FINRA Exam Study Tips: Some Observations from the Field

Do you need some FINRA Exam study tips? Whether you need to take the SIE Exam, Series 7 Top-Off, or Series 24, you have some work ahead of you. The question is, how do you effectively study and ensure a passing grade? Each year we encounter hundreds of test takers through our tutoring. Rather than share the obvious (study hard!), I thought I’d share my observations about what doesn’t work.

 

FINRA Exam Study Tips: Your Phone Won’t Help

Whether you have an app to help you with your studying or not, the large majority of the time, your phone does not help. Even my students that use study apps on their phone experience frequent distraction. Unless you put your phone in airplane mode, with all notifications turned off, the potential for distraction is high. Your best bet is to put your phone in another room while you’re studying. If you’re worried that you might miss an important call, or an emergency, keep your ringer on. You’re not likely to miss the call. Furthermore, it’s very rarely phone calls that distract us. The text messages, emails, and other notifications usually do us in.

 

Pause Your Personal Life

Just say no.

To what?…Everything.

Ok, well, “everything” might be a little much for a parent with responsibilities. That said, shut down as many social requests as possible. Explain to family and friends that you need to concentrate for a month. It’s nothing personal, and even more important, your job is likely on the line. Your friends and family will understand when they know you’re at risk of losing your job if you don’t pass.

Try to enlist the help of a spouse, friend, or family member to help you out for a month (if you have kids). If you have a job that doesn’t allow studying at work, you need to maximize your study time at home. That might mean waking up at 4:30am to study before everyone is awake. Or, it might mean studying from 9pm to 11pm after everyone has gone to bed. Either way, it needs to get done.

Your weekends are extremely important. As boring as it sounds, say no to invites, social events, and especially situations that might leave you…unproductive (some might call it “hungover”) for the next day. With two full days to study, you want to get in at least 8 full hours over the weekend. Remember this is not permanent. You only have to do this for a month or two, and then you get your life back. This is one of many good study habits.

 

Make a Realistic Schedule and Stick to It

Good intentions are useless without implementation. A study plan in itself gives people a feeling of accomplishment, and hope. However, it needs to be realistic and executable to be effective.

For example, if you create a study schedule that blocks off 4 hours of studying per day, and you only realistically have two free hours per night, that study schedule is no good. Where most people get off track is when they have a bad day, or really busy day, then realize that their study schedule requires too much of them. Here it often gets ignored (for maybe a couple hours on a given day).

This is typically a slippery slope. A couple discarded hours one day, make it easier to discard a couple the next day too. Do that for five days straight and you might have lost almost 10 hours of planned studying. Why does this matter?

Your study schedule now looks less achievable. Not only that, but you have less “respect” for any future study schedule you make. It’s much more practical to set a study schedule for 1.5 to 2 hours per day. Something digestible and realistic will be achievable.

One final tip here: Avoid the preset study schedules from outside sources. They are often overly optimistic and rarely assume you have anything else going on in your life.

 

Overall, you might see the obvious through-line: focus. There is no way to study without it. I have heard plenty of reasons why “focus is hard.” There is only one person that can make it happen, and that’s you. These tests can be challenging. Even the SIE exam difficulty can seem high, and it is a mere introductory exam. In a nutshell, once you decide that you need to shut everything else out and concentrate fully, you’ll see progress. Good luck!