Yesterday I passed the Series 7 exam on my first attempt, and Achievable was instrumental in my success. Here is a summary of my process that I found helpful, and perhaps it will be valuable to you as well.
While working through the Achievable textbook I tried to keep up with the “Review” quiz questions for as long as possible, but ended up not reviewing any more of those questions after the Options chapter. I simply worked through the textbook and took the quiz at the end of each section. I ended up with 1,805 questions available to Review, but ignored them.
Instead of focusing on the Review questions I focused on taking practice exams and rigorously reviewing them; both the correct and incorrect answers. I ended up taking 9 practice exams in total, including the “Final Exam A” and “Final Exam B”. Here are my results:
- Final Exam A: FAIL - 67%
- Final Exam B: PASS - 75%
- Final Full Exam #1: PASS - 76%
- Final Full Exam #2: PASS - 83%
- Final Full Exam #3: PASS - 82%
- Final Full Exam #4: PASS - 89%
- Final Full Exam #5: PASS - 83%
- Final Full Exam #6: PASS - 83%
- Final Full Exam #7: PASS - 89%
Exam Readiness after last practice exam = 98%
My practice exam process for each day:
- Thoroughly review each of the Series 7 Dump Sheets (there are three found here: Resources | Achievable Series 7)
- Put notes away and write out the Options Four Square by memory (top-left of General Information dump sheet)
- Take a Focus quiz on the questions I missed on the practice exam from the previous day
- Take another full practice exam
- Review the full exam results immediately following submission (I’ll note that with the last 5 practice exams I quickly clicked through the questions I got correct and focused primarily on the questions I got wrong and WHY I got them wrong)
- Rinse and repeat the next day
My actual exam was on a Monday, and I decided not to review any material over the weekend. On Exam day, I reviewed the three dump sheets in the parking lot and drew the Options Four Square from memory, then took the exam.
About ~30-40% of the questions were worded very differently from the practice exams I took through Achievable, but was able to apply the principles learned through the Achievable material to “think beyond the question” and feel confident reasoning through them and selecting an answer.
Overall I am very pleased with my Achievable experience.
If you have any questions about my experience or process, feel free to respond to this topic and I’ll gladly share and help any way I can.
Cheers!