Let me preface this post with this: Don’t listen to what some people on the internet say, this test is NOT a walk in the park, especially if you get a difficult question bank!
That said. Took the 63 today for the second time after my first failed attempt and passed!
After taking this test a second time, I can absolutely confirm that I had a difficult question bank the first go-around.
This time wasn’t ‘easy’ per se, but I had some questions that were VERY easy, some questions where I said to myself “WTF IS THAT?” (I’m guessing those were the 5 unscored questions), and some questions that REALLY made me put my thinking cap on.
Sometimes the question will be a paragraph long with 4 long-ish answers that are all similar in wording and you have to pick the best answer. Sometimes you’ll have to pick the best answer and there will be 4 completely different answers, but they could ALL be correct. You have to figure out which is best, and why. For the 5 or so questions like this, I always went with what would benefit the client the most over almost any other answer choice.
If I had to rate my exam difficulties, I’d say my first attempt the difficulty was about a 7-8/10 with only a few questions that were easy-easy, and a number of difficult or ‘tricky’ questions.
My first exam had a lot of deep cuts and questions about topics not really in question banks (here or QBank).
The attempt (and success) today was probably a 4-5/10 difficulty with many more ‘easy’ questions and maybe 8 to 10 that I took a bit more time on to digest and come to a conclusion of the best answer.
The 5 unscored questions: 3 out of 5 stuck out like a sore thumb.
I only (surprisingly) got 1 question on market manipulation.
I got around 5-7 questions on insider trading.
2 or so questions about conflicts of interest.
Multiple questions (probably like 4-5) about splitting commissions.
Also 4-5 questions regarding custody.
Zero questions about vulnerable adults.
Lots of questions about exempt transactions, not so many about exempt securities though.
Ethics questions were plentiful as well, none really tripped me up though as they were pretty straight forward.
Overall, prepare for this exam as if you’re expecting a difficult question bank. I have a friend who is a proctor for this exam at a large firm and he’s been telling me that within the past year or so they’ve made the exam more difficult and he’s been seeing a much higher number of first attempt failures.
Thank you Achievable and community!
