Any recent Series 79 test takers?
How did your test go? And what prep service did you use (i.e., Knopman or other).
A few days until my test and I'm wondering how I can memorize all of these rules and regulations
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Currently studying for my s79 next week. It’s definitely dense
I used Knopman and passed it first try. I thought that the 79 was super difficult and I was failing all of my practice exams. I somehow passed the real thing. Just stick with the action plan and you should be good. If you're not working full time yet then give yourself at least a week to prepare. If you are on the desk then give yourself a month.
Studied with KM for two weeks, failed each benchmark except for the final, and passed with time to spare a few days ago. Trust the KM process and review the key concepts as well as prior benchmarks in the days leading up to the exam. Good luck brother!
Used KM and passed by studying for it in 2 weeks.
In terms of rules/regulations, I would just try to wrap your head around these.
Exempt Transactions: Reg A/A+ (mini offerings/mini 'IPO'), Reg D (Private placements), Reg S (Offshore), Rule 144 (Restricted/Control stock), Rule 144A (QIB), Rule 147 (Intrastate offerings - US residency test)
Accredited Investors (5%+): Form 13D (active w/ 5%+ inv), Form 13G (passive w/ 5%+ inv), Form 13F (institutional managers --> $100m+ net long positions), Form 13E (taking public company private)
Insiders (10%+): Form 3 (registering to become an insider within 10 days), Form 4 (changing your insider ownership through the open market), Form 5 (annual beneficial ownership statement, changing ownership within the 'non-open' market).
This obviously isn't a full list but I feel like these are the major ones that took me like a good day of fully understanding. Would just continuously hammer the QBank (I did like 1300+ questions) and do individual 20Q chapter quizzes for the units you're struggling on. Hope this helps
can u please touch upon the calculations/math questions u had to do? people told me they only received 8-12 of them. how many did u get and were they tough? Thank u so much
I had maybe 8 calc questions. I had a FIFO/LIFO, one pretty long cash flow calc (go from net income to ending cash on BS), and everything else was just a single step operation.
Used KM during firm training. They gave me 4 days to study, holy fuck did it suck. Still passed tho
What did you do in those 4 days to pass? I have my test in 5 days and just started studying yesterday. Do you recommend just plowing practice tests?
I found the actual exam to be marginally more difficult than the KM benchmark/diagnostics. I passed with ~5 days of studying and ~1500 practice questions (probably overkill, but better safe than sorry).
Exam is definitely harder than Knopman but still passed. Honestly think it's graded on a curve
exam was harder than i expected but I passed. If you are doing in the 70s on KM you will pass
Agree the exam was harder than knopman. Probably same level of obscurity but longer paragraphs without the answer easily jumping out at you like Knopman exams. I was shitting bricks when the status was loading. I think it’s difficulty was greatly understated on WSO
Maybe i'm jumping into conspiratorial waters here but I genuinely feel like the exams were updated to be harder and Knopman does not know about it or does not want to tell us since they have not yet updated their information and some people are still passing.
All my series exams were much harder than the Knopman ones. I failed the 63 despite gettings 90s on their practice questions. Retook it and used another provider along with knopman and passed. Passed the SIE and 79 first try but the questions on the real ones were vague and much longer than the Knopman ones.
Didn't get any simple Gross Profit Margin or Equity Value questions, they were deeply layered and interconnected as well as being much more wordy than Knopman.
Just took S79 back in June, started as associate with F100 FP&A then F500 Corp Dev experience so had some knowledge of IB world but not much. I used Knopman and studied 75 hours and found it to be the easiest exam of the three. Likely because it was naturally more interesting/relevant so I had better retention that way compared to the SIE/63 which were incredibly boring and irrelevant. There was also practically no trickery questions. All straight forward and easy to interpret.
And with ~10 math calcs on the exam (consisting of basic university level finance) it really was not bad at all.
If you’re capable of landing Associate role from out of industry, wouldn’t worry about it too much.
You should see the associates I have to work with at BBs. Idk how some of them passed 79
Take it in a couple days. Consistently scoring 80+ on practice exams, kind of lazy and don’t want to over study. Only done 450 questions though… I found the SIE to be harder than the Knopman tests but maybe it was nerves. Judging by the comments I’m guessing I’ll be fine but I’ll report back!
I personally felt the exam was easier than knopman. What helped for me was the math / technical portion since a lot of that was covered at school / during internship prep so felt really only had to study for the other sections.
If you are good at the math stuff then you’ll find the exam to be easier than Knopman in my opinion.
Just recently took it. Studied with Knopman for a little less than a week and passed on first try (granted, was studying all day until very, very late)
I found it much more difficult than the SIE and was extremely unsure of the outcome when submitting. Difficulty of the exam was definitely understated. I don't know if I'd say the test was easier or harder than Knopman. Knopman tended to ask more specific questions and the real test had more vague situation based questions. I have heard that the general sentiment that the real exam is easier than Knopman but not sure if I agree.
Lots of Fairness Opinion, Exempt Securities, Private Placements, Forms, and General Financial Statement / Valuation questions (which you shouldn't even have to study for considering banking experience).
Good luck!
My firm used knopman too. I got a 93 on the benchmark so thought I was good to go. I was shitting bricks when clicking submit, cus the questions were so long I barely had time to go back and review. Passed tho,,,but with ptsd. I hear knopman is the industry standard for the 79 at least, so "TRUST THE PROCESS" as Brian likes to say and "DONT GO ROGUE"
..one other thing I wanted to mention. doing the math calculations with the thick markers + little paper that prometrics gives u was not it
Curious about this as I’ve been scoring around mid 70’s but feel as though I just am memorizing certain questions (I check the box to not repeat q’s but here we are).
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