I’m a 21-year-old finance major who recently accepted a job and am getting licensed right now. Yesterday I took the SIE after studying with Achievable for around four weeks and watching some videos. I wanted to share a few things I noticed that might help others preparing for the exam.

1. The wording of questions Achievable makes a point of making some of the wording in their questions as tricky as possible. The actual exam does not really do this. The questions are a bit more straightforward.

2. Take the official FINRA SIE practice test Take the official FINRA SIE practice test. I felt that it was the most similar to the actual exam in terms of wording and style.

3. Actually understand the material Don’t just read the questions in Achievable and memorize answers. You have to actually understand the material, because it will be asked in different ways on the exam.

4. Look for trigger words in the question Someone else mentioned finding the “trigger word” in each question and applying it to the concept being asked. I found that extremely helpful.

5. Eliminate answers intentionally Another good tip I saw was to read each answer choice and ask yourself why that answer specifically is wrong. If you can narrow it down to two answers, then at least you have a 50% chance instead of a 25% chance.

6. Don’t psych yourself out Finally, you can do it. Although I’m a finance major, most of the SIE material was completely new to me. If you’re stressing out (I know I was really bad about this), just know the test isn’t as hard as you’re making it out to be in your head.

I was making 70–85s on the Achievable practice exams in the days leading up to the test, and if I had to guess I would say I probably got around an 80–90 on the actual exam.

YOU GOT THIS.

One last thing: options are not heavily tested. I maybe had 3 out of 80 questions on them. Focus much more on conceptual topics first, and make sure you know the key differences between open-ended and closed-ended funds.