u/freedominsound

I recently took and passed the SIE exam earlier this year. The biggest takeaway I had was the difference in how questions where phrased between my study material (Kaplan) and the actual exam. Fortunately, FINRA has an online practice exam that very closely mirrors the actual exam wording. NASAA obviously does not have anything like this available. This makes me feel slightly unprepared for the actual exam even though my prep would indicate otherwise. For reference I am using Kaplan and averaging 84% across my 4 simulated exams taken. It seems to me that sometimes Kaplan does this thing where they intentionally mislead you in a question so its almost beneficial to choose the answer contrary to what its leading you to. This has lead to me thinking myself in circles sometimes and missing questions I really shouldn’t be. Is the exam similar in phrasing to Kaplan or not?

tldr: Kaplan phrases things really strangely and NASAA doesn’t provide an online practice exam. Is it fairly comparable phrasing or should I simplify my logic when choosing an answer?

I’m switching careers to something along the CFP path from a nonrelated industry. Currently studying for my SIE exam and it’s taking me a long time to move through the material. I see online a lot of folks getting through their studies in about 2-3 weeks but it’s taking me way longer. Only about 1/3 through the Kaplan guided study plan and I’ve been going for about 3 weeks now. I feel like I’m retaining a lot of what I’m learning but it just takes a long time. Anyone else run into this reality vs expectations thing? I’m studying like 4 hrs per day but still feels like I’m way behind.