Did my SIE using Achievable almost exactly a month ago and enjoyed using the materials so decided to use for the Series 7.
After 3 weeks I had completed the textbook, getting 90+% on every quiz and reviews. I then booked my test a week later and started doing practice exams, getting 94-99% on the two “Final Exams” and another 7 full exams.
Given my high scores I decided to supplement with Kaplan Qbank which I borrowed from a colleague and got 78-88% over 5 exams (most of the ones I got wrong were the ones where the content hadn’t been taught by Achievable).
Today was exam day and I did a final Achievable review, Achievable practice exam and Kaplan practice exam. I also listened to the Series 7 in 60 minutes YouTube video by Series7Guru.
The exam itself was challenging. The way the questions were phrased was much closer to Kaplan than Achievable, but I felt a strong depth of understanding had been built by the Achievable materials.
Most of it was options (some calcs, but also intuitively understanding), municipal bonds and lots of suitability questions. Then quite a few questions where I had not learned the topic from the Achievable materials (and guessed/used logic) and there were some questions that would combine two or three topics that would have been two to three separate questions on Achievable, but then you had to figure out which topic was most relevant (and which must be ignored) to get the right answer.
I’d been focusing on reducing my times on practice exams on both Achievable (fastest was 30 minutes) and Kaplan (fastest was 60 minutes), so that I had ample time to do a full check with still 90 minutes to spare when I pressed Exit.
In summary, really enjoyed using the Achievable materials and process. But I think if I hadn’t done the 5 Kaplan tests I would have been shocked at the question wording and difficulty.
Many thanks and best of luck to all who read this on their exams!