r/Series65

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For some background, I am a M22 who recently graduated in December with a B.B.A. in Finance, with a minor in economics. This test really is no joke.This exam felt more difficult than my first 2 tries. I was not sure that I had passed, and once I submitted, I was extremely surprised to see pass. I totally think that doing the 3,000+ questions over the past 3 weeks helped tremendously. I felt like I had never seen almost a quarter of the questions asked on the exam, but I was able to reason towards an answer because of all of the goofy wording that Kaplan does. I also felt like the exam never let up on me. Usually from what I have experienced and heard, the first 3rd is easy, middle 3rd is difficult, and last 3rd is easy. I got pretty discouraged after failing my second attempt, and almost gave up. I would encourage anyone who is trying to pass this exam to not give up because it is possible, and you can surprise yourself like I did today!

I also attached a screenshot of my practice exam scores from the past 3 weeks using the Kaplan Q-bank questions. I see a lot of people asking what scores they should be making before taking the exam. I am not saying this will work for everyone, but this got me to the end. I would have liked to be making higher practice exam scores, but I just couldn't get them any higher than shown in the picture.

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i failed first attempt with Pass perfect when i was scoring 85-90% on 13+ practice exams

for my second attempt im using Kaplan, what should i average or aim for to feel safe for the actual test?

I'm active in the market as a trader for 8 years now, and have a lot of information on markets, economics, etc. but nothing on regulation or specific market products.

I want to start studying, but don't want to just read extra and unnecessary stuff, so a couple of questions.

How much of the Kaplan 12th edition's 680 pages (as fast as I've researched the most comprehensive book out there) is actual information vs quizzes, exercises and tests?

Would buying the Examfx 2022 edition be good?

I understand that it's a way more direct book rather than messing round (only has 340 pages) but I'm concerned about not being updated to the latest version which came out last year.

What would you guys recommend?

Tomorrow I am taking the series 65 for the 3rd time.

First attempt was in February and I missed it by 12 Q's.

Second attempt was in March and I missed it by 8 Q's.

I have been using Kaplan to study, and I took a live class back in January. I enjoyed the class, but relied too heavily on it my first 2 attempts. I had holes in my knowledge, but figured that maybe they were small enough that I could squeeze by.

I also want to say that I disagree with the people that say the exam gets harder after each attempt. My second exam was noticeably easier, and I genuinely thought it was going to say pass when I submitted it.

The holes in my knowledge have shrinked drastically, and I fully believe I will get it done tomorrow. I have been taking a practice exam on a daily basis, and I have seen my practice test scores shoot up, scoring 25-35 questions higher than I was before the first 2 go arounds. I did not do near enough questions before the first 2 attempts. I maybe did 400 questions before EACH exam. I am thinking that was not enough practice. I have done well over 3,000 questions since April 20th. I believe this will transition to the test, and I will come out with a pass. I will update everyone tmr!

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Passed today on first attempt. Had used this reddit for information a good amount leading up to the exam so wanted to give back by adding what I did to study. (The printer was messing up and had some extra info on the sides so I had to add extra boxes to the image...)

I used achievable mainly. Read through all chapters and did all of the checkpoint exams. Then did 20ish practice exams. I did NOT need to do 20 full practice exams. Achievable has a feature where it does a short quiz based on things you flagged and missed after doing a practice exam. I should have used this way more.

Other than Achievable, I watched Mighty 90 3-4 times and created a sheet to study with info from it.

I was curious how I was doing so I purchased just the practice + mastery exam from kaplan and got 65 and 71%. Never had QBank though.

I think something that helped a lot was when reviewing practice exams or studying I would ask Gemini to explain the specific concept as it relates to the Series 65. Then I could prompt it to do like a 10 question quiz on a topic. I also used this to do math questions such as dividend growth model, etc. AI is definitely a good tool to help get extra practice studying and tbh the AI keeps the questions less convoluted than most of the programs so that was nice.

Only had like 4-5 math questions anyway as others have said. Overall the exam was much less wordy than the kaplan exams and also a bit less than the achievable ones. There are some questions in the middle that were more wordy but on average it was definitely more straight to the point.

SERIES 65: "It's unethical to state that past performance guarantees results."

ALSO SERIES 65: "Inflation increases during economic peaks and decreases during economic troughs."

.....

SERIES 65: "It is both the broker-dealer and the agent's legal responsibility to notify the Administrator of a termination"

ALSO SERIES 65: "Only Broker-Dealers can submit a Form-U5"

ME: "But if an agent can't submit Form-U5, how are they supposed to ensure they legally comply with...."

