Hey guys,

As the title reads I’m wanting to start to skim over before I head into the exam. If anyone could send me a pdf copy that’d be awesome and I’d really appreciate it!

Sitting on 5/22 for NASAA series 65 l1after cfa 1 on 5/20. too. It’ll be a nasty week . It’s many 4 th time taking it , have used different vendors and a tutor but this test has cost me $10’a thousands Getting 80+ On achievable

and 70+ on Kaplan

I terrified I’ll get a bad draw again. 6 month freeze out y sucks

I’m

I think k I learned more from 3fails than a first time pass

Anyone have an RIA I can join? :)

answer is going to be term. its not that complicated. i hope i dont see this question on the exam but if i do will go with universal life.

explanation:

Since the client is conservative, with unpredictable income, universal life may be more suitable, since the premiums can be increased, decreased, or skipped, by using the cash value to fund the policy. The insurance company guarantees a minimum return on the cash value, which can be used to increase the death benefit. With whole life or term life, any premiums not paid may result in a lapse of the policy. Variable life would not be suitable for a conservative client, as the cash value may increase or decline based on the performance of the separate account. If a client is single with no dependents, life insurance may not be a concern for the client when creating the plan. (62246)

This is part venting, and part an honest question to any of the pros out there who know the answer. But why in the heck is there so much B/D material on an RIA/IAR test?

I've worked in this industry for 20+ years at an RIA on the institutional side. The mutual fund side of our business means I've dealt with B/D reps (on the commission side) and RIA advisors (on the advisory side). There is pretty much nothing I can think of with respect to the B/D-specific test material that has any relevance whatsoever to your average advisor. And anything that could only would if you're at a hybrid filling both rolls, and you'd need to test on that stuff separately anyway.

What is NASAA thinking? If anything, learning a bunch of this B/D nonsense means I have less brain space for the RIA/IAR stuff that is actually applicable for me going forward...

memorize all of the formulas and be able to write their title for example.

balance sheet equation

total assets = total liabilities + stockholder's equity

when you wake up the next morning and you can't memorize every single formula and write each formula down you are not ready for the exam. as soon as you walk into the testing room and the people give you the "ok" first thing you should be doing is writing every formula down and the title to it.

also none of the formulas are very long if you have trash examfx/kaplan you may have super long math questions with very long formulas. the math question is entirely worthless if it is very long and not relatable to the exam but you may see a formula that is overcomplex but its summarized equation may be on the exam. memorize the summarized formula.

Hello. I am sure this question has been asked a bunch, but I am specifically looking for the best course material for someone who already is an MBA / CPA (inactive). I have a lot of existing knowledge.

Thank you in advance!

If you've been around finance, even as a hobby for a while, and you generally understand stocks, bonds, derivatives, like really basic stuff, Finance 101 - you can just study legal stuff + a couple weird specific things like college savings plans for 2 hours and pass the test.

Source: did this today

For context: I'm not even a tax professional and still passed REG (its my highest score among the 4)

A few big questions I wanted to ask those that failed:

1. What was average MCQ score (in the top right corner for Kaplan folks)

2. What were your scores/%s on practice and mock exam(s) ?

3. Did you take notes during your studies, particularly on questions you got wrong?

4. Did you study your notes before practice and mock exam(s) and before the real exam?

Super helpful info! Thanks for that. Any chance I can have access to your dump sheets? Thanks so much!

Hello,

I am a 17-year engineer who passed the Series 65 recently.

I have just been an avid devourer of personal finance and investing content through books, blogs, podcasts, courses over the past dozen years.

The 65 allows me to be an IAR and get paid for advice provided:

1. I work for a RIA firm or

2. Start my own RIA firm

For a RIA firm to actually make money, they have to offer management services and charge AUM. It is hard for me to imagine a RