I passed
Today I passed the SIE. I just finished my freshman year of college, I’ve only taken one finance and one accounting course.
It took me about 17 hours of study over 8 days. I felt like the actual exam was significantly easier than the practice exams, it only took me 45 minutes. There was a clear right answer on basically every question.
I didn’t pay for any service or read any book. I watched Ken Finnen’s practice exams and SIE exam review. While driving, I listened to the certfuel SIE podcast (I think the voices might be AI, but the content is really good for learning). Then the official practice exam is pretty representative in terms of wording and structure. For an alternative, if you look up “Knopman Marks Financial Training – SIE Practice Exam – 2018 V.12” there is a free pdf exam. Although more difficult than the exam, I thought these were pretty helpful (some requirements like the CE have changed since then so be aware). ChatGPT and Claude are great for giving explanations, but not at all for making questions.
Overall, just try to actually learn all the concepts, and you’ll be just fine.