When it comes to taking a FINRA or NASAA exam, we highly recommend that you read the text (or watch videos). That said, after seeing enough textbooks, you’ll realize that different providers prioritize different topics in different chapters. Perhaps each of them have their own rhyme or reason.
In our experience though, we tend to subscribe to the study approach that is most effective and efficient. Today’s post discusses where to prioritize your time.
Read the Text…Or Watch the Videos
At Professional Exam Tutoring, we have seen thousands of students study for exams. In almost every case, we find students are more likely to succeed with structure. Sometimes that structure is self-imposed, and sometimes it is sought out.
For students that don’t know where to start, or are seeking outside structure, that is a service we provide.
Getting through the material is always the first step. There is not much structure needed for this first step.
Whether you read the text or watch the videos does not seem to make a huge difference in outcome. We tend to recommend reading since it is a more comprehensive resource. That said, we have seen many hundreds of students pass their exams without reading the textbook, and simply relying on the videos.
Typically, when it comes to the practice questions, that’s where the structure is needed.
Practice Questions by Topic…What Topic?
Whether you are studying for the Series 7 Exam, SIE Exam, Series 79 Exam, or any others, doing your practice questions in the chronological order of the textbook is not the best strategy.
The reason for this is that the textbook is not always weighted with the most important subjects toward the front. For example, on the Series 7 Exam, Options is often a highly weighted section, however, very few textbooks we know of start with Options as their first chapter.
Therefore, when studying practice questions for a given exam, the order of the textbook is not particularly helpful.
It’s much more important that you try to identify which sections are weighted most heavily and focus your practice question efforts there.
A good strategy is to start with a full practice exam covering every topic and identify your weak areas. Then focus on where your scores are lowest among the highest weighted sections.
Overall, with enough thought, you would probably arrive at the strategy yourself. It’s fairly intuitive and tends to do very well in pulling up scores. If you’d like more help or more advice, feel free to reach out! Good luck studying!