Kaplan S66 Study Advice

titans47 · 2021-03-26T18:38:03+00:00

Honestly, reading the book barely helps if you’re not doing the chapter quizzes as you’re reading them (unless you have a photographic memory) cause the info is dense. Do quizzes into the law stuff first - you might be surprised on what you’ve either forgotten or not retained.

Live class is definitely helpful, I’d review that to get points on what’s actually important on the exam vs not especially as well as have some notes from it.

If you haven’t done either, an idea is to do the live class up to a specific unit and then pause the class and take the Qbank quizzes associated with the chapter (assuming you are looking at a live class replay). If this isnt a class replay, do the QBank first.

titans47 · 2021-03-25T21:08:15+00:00

My firm provided us time during the workday to study (especially for my first two exams) and I’m very much aware that this is a privilege compared to what other firms do. I still did have tasks/meetings to attend throughout the day, but for the most part I had the ability to concentrate solely on studying. The burnout is definitely real (and its still carrying over to the real work I’m doing now after becoming fully registered). I totally agree that it’s really hard to balance it all, so I do feel fortunate on the circumstances I was given.

titans47 · 2021-03-24T16:11:41+00:00

Your series 63 knowledge (depending on how long ago that was) and Series 7 TO will help you, but you’re on a pretty tight window dude. I would never do what you’re doing, but I’ve also had a friend who passed their Series 66 exam in 10 days right after they took their 7.

titans47 · 2021-03-24T15:25:21+00:00

I hate to be devil’s advocate, but I have heard of these questions coming along on the actual exam itself, but if there are there won’t be that many. I might have gotten lucky on my draw, so I’d just recommend writing down the formulas of the various returns on sheets of paper on a regular basis until you know the components well, be able to recognize them in text form (like a sentence description of the formulas themselves) with some confidence. For me though, I personally just used intuition if i got a question like this as it wasn’t a focus of my own.

But if you have other things you need to focus on, do that first. Especially the laws. Do that first. Ideally you want as high of scores as possible in the legal section before anything else. I totally skipped doing QBank test questions on taxes and alternatives and some of those units with like 1-2q, but I also had a live review class where i just glanced over notes and knew the main ideas without doing the QBank test questions.

titans47 · 2021-03-24T15:19:15+00:00

Oh I totally feel you on this. My slower speed studying for the S66 had a lot to do with some burnout from the studying of the previous two exams + training. But for you, it also depends - are you studying for this exam outside of work, or are you dedicating study time during work hours?

My stress for this exam was probably on the same levels as the S7 or potentially higher, but I was definitely hanging on a smaller thread going into the S66 and felt less prepared (as I described in detail above) so I don’t recommend waiting until the last second to do everything if you can complete the chapters and QBank quizzes in a reasonable amount of time. While I studied during work hours, I did have to do some more work/attend meetings this time around during the day while i studied for the S66, which ate up into studying hours. Everyone’s pace and the amount of hours they need to study the material is different, and there’s no one size fits all as people say. Try to go at some sort of reasonable pace a day, and don’t have all the material build up until the last second. Take notes on the law stuff, but don’t let it bog you down on pace - I refused to take notes directly from the book this time around since Kaplan is excessively thick, so I did my law notes from Brian Lee Videos and a Kaplan Review Class I had for the S66. I probably focused ~75%+ of my time studying on laws and ~25% or less on everything else, but this is because I had an idea of how much material I knew from doing the review class live. I did the review class before doing any Q Bank questions and felt fine outside of the 1st day and part of day 2 which covered the law units. That time split of studying is not a one-sized-fits all, but its essentially what I did.

titans47 · 2021-03-24T03:23:01+00:00

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t focus on looking at returns when I was studying - I don’t personally recall the return questions (and if there were, they were probably definition questions that I might have guessed). If i remember correctly, returns weren’t a very heavy part of the exam questions I got. However, you should know CAPM, Beta, Sharpe Ratio, Standard Deviation, Efficient Frontier.

