How to study for SIE
Without a finance background that is
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Read the book, watch the videos. Not that hard - just put in 100 hours and take a Shit ton of practice test until you are passing consistently
Just took the SIE, and felt more than prepared after just going through all the videos of chapters and taking notes on them. IMO the most important thing to do is going over the previous notes/slides you did the day before to keep the content fresh and make sure you are actually retaining the information and not just skimming through it first time thinking you know it. Take the chapter tests after you finish each chapter and take note of which chapters/topics are toughest for you. This is where I would dig in to the textbook and pay more detailed attention to the material, otherwise, I did not really go through the textbook much. Take the practice exams and go over every question even if you got it right ( the explanations you get when you put the exam results in Print mode are very helpful). Overall, the test was very similar to practice exams and if you are able to pass consistently leading into the exam you should be good to go. Good luck!
I just took it recently as well. There was a point when I was taking practice tests that I was still getting like 10-15 questions wrong, but I was consistently hitting high 70s and low 80s — after like 3-4 practices you can usually sense whether you’re going to pass or not, even before you see the score. Once you get to that point of consistent passing, you’re golden.
I used STC and the study manual plus exams was the most helpful. Don’t stress too much. The key is just reps.
Just took it, studied for like 3 days doing knopman. Don’t have a finance background but it was pretty easy, just read the book and do all the questions they give.
how much did u study each day?
Like 1-2 hours a day, am a fast reader and test taker though, took 5 min for each of the 25 question unit tests and ~30 for the 85 question benchmark test.
I took it a few years ago and was provided Knopman, so this is geared more towards Knopman. Read through the textbook and do the practice test (in book) and the online one immediately after. Go over the concepts that you missed. I also had the summary sheet and reviewed that daily to keep concepts fresh. It really comes down to gaining enough knowledge from the textbook (or video lectures) followed by grinding out questions in the qbank. I would recommend seeing which sort of questions you consistently miss then reviewing those concepts again. The exam was very easy relative to Knopman exams.
FINRA also has a practice SIE available, so that is a good baseline for what to expect.
There’s 0 finance in the SIE - think some compliance people even have to take it.
Close to 100% will be memorization based.
Following
Update:
I took it a few days ago after using Knopman and passed. The questions in Knopman were far better written and more nuanced than necessary. I studied for three weeks and basically skimmed through the textbook and listened to the videos on my free time. It was not bad but I was often unsure of the answer choices as two answers could technically be right depending on if a specific nuance was in play... guess I was reading too much into it, haha.
Just did the SIE through Knopman and passed. Was iffy at first abt their process but fully trusted it and it worked. I also grinded signifigantly more practice questions than they rec'd. Would advise on that as for me it was a great way to learn some of the more nitpicky details.
could you give more detail on how you prepped and are you a finance major?
I'm going through the books because i find the textbook lacking and it shows when the practice questions have a bunch of stuff that isn't covered in the videos.
i thought abt just looking at vids, taking practice questions, and then supplementing wrong questions with textbook references but at that point i was referencing the book too much and decided to just go through the book in its entirety and then doing questions (might look at videos too idk). would appreciate some suggestions!
Absolutely, I would def read the textbook (I come from a non-finance background). Here's my exact timeline. Spent roughly 15-16 days on it.
First 10 days
Read through textbook and watch corresponding lecture vids. (Would read / skim the chapter, and then watch the lecture vid for it, take the unit exam and chapter assessment, and then move onto the next chapter. Did 2-3 chapters a day. (Took midterm and final here too) The reason I liked this was that since I didn't come from a finance background, I basically wanted to get exposure to the concepts twice, so I would read the textbook first just to obtain information, and then the lecture did a good job reinforcing it or clearing up things I was confused about. Really really helped my retention. Agreed that the videos don't do enough, it only hits the major topics, you have to read the textbook fs.
11-15, Read Key concepts twice a day, and grind out an inhumane amount of practice questions. Last set of the day would always be wrong answers ones and I would look back to the textbook for anything I was confused on.
Took exam on the 16th day, (would recommend the latest time possible, gives urself a built in extra day, would only read key concepts over and over this day).
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