You think this is true?
The easier questions are shuffled to beginning of exam based on bell curve. If thats case then spend more time at beginning and end of the exam and less in the middle?
“There is no subject-matter pattern. The questions are, however, selected for each person by level of difficulty. The first questions are those that have been statistically shown to be less difficult and that most candidates got right. The questions then become more difficult until midway through the test, when the level of difficulty drops steadily until the final question. Illustrated graphically, this would be a classic “bell curve,” with the smallest portion of the questions*—* the most difficult questions*—* at the top of the curve.” - investopedia
Focus time on beginning and ending of test and don’t flag any in the middle?
Thoughts on this strategy?
That would be very interesting if true, but I haven’t heard of this before or seen it mentioned anywhere in FINRA’s materials for any of their exams. The only thing they mention about question order is that the unscored experimental questions are distributed randomly throughout the exam.
I would guess that the entire exam is randomized.
And anecdotally, when I took the SIE, the order felt random anyway.
In my experience, most test takers experience the bell curve, but not all. It seems to be fairly common for test takers to report the middle chunk of the exam to be the most difficult.
On the other hand, I also hear otherwise. Some like @Justin say the difficulty is random, some say the easy questions are in the middle. Difficulty of questions is somewhat subjective, so who knows?
Good to hear your guys’ thoughts on it. I will watch for it tomorrow and see what I experience!
If I do experience it: it will help a lot with a time management strategy of spending more time on the first 30 questions, the last 30 questions, and then the 25 in the middle will have the least priority.