Hi @Rapid_black_puffin - I’m sorry the exam didn’t go your way. 2 points is one or two additional questions right, so you’re not far off at all. Hang in there!
In general, I recommend generally doing two things over the next month. First, keep up on your Reviews, which are assigned to you on the home page. Our smart learning system continually analyzes your performance and filters practice questions to you when it thinks you need to see them again. This is one of our most powerful tools, so be sure to keep up on the assigned reviews at least once every day or two.
Second, continue taking and reviewing practice exams. Your average in the high 70s good, but I recommend attempting to get those score up into the 80s. If you can consistently attain scores in the low 80s or higher, I’m very confident you will pass your retake. When you review your exams, be sure to “think beyond the question.” Meaning, be sure to focus more on the underlying concept and avoid simply memorizing the correct answer to that question. As you already know, the exam questions are worded uniquely and it’s unlikely you’ll find questions structured in the same way as ours. FINRA closely guards their question bank, and you won’t know what you’ll encounter on your retake.
Beyond that, your exam breakdown shows where you faced challenges. Obviously, we don’t need to worry much about Section 3 or 4. I’m not telling you to completely forget about those sections, but there’s no need to specifically focus on them given your adequate performance. You’ll encounter these concepts when you take practice exams.
Section 1, which is primarily focused on market structure and securities regulators, was the biggest challenge. While our material is not structured to follow the FINRA outline in order, here are several important chapters that cover material in FINRA’s SIE outline under Section 1:
- The regulators
- SIPC insurance
- Primary market roles
- Secondary market roles
- Primary & secondary market
- Monetary policy
- Tools of the Federal Reserve
- Economic factors
- Preparing for an IPO
- Effective registration
- Exemptions
Section 2, which is focused on securities products and their risks, was low performance; here are the relevant chapters within this unit:
- What is common stock?
- Maintaining proportionate ownership
- Assets upon liquidation
- Rule 144
- American Depositary Receipts (ADRs)
- Common stock systematic risks
- Common stock non-systematic risks
- What is preferred stock?
- Convertible preferred stock
- What is a bond?
- Yield
- Interest rate risk
- Purchasing power risk
- Default risk
- Treasury bills
- Treasury notes
- Treasury bonds
- STRIPS and Treasury Receipts
- Mortgage agencies
- General obligation bond basics
- Revenue bonds
- Long calls
- Short calls
- Long puts
- Short puts
- Mutual fund basics
- ETF basics
- Exchange traded notes
- Closed-end fund basics
- Fixed UITs
- Variable insurance products
- Education & other plans
- Direct participation programs
- REITs
The linked chapters above do not cover every concept within Sections 1 and 2, but they involve the most important test topics. In addition to keeping up on your reviews and practice exams, it’ll be worth it for you to re-read these chapters and do quizzes after each reading.
I’m confident you’ll find success if you follow the recommendations above. Good luck!!!