Passed ❌❌✅
Passed the Series 65 on my 3rd attempt on Saturday, and I wanted to share my experience for anyone struggling with this exam.
I’ll be the first to say: if I can pass this exam, anyone can.
I don’t currently work in finance. Everything I know about investing, trading, and the markets has been self-taught, so I was basically starting from scratch when it came to a lot of the material on the 65.
I started studying in January and took my first attempt in March and scored an 84/130.
I took a week off, regrouped, and went back to the drawing board.
For my second attempt, I purchased Luke’s course and booked quite a few tutoring sessions with him. I took the exam again in June and scored an 89/130. I actually felt really good about the progress I had made.
I booked a few more sessions with Luke, and this is where I think things really started to click. For anyone who doesn’t know, Luke has taught at the college level, and I genuinely think his ability to teach you how to think through the material, rather than just memorize it, made a huge difference for me.
For my third attempt, we focused heavily on my test-taking strategy.
One of the biggest changes I made was slowing down just enough after reading each question and asking myself:
“What exactly are they asking me?”
Then I would identify the rule or concept being tested, find the answer that best matched it, click it, and move on. I stopped constantly second-guessing myself and changing answers just because another choice sounded possible.
I also added other question banks into my studying for the third attempt. It was helpful to see questions written differently because, after enough time, some of the Kaplan questions can make you feel like you’re losing your mind. 😂 Also, for anyone worried about them, there are no Roman numeral-style questions on the actual exam.
My biggest advice after three attempts is this:
The Series 65 is incredibly broad.
Try not to get too caught up reading Reddit posts about exactly what someone saw on their exam and then studying only those topics. Your test could be completely different.
Instead, focus on understanding the concepts across the entire outline and, just as importantly, learn how to answer Series 65 questions.
There’s definitely a skill to figuring out what the question is actually asking, eliminating the distractors, applying the rule, and moving on without talking yourself out of the correct answer.
TL;DR: Passed the Series 65 on my 3rd attempt after scoring 84/130 and 89/130 on my first two. Used Kaplan, TestGeek, Series7 G, Luke’s course/tutoring, and CertFuel. The biggest difference on attempt #3 wasn’t memorizing more—it was improving how I answered questions: What are they asking? What rule applies? Pick the best answer, click, and go. Don’t obsess over what other people saw on their exams because the test is extremely broad. Learn the concepts, learn how to take the test, and don’t give up.