Consistent among most FINRA test takers is uneven Series 7 progress. In today’s post we describe what this typically looks like. We also discuss how you can tell if you’re still improving even though your score may appear otherwise.
Uneven Series 7 Progress: Practice Scores Going Up and Down
For most people, there is nothing more frustrating when studying the Series 7 exam than seeing your first practice exam score above 70% follow another score below 65%.
The reality, however, is that practice exam scores are very likely to progress in a non-linear fashion. In other words, there will be a lot of ups and downs.
We’ve seen many thousands of students at Professional Exam Tutoring. Studying for the Series 7 typically involves seeing practice exam scores increase and decrease throughout the process.
What you ultimately want to see is that your low scores are getting higher, and your high scores are also getting higher. Nevertheless, you should also definitely expect your scores to slide every now and then, and even plateau.
Typical Progress
What we typically see with our average Series 7 student is to start out with first practice exam scores somewhere in the 40% or 50% range.
On that note, failing with your first score is completely normal. Don’t worry too much about this. Furthermore, don’t get overly excited if your practice score jumps pretty quickly from 45% to over 60% in short order.
This is also very common.
Most people make very fast progress in the first week or two of practice questions. However, the frustration builds once people hit around 65% or 70% scores.
Around this point many students often plateau in the 70% to high 70s range.
This is also completely normal.
Getting from 75% to over 80% on your practice exam scores starts requiring very nuanced knowledge where fairly difficult questions are required to get correct.
As long as you keep studying, you are still making progress! People that get stuck in this range sometimes assume they’re not going to progress further. That is typically not true. More studying begets more knowledge. You will continue to connect dots and make progress.
In the end, more studying is going to be what gets you to 80%+. Keep it up and you’ll get there! Reach out with any questions. Good luck!