SERIES 65: "I SAID ONLY BROKER-DEALERS CAN SUBMIT FORM-U5!!!"

...I'm mostly just shit-posting / venting after 2-3 months of non-stop studying and hating this tip-toe dance across these trap-question minefields. I just want the pain and misery of this exam to be over with, lol.

Kaplan is garbage

Way too many "kaplan style questions" any long math problems are a absolute waste of time.

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Examfx is garbage

Way too many "examfx style questions" any long math problems are a absolute waste of time.

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Passperfect is garbage

I didn't purchase this but probably way too many "passperfect style questions" I use google gemini and chatgpt to check one of their questions. https://www.reddit.com/r/Series65/comments/1tfc432/i_would_probably_avoid_pass_perfect/

google gemini is pretty excellent to be honest. it is easily much better than chatgpt and much more free. chatgpt gave me a bs answer cause it had no idea. gemini straight up just said "none of these choices are correct." dont trust passperfect

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Achievable is garbage

you can do achievable practice test and you will see it has the same issues as the others. way too many questions that is in their "own style."

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What absolutely murdered me.

Long questions that were a absolute waste of time with these exams. The actual exams have 0 long math questions and these exams will absolutely waste a extreme amount of your time by giving you a ton of long math questions that do not relate to the exam at all.

If you want to verify what I said type in "example of math problems that could be on series 65 test" in google gemini. It will confirm at the end "there arent long math problems on the exam." Math questions are going to be 2-3 maybe 4 sentences long and include bonds, yield, holding period, dividend, rule of 72.

You will never get a math problem that requires 10 different steps and your calculator cant even do parentheses. Why they give you questions like this? Simple The test materials are devoid of logic and reasoning. They are a complete waste of money.

What else is on the test

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529 plan

UTGA

UTMA

and that other thing

Make sure you know all that.

There will be questions that are entirely 50/50 because there are two answers that mean the exact same thing Grammarly.

There will be questions that just make absolutely no sense whatsoever and probably cant be found anywhere in the stc/kaplan/examfx books.

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Other suggestions

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You can probably use google gemini to give you common question examples, math question examples, and maybe create a practice test for you.

You may can also use google gemini to populate questions on series 65 that are extremely tricky or just doesnt make any sense. You may need to buy a upgraded version of google gemini. Google gemini is much more intelligent than chatgpt and can clearly explain questions that chatgpt just doesnt quite understand. Google gemini also will not give you a bs answer but chatgpt 100% will if it cant figure it out.

Google gemini explanations are also much more clear than chatgpt.

What I currently purchased right now is STC. So hopefully that is enough to pass series 65 next month.

Been studying for about two months was averaging around 107/140 on Kaplan and was getting 92/130 on achievable. Extremely discouraged and disappointed.

Should I have waited another month before taking it? Seems like my scores had me borderline passing, which was exactly the case.

If you have failed it and passed it on the second attempt, please let me know what you did over the month. Any help is greatly appreciated.

I failed the series 65 a few months ago. I am back it and beginning to study. I hired a tutor from Varsity Tutors. Ridiculous cost!!! Had a session last Sat and turns out I knew more than the tutor. So he actually quit and i had to have a new tutor. I am worried about this investment now. $1550 to 6 sessions

Anyone have any feedback about Varsity Tutors?

I took my 3rd attempt two days ago and felt very prepared and confident. I made sure I understood concepts and that I had a good understanding of what everything meant. I took advice from people in this Reddit and read the book and used Kaplan for study material. However when I got to the test I felt that I had walked into there with no study background, had no idea how to answer at least 25% of the questions. They felt completely new and were questions I’ve never seen before. The wording I feel was much harder in the first 40 questions than the first two attempts were for me. As I said I’ve been using Kaplan, I need to pass on the fourth time. What programs do you recommend? Should I renew and stick with Kaplan or are there other platforms that you suggest would be better? I feel like the wording is very different on Kaplan compared to the exam and that even though I felt prepared, this was harder than the first two attempts.

I moved over to Kaplan after failing my 65 earlier this month. Right now I am taking the chapter reading quizzes, then the chapter exams, and going back and reading the modules in the chapter I am scoring the lowest on.

I am scoring an avg of 78% on the QBank questions, but the exam questions I'm averaging a 62%.

I feel like that's super weird, it's the same content. But I feel like the chapter exams are worded super weird. Did anyone else notice a similar disparity between QBank and exams?

I am going to keep studying until I get to 2K questions and average above a 75, I am just trying to figure out why there's such a gap when it's the same content from the same course provider...

