Just want to say THANK YOU for creating Achievable!! For someone that is a terrible test taker and failed the exam twice when studying other materials, once i made the switch to Achievable my understanding of concepts were clear and made me confident. Looking forward diving into topoff 7.
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Congrats, Gina! Iām happy to hear that our course was a better fit for you 
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Congratulations, @Gina!! Weāre so happy you found us. Please stay in touch and let us know if we can assist anything Series 7 related.
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Awesome! I have failed the SIE twice as well from studying other material. Studying Achievable now but afraid to take exam again. Any suggestions?
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Hi @Voskie!
Iāll be interested to see if any of your fellow test takers have input, but hereās what I recommend as the content writer for this program:
- Read the material
- Do your reviews consistently
- Repeat until you get to the end
- Take enough practice finals until you consistently score in the 80s
We pride ourselves on two things in particular here at Achievable. First, the easy-to-learn and digestible reading material. Iāve written each chapter to be understandable to anyone, even if they have no financial background. If you felt lost while reading the material provided in the other vendor, Iām confident our material will help you build the knowledge necessary to pass. If you ever need any clarification on any topic, please post to this forum or DM me directly.
Second, we pride ourselves on the technology backing Achievable, which @Justin is responsible for. Heās created a smart learning system that analyzes your progress and continually you feeds the right practice questions (through the Review function on the home page) before youāre likely to forget the content. Make sure youāre marking āCompletedā after reading each chapter, which will add to your review load. You donāt ever have to guess what material to study - simply forge forward through the reading and complete your reviews when theyāre created.
Once you get to the end, you should primarily focus on taking practice finals. Our system allows an unlimited number of practice finals, and we have over 5,000 test questions in our bank. Weāre confident youāll rarely come across repeat questions and that our practice exams are fairly close to what youāll see on the real exam (although your real exam will always be unique and different).
I hope this guidance helps! Please let me know if you have any questions.
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Hereās my honest input:
I feel the questions on Achievable while they are easy to understand, they donāt really resemble closely to the real FINRA SIE exam questions.
I felt that SIE was more trickier on the words. Perhaps, if Achievable include more tricky words in the questions, we could be well prepared.
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We appreciate the feedback, @FoxMcCloud. Weāre consistently tweaking our practice and exam questions, and are always working to make our program better resemble the exam.
I guess Iāll chime in as well.
I would focus on making sure you understand the big picture. I agree with Fox that the questions on the SIE exam were different than the questions on Achievable. It seemed that the SIE exam questions had a complexity that kind of caught me off guard. I wish I could remember a few of them, but I donāt remember that kind of stuff. I just remember there being more crossover between investment concepts than what is on Achievable.
However, what Achievable does well is break the concepts down and teaches the concepts in a way that is interesting, succinct and very understandable. When I first started studying for the SIE, I went out and purchased test prep books. The information presented in them lacked flow, and didnāt scaffold the information in a way that made the big picture come alive. It seemed they were just listing fact after fact, with no real rhyme or reason. Achievable does a good job of teaching the big picture and tying everything together.
When I was sitting for the SIE, I really had to think about each of the answers. But because I had a pretty good understanding of how things were tied together, and how they related to one another, I was able to respond correctly.
So, my recommendation is this:
- Get the big picture of things. (For example, what happens when interest rates rise, and how does that affect other securities?, When would someone choose a muni bond over a Treasury bond, and why? etc.)
- Know the products. Period.
- Know the laws and regulations, especially be able to differentiate the different securities acts. I struggled with this in the beginning, but after finishing the Achievable content, I felt I had a pretty good handle on which one would regulate the different areas of the market.
- Make flashcards for the information that youāre struggling with. There are several sets of flashcards already created on Quizlet for the SIE. I ended up creating my own set for the concepts that I felt that I needed to review. You can find my set on Quizlet as well. Itās titled, āMy SIE Prepā by gspainhour.
- Keep taking the tests and doing the review questions. If you miss a question, make sure you review WHY you missed it and that you actually understand why you missed it.
I hope this helps! Good luck!
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Currently I am 18 years old studying for my SIE test and quite frankly itās been tough for me mentally. I am 9 days out and Iām still stuck on below 50% on my practice scores I have studied but I am having trouble remembering lots of things itās my second time taking it and I donāt want to go and fail the second time I donāt know what to do
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Hi @Barbara_Schulist, welcome to Achievable, and thanks for posting!
Itās fantastic that youāre getting a head start on your SIE - itās a great introduction to the world of finance.
Iāve looked at your account and it looks like youāre doing a lot of things right. The thing you can do differently that will have the biggest impact is to review your exams after youāve taken them!
Taking practice exams is a necessary part of your prep, but itās carefully reviewing every question youāve missed or guessed on the exams that will lead to score increases next time. The amount of review time will vary depending on how you do, but you should plan for at least an hour or two of review after every exam.
If you start to review your mistakes more thoroughly, Iām confident your scores will improve!
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How should one carefully review any questions missed/guessed ? Should one examine the meaning of the question or where should I start?
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What I usually do is mark for review any question that Iām not 100% sure of. After I finish the practice exam I go over all those questions together with the ones I got wrong.
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Yep, thereās no secret method - just go through your exam question by question and ensure you know it!
If thereās a concept you arenāt sure of, open up a new tab and go to that chapter in the textbook.
Asking yourself why you got a question wrong can be helpful. Did you forget a core fact? Misread the answer choices? Something else? Whatever it is, just be honest with yourself. The goal is to pass the real exam - your scores on the practice exams are a helpful indicator, but they donāt count for anything. Theyāre just a tool to help you identify weak areas and understand what you need to study more.
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any advice , Iām going on my third try
Hi Nancy, in addition to the achievable material, something that really helped me was a YouTube channel called āSeries 7 Guruā. The gentlemanās name is Dean Tinney and he has TONS of valuable info for all the different tests. He has a playlist for the SIE. I would recommend watching that entire playlist.
Just passed my SIE first try after 5 full days studying. I completed 36 practice exams and made sure to get 80-90 on each chapterās final exam. I skipped all the textbook readings and went straight to the questions. When I was very stuck, I only then peeked into the readings. But the practice tests are so well set up that it mirrored the real exam closely and I had just studied that plus series 7 guru on youtube. It was much more difficult than on test-day.
Thanks Justin!
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Congratulation - glad you passed on such a quick schedule! 
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