Hi to all. Passed today using the remote option. Exam was nasty. What made it nasty was the closeness in the answers. When something is obviously wrong, that’s what makes it easy, if close … difficult. Very few questions were ‘give a ways’. Nothing appeared blatantly wrong, which makes it harder. Very few were plain option choices, like contribution limits, settlements, rules/regulations etc.
What I found unfair about the exam is that its nasty for an experienced person but its aimed at the newcomer. Well done to the newcomer who passes first time.
I had the Series 7 before and have two financial related Masters degrees and I found the SIE more challenging than I thought it would be.
Bottom line … do about 20 mock exams before the real one.
All the best,
Congratulations, @Damien! There are a wide variety of experiences people have when sitting for the SIE exam, which is primarily related to the randomized difficulty of each exam. Somewhere on your exam printout, it should have language that says this:
This test score is placed on a common scale with all other candidate test scores for that exam and statistical adjustments are made to the score to account for slight variations in the difficulty that may exist among different sets of exam questions. This method allows for a fair comparison of scores and ensures that every candidate is held to the same passing standard regardless of which set of exam items they received.
In plain English, some people get easier or more difficult exams, but they make score adjustments to compensate for the differences. It sounds like you were given a more difficult exam, which likely meant you could miss more questions and still pass.