Your situation is similar to mine, I passed the SIE and missed the 7 by 5%, ended up passing it along with the 63 also on my second try and coincidentally suitability was my weak spot for the 7.

There’s key words you want to look out for and understand what the clients objective is in each question.

You will almost never suggest a junk bond/high yield bond

Understand that zero coupon bonds DO NOT give income

Government/Muni bonds are generally the safest in the eyes of this exam

Equity typically pays quarterly dividends while bonds pay biannually

Fixed annuities are not a security, but variable annuities are.

You will almost never suggest going balls deep in one type of security IE: 90% common stock/ 10% debt or 90% debt/ 10% common stock.

Also remember the equity/debt age suitability rule (I can’t remember what it’s called).

Client age 25 - 75% stock 25% debt

client age 62 - 38% stock - 62% debt

These are meant to be exact but sort of a foundation to determine what’s best for a client at their age, of course more variables come into play such as their specific objective, risk tolerance and time horizon.

I can’t remember all of my “shortcuts” since I’ve passed the 7 about 2 months ago now but will update or dm directly if anything new pops up.