So, I failed twice so far (by 1 question!) and am in the exam-taking phase using Achievable. So far I have read through the whole book and am scoring in the mid 80s. My questions relate to how Achievable is measuring success.
How often do people scoring in the 80s pass? Does it matter if taking it for the 1st or 3rd time? Do you recommend using other resources like Kaplan or PassPerfect in conjunction with Achievable to pass, or is Achievable that confident that all you would need to do is score high enough in the practice exams? Does 100% test readiness in Achievable require scoring in the 90s? How often do those with 100% test readiness fail? I have noticed that the questions in Achievable seem a little easier than in Kaplan or PassPerfect (e.g. I see many of the same type of questions or the same worded questions form exam to exam and some topics get covered more heavily than others like CEN and DEW in Options); should this be a concern while studying or should I feel confident if I get 100% test readiness? I suppose that’s the real question, is how confident should I really be by using this program that I will pass given my scores? Coming from PassPerfect where they expect a high 60s to be a good score, I never felt like I could get any reasonable confidence in my scores, and when I scored in the high 70s and still failed it was crushing. Now that I’m scoring so high in the 80s, it feels almost too good to be true! Any advice on this would be much appreciated.
Hi @Early_cyan_falcon, welcome, and thanks for posting! Lots of good questions here.
Let’s start with the practical side of things. Achievable courses are complete, standalone courses, and all you need to pass without other materials. That said, if you do have additional materials, we certainly recommend using those too. In particular, the more practice exams you can take across different vendors, the better the shape you’ll be in since it exposes you to multiple authors’ ways of testing the same core concepts. We don’t use other vendors’ materials ourselves so we can’t speak directly to that, but we’ve heard from many users that they generally tend to be more difficult than the actual exams, whereas we strive to match our difficulty to the same level as the exams. Although the core content doesn’t change much, we make hundreds of updates to our courses every month to clarify our materials and adjust questions based on the feedback we receive from our users.
Achievable is a data-driven company with a huge focus on analytics. At a high level, our “north star” metrics are first-time pass rates, as measured by people self-reporting their scores and data we get from our corporate partners. We maintain live running calculations and periodically update the stats we post publicly. Our current first-time pass rate for our Series 7 course is about 97%, and nearly 100% for people who reach 100% readiness. We’re able to achieve these incredible pass rates since we’re more than just a content publisher who hands over the materials to you and says “good luck”. Our materials themselves are high-quality and easy to understand. When we combine them with our adaptive learning platform, which personalizes the experience to you as you study and guides you through, using our course is more similar to having a tutor working with you, tracking everything you’re doing, offering individual feedback, and helping you to succeed.
Achievable’s readiness calculation is a complex aggregate that considers your entire study history. It isn’t so simple to break it down into a single stat, but it’s calibrated so most people reach 100% readiness when consistently scoring in the mid-80s or higher on practice exams. Our data indicates that our practice exam difficulty is very close to the real exams. Although you only get a numeric score if you don’t pass, we also track these results and correlate them with readiness scores and other internal metrics. And the correlation is extremely tight, indicating that our assessment of difficulty is accurate, despite it being a bit of a cat-and-mouse game. FINRA is constantly updating its exams, and we’re constantly updating ours to stay close - this is why our hundreds of monthly updates and quick feedback cycles result in extremely high pass rates.
In short, if you reach 100% readiness on Achievable, you can be very confident in your ability to pass the exam.
Thanks for the detailed response! A follow-up practical question; I’m currently scoring in the 80s when I have time to myself and am not distracted at work. Despite studying my exams, it does seem like my scores are decreasing, either through confused questions/didnt read the question through, missed and except, etc but I expect to stay in the 80s range. I am currently at 91% test readiness and am scheduled to take it for my 3rd (and final) time next Friday the 13th of January. Assuming I take one final a day and score in the 80s I may or may not be at 100% test readiness but mid to high 90s. Given your metrics do you feel I should reschedule or should I feel confident with my progress as is? For context, my scores on the actual ecam have been 68% and 71%. Thanks!
I think you’re probably in good shape to stay with your scheduled exam date. Since this is your third take it’s higher stakes due to the lock-out period, but your previous scores were extremely close, so you’re already in the ballpark.
I’m not sure if you saw my other post where you asked about misreading questions. Here’s my advice:
I think the most important thing is to just slow down a little bit!
It can also help to read the question a second time in reverse after you’ve answered it to confirm your answer.
Like this:
I picked: only listed stocks trade in the third market
The question asks: An investor places a trade, which is executed in the third market. What statement made by a representative confirming the trade to a customer is misleading or incorrect?
Does my answer make sense with the question?
You’re looking to confirm your choice, not to rethink or reanswer the whole question. I find this helps catch many errors that come from misreading while limiting second-guessing yourself.
And of course just to be clear - taking practice exams is necessary, but it’s really the focused review of everything you missed or guessed on that helps to increase your scores! Remember that every incorrect question is two things to study: 1) why the correct answer is correct, and 2) why the incorrect choice you picked isn’t correct. You’ll need to study both to fill in those gaps in your knowledge and see your scores increase.
Also, I just took a look at your account - check out the combined summary and use it to guide your focus! It looks like you might want to brush up on the Primary market chapter a bit.