I am using only Achievable. I just finished my final planned practice exam and I have done 5. My scores for my practice exams on achievable in order from earliest to most recent are 90%, 88%, 94%, 92%, 97%. How ready am I to pass?

EDIT: not that it matters much but my achievable readiness score is 100% with 108 hours of study time

EDIT 2: I passed!!

I’ve heard a lot of talk on this subreddit about handicapping Kaplan scores because the questions are more difficult/convoluted than the Series 65 test.

Does anybody have good insight on this? Are the Kaplan questions a good/bad/decent proxy? Which is more difficult—Kaplan, or the real deal?

Hi, everyone! Sending good vibes to all those studying for the 65. Long post ahead.

Wanted to post here because I am feeling discouraged. Would greatly appreciate any and all insight. I know many of you on here are studying for the exam or are working lengthy hours, so I appreciate you taking the time to read this post.

My background:

• Part-time MBA candidate at an Ivy League University.
• No previous experience working in financial services.
• 5 years of experience in professional services, full-funnel sales, and business development.
• Undergraduate degree in Psychology.

Materials Used to Prep:

• Training Consultants
• Kaplan (including Qbank)
• Brian Lee Test Geek Course and Practice Midterm/Exam
• Series 7 Guru videos

Context:

I took the Series 65 for the first time about 6 weeks ago. I only had 2-3 weeks to study for my first attempt; however, I was consistently scoring 82-94% on Training Consultants and Kaplan practice exams.

I do suffer from fairly severe test anxiety, and to be quite honest, despite my high practice exam scores, I didn’t feel very confident going into the exam for the first time. I felt I could have benefited from more study time and from being more strategic (ie I felt I spent too much time on areas/concepts that likely would only have 1 question v. those that had 6-7.)

First Attempt:

I ended up scoring a 57%, with my highest section being Laws and Regs, and my lowest being Investment Vehicle Characteristics.

Thankfully, my company allowed me to take the exam again 30 days later.

I spent the entire month working with a tutor, ensuring I knew EVERYTHING there was to know about Investment Vehicles, brushing up on the other 3 sections, and taking over 10 practice exams.

I loved my job. I knew I needed to ace this, and I was ready to do so.

I had an average score (between both Training Consultants and Kaplan exams) of 92%. After this, I felt immensely prepared for the exam. The concepts that were a bit fuzzy (especially those in Investment Vehicle Characteristics) made sense. I had no doubt in my mind I would pass this time around.

I knew that I:

1.) Could not have studied harder / for longer. 2.) Used all resources given to me (and then some, ie a tutor, studying with colleagues, purchasing flashcards, etc). 3.) Worked with a mental health professional to combat my test anxiety. 4.) Was consistently (and confidently) scoring high on multiple practice exams.

Second Attempt:

Fast forward to test day. Unlike my first attempt, I felt focused and relaxed. I felt confident in most of my answers (I only flagged ~ 15/140 questions and did not change any answers.)

To my surprise, I scored even lower on my second attempt. A 55%. My heart sank. My lowest area this attempt was Laws and Regs (the section that I had previously scored ~95%).

I was shocked to see that my overall score decreased so drastically after my extensive studying and my positive mindset. To make matters worse, I was immediately laid off by my dream job as a result. I was and still am heartbroken.

Aside:

I know my termination is ultimately my own fault (and let me be clear: I have absolutely NOTHING but love and respect for my former employer and everyone I was lucky to work with), but I can’t help feeling both confused and lost.

I am the first person to take accountability in these situations, but as I mentioned before, I have no idea how I could have studied any longer, “smarter”, or harder.

My 65 tutor had no doubt I would pass the second attempt with flying colors. Finding out that I had scored lower than I did on my first attempt (and by such a large margin) was shocking to her as well.

Despite being laid off, I would like to attempt taking the exam again when I am eligible to register.

That said:

1. Have any of you experienced anything similar? (ie multiple failed attempts despite consistently scoring high on practice exams, dedicating hundreds of hours to studying, utilizing a tutor, etc.)?

2. For those who failed 1-2 attempts (or those who passed the first time!) - what tactics or resources did you use that you feel helped you succeed?

3. To anyone who lost their job as a result of their failed attempt(s), was it difficult for you to find other opportunities / receive offers / get interviews for similar roles?

I greatly appreciate any insight and hope to return the favor when I (hopefully) pass my third attempt. Also happy to answer any questions you may have regarding the exam itself (ie how the style of real questions compare to practice exams, how to combat test anxiety, the mnemonics I found helpful, etc.)

Thank you, all! 🙏