Totally understand where you’re coming from and agree with you. Nothing compares to the real exam. This goes for any vendor’s study questions, in my opinion. Additionally, the added nerves of being the “real deal” does not help either. I think the best advice I could give you is to make sure that you have a well-rounded understanding of the material across the board. Sometimes when we get used to a specific kind of questions, it almost become muscle memory, which you should be weary of. Make sure you are thoroughly thinking through each question and not just answering based off memorization. Wordy questions are tough, but most times there is extra information that isn’t needed. My personal strategy was to read questions one sentence at a time. Understand what each sentence is telling you, and then determine what is relevant and how you should respond to what the question is asking.
We hear the same from everyone using all different vendors: the real exam is always a bit different.
A big thing that separates Achievable from the other vendors is that we move quickly on this feedback. We have a huge amount of content, around 2x-3x what most other vendors have, with over 5,000 SIE questions. While we obviously can’t update them all overnight, we are continually editing to make the wording more confusing and complicated, and adding new questions that more accurately match FINRA’s style.
I totally understand the sentiment, here. The reality is, FINRA consistently updates their question bank and closely guard it. We know what they will cover through reviewing their exam outlines and that their questions can be vague & challenging. Beyond that, creating similar test questions is a constantly moving target. To mitigate the issue of test wording, we typically add dozens of new questions to our test bank on a weekly basis.
I cherish this type of feedback and appreciate everyone’s perspective here. Thank you!
I passed on the first try. I studied 5 to 8 hours a week for a total of 4 months. I m also active duty miltiary and in school so my time was very limited. The study
program works period. Put in the hours and result will follow.
Make sure to do the practice exam on the FINRA site. I found the Ken Finnen and Dean Tinney Utube videos relating to the SIE very helpful. Be sure to do the practice FINRA exam with their explications.
I passed mine 2nd time.
Honestly what helped me was you-tube videos.
you can read and read and read, and still not grasp it, that’s how i felt anyways.
Listening to someone else explain it in simpler terms helped me much more then just studying the material alone.
I recommend -Capital advantage tutoring- ken has an entire SIE playlist that i would watch while laying in bed at night before going to sleep.
also dean tinney is really good as well
Best of luck to you
Been watching Dean Tinney (guy from las vegas). he has some good questions that caught me off-guard. I printed them out so i can re-read them at a later date.
Capital Advantage guy kept on going so fast without a pause (lol). I wasn’t aware that he moved on to the next topic sometime.
Good channels but it’s an organizational mess, hehe.
I totally concur with OP. Sat for my SIE exam yesterday and fortunately passed on first try. The actual exam questions were worded very differently - a lot of double negatives intended to confuse you. I absolutely suggest taking your time to read through every question thoroughly. Look out for key words in every sentence that may make or break your answer. Fully utilize the tools provided at the test center - I spent the first five minutes creating a dump sheet with the dry erase board and markers provided. DO NOT rush - make full use of the 1 hour 45 minutes you are given.
I must say Achievable prepped me really well for the SIE. I promptly abandoned subpar firm-provided study material as soon as I found my groove with Achievable. True, the actual exam threw me off a little – however, Achievable’s content and quiz bank allowed me to digest and process new information quickly, as well as effectively enabled me to retain everything I have learnt. I just purchased their Series 6 course as I have complete faith in their method. A big kudos to the creators! Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
