and STC), for that matter, still discussing Short Selling as beind done according to the "Two-Up/Zero+Uptick Rule", despite being changed to "Reg SHO" rules. The exam itself tends to be a few years behind in being accurate, although some aspects have changed, like needing to know contract sizes on forex positions (ie 31,250 contracts per Brittish Pound option or 6,250,000 contracts per JPY option), out of preventing people to be suicidal.
As uncut said, the exam isn't hard to pass if you study for it. That is.... if you study for it. Depending on how things work for you when you start working, you may be given teh first month to prepare for the exam without interuption. I wasn't, and had to do everything after work. My schedual for the exam was for the first 2 weeks, I read the book every day. 3hr/night, 4x a week, after work. Fridays, 2hr/night, Sat. and Sun. 4-5 hr/day. The book is extremely long and there's a ton of material to cover. Some times its just easier to read it at a slower pace, sometimes you just need a bit longer to get the material. I started the classes 2/5/08, as I wanted the 2 week class to end just before I would be taking my exams. Once I finished the book, I basically did practice exams during my free time, lots and lots and lots of practice exams. The first time through, it's normally to get between 50 and 70. You should be good to go when your getting 85s on your exams. AS to the class, it definitely helps. If you can, do it with STC, as the program is far superiour to other ones, such as Dearborn. Just trust me on this one. There's a reason STC is at the top of the list for these kinds of courses, and it's because they are the best there is.
The material covers just about everything you could imagine: Primary MArkets, secondary markets, rules and regs, margin, options, Munis, other products (annutities and dpps), retirements, taxation, technical analysis. Not all of it is in depth though. The bread and butter of the exam is Munis and Options, about half of the total questions asked. It's best to just direct questions to me on a case by case basis via pm. much easier to answer instead of wracking my brain hardcore.
Just so you know, I'm taking the exam in 10 days. I'm speaking from first hand experience when it comes to the exam, as I am going through it.
regards.
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