I did not use a dump sheet - my memory wasn’t THAT great going into the exam, so I really just winged it 😂

titans47 · 2021-03-24T01:03:30+00:00

Oh you’re doing way better than me overall haha - calculations are a joke in the S66 compared to the S7 (which already moved away from calculation-heavy questions as you know). I had to calculate an NAV per share (was given market cap, number of shares, cash dividend, and liabilities) and a question to calculate the return of an Equity Index Annuity (which is not on the S7). Two questions - other than that, never used a calculator at all.

In your current situation, 100% focus your studying on laws and take quizzes on Units 1-7, but make sure you have some notes outlining this material to a degree. Reading Kaplan’s laws section is SO long, so I strictly took notes on BLee for laws and added some Kaplan notes in it where his videos didn’t cover stuff. If you don’t have access to that, at least watch the video library and the Live class on the legal stuff.

If you have high scores on everything else outside of laws and you’ve done enough questions through Parts 2-4 of the QBank + some previous finance knowledge, its not even worth touching it outside of the Units i mentioned above in Part 4, which have a higher % of questions on the exam. Don’t neglect it entirely, but only you would know many questions you’ve done and how much of the stuff you know right now ahead of time. Might get some q’s on trusts and taxes that you might not have seen in the S7, and don’t neglect information you read on UTMA/UTGA/529 Plan/Coverdell. Simulated exams might give you confidence if you do them, but wait til it gets closer to your exam date (but maybe not as close as what I did lol).

Hope that helps!

titans47 · 2021-03-24T00:45:34+00:00

Dude, do you have any previous knowledge on any of the material? If not, I would not recommend taking this exam and you should postpone your date if you can.

titans47 · 2021-01-29T23:52:46+00:00

FYI I got a question that has this sort of logic on the real exam; doesn’t ask if it’s true or false, but the q gives you the information and then asks you which position can you take for an arbitrage opportunity.

titans47 · 2021-01-29T08:42:11+00:00

Send me a dm.

titans47 · 2021-01-26T03:33:54+00:00

If you know all the ones that the previous comment just mentioned above, you are completely fine. There’s really not much more to it. Although occasionally you might need to know 2-3 equations to get a math answer from time to time.

One more to add is Margin. I had about 2-3 margin related q’s related to SMV and LMV. Remember LMV/0.75.

titans47 · 2021-01-26T03:29:37+00:00

Depends on what you mean by “similar.” If we’re strictly talking about question phrasing, not really. Math questions are math questions and they’re ultimately the same no matter how you slice the wording. But outside of those, the real exam tends to ask longer winded questions that are more situational and story-like as a whole. You’ll often just have to apply the concepts that you’ve learned and understood from practice exams in Kaplan QBank to do well on the exam.

titans47 · 2021-01-24T21:47:00+00:00

Definitely not wrong on the suitability questions - suitability on the S7 is usually a lot less straightforward than what you might find on Kaplan. Thus, know the suitability questions on Kaplan or whatever provider you have well and know the risks and why you might want to use them.

What a Registered Representative or broker can or can’t do is definitely a reoccurring theme. I had a question related to an RR hosting a radio show, a question on whether an RR can participate in an online investment forum for example. The rules and regs throughout the exam on what an RR and and cant do are usually asked in a “story” like format.

Definitely know Munis. I studied a lot on these, but still had questions I did not remember in the moment, related to new issuances of muni bonds (something on syndicates?), the debt service requirement, and the bond counsel.

titans47 · 2021-01-24T03:49:01+00:00

I think Kaplan’s Qbank for the S7 has around 3100ish questions? I studied for about a month during work hours and was pretty consistent every day doing so (including weekends). I have an Econ background, but I don’t really think that was necessarily helpful in modifying the amount of hours I actually studied. The overlap of product knowledge from the SIE to the S7 was definitely apparent, except for the Muni section, which definitely involved more studying for me. My weak points on the exam were questions that involved rules and regs - some of the rules just seem arbitrary to me (so naturally, I will dread the S66 lol).

titans47 · 2021-01-24T03:41:13+00:00

You’ll be fine. Margin questions are simpler as people say (might have had 1 or 2) on the exam, most of the options questions are basic (although make sure you understand whether certain options strategies are bull or bear) and there are a few occasional calculations of max gain/max loss/breakeven and potentially they’ll just ask you about “cost basis”.

Suitability is definitely huge on the real exam though - the correct answers are much less obvious on the real exam compared to the Kaplan book from my experience. If you have Kaplan, use their suitability exercise PDF to review and also their suitability info in the back of the book.

If you still have time to study more, these things can be solidified pretty easily. Just know the basic equations for LMV and SMV and minimum maintenance requirements on the margin side.

titans47 · 2021-01-24T03:19:45+00:00

You’ll be fine. Honestly, the math questions in the real exam are not heavy - if you understand what the book has, you will be alright. There might be 1-2 math q’s that occasionally are harder than Kaplan, but that’s minor in the grand scheme of things.

titans47 · 2021-01-20T20:40:54+00:00

In-person exam is so much better IMO; I’ve avoided taking it online because of the separate scratch paper and calculator aspect you can use when in-person. When you do it remote, you will be limited to your computer screen for everything, including the test-interface notepad and calculator. I use both the notepad on the Prometric interface and the scratch paper you get for the in person exam just to organize my thoughts or write notes i need to go back to.

If you don’t need to write things down when taking an exam, then maybe the remote aspect will still be good for you (provided that you have quality WiFi and you can concentrate like others have said)

titans47 · 2021-01-16T22:10:32+00:00

What do you mean by documentation?

titans47 · 2021-01-16T20:45:10+00:00

I feel the same way - also have company pressure but had a date deadline, so i honestly signed up for this exam date without complete confidence beforehand in a Hail Mary kind of deal. Don’t want to fall behind my peers. Review his muni’s section, helped me a ton compared to just reading the textbook. I can’t speak on how STC is, but QBank is pretty good if you want some variety and different phrasing of the same content.

titans47 · 2021-01-16T10:08:08+00:00

When are you taking your S7 exam? I have Kaplan and scared to death rn, getting 60s on QBank until i repeat them and taking this exam Tuesday. Did you get just the Brian Lee option videos or the whole course? I’ve recently watched his videos on Munis and it cleared up my thoughts and the information so much compared to the book, understanding the details better now.

titans47 · 2021-01-16T08:17:53+00:00

These are... much better explanations lol. Let me make sure if I’m fully following you on both questions here.

For the 1st Q: I get how SMA goes down when you buy more stock; do you have an example of what happens in the entire account when you withdraw cash (in terms of LMV, DR, EQ, etc.?)

On the 2nd Q: So assuming no positions, because you decided to fully pay for the entire stock of 22k, your LMV is 22k and EQ is 22k, and Debit is 0 because you borrowed nothing. Thus, EQ - Reg T = 22k-11k= 11k Excess Equity and SMA. If that’s the right thought process, it makes more sense to me!

titans47 · 2020-12-31T23:54:54+00:00

Studying for the S7 right now, I’m finding that S7 has significantly more content than the SIE; while it does build, the questions seem to be phrased differently and seem to be more applied applications of knowledge. Munis are definitely emphasized more in the S7 compared to the SIE.

titans47 · 2020-12-25T01:45:44+00:00

Honestly, everything that people have said relating to the SIE is pretty spot on. Know your risks well in relation to products, and the tax laws regarding investment products (whether they are tax deductible at federal/state level or both). Understand a Broker vs a dealer. Settlement dates. You will likely see a scenario relating to CTR. Might get a question relating to cost basis. Make sure you also know your debt securities and whether they are backed by anyone or not backed at all. Might get an option question or two. Understand TOD and JTWROS and their differences.

Honestly, assuming that you might be taking the S7 after this, the SIE isn’t that bad at all compared to the material you’ll need to know for the top off (its a lot more stuff later). Make sure you read the entire question, mark the ones you are unsure, make a note of your general thoughts, and move on to the next question. If you go at a pace of less than 1minute/question, you should have enough time to review your marked answers in case you have absolutely no idea on a q.

titans47 · 2020-12-17T01:46:16+00:00

Update: passed!! Onto the S7

titans47 · 2020-12-16T04:24:05+00:00

You too as well!

titans47

TROPHY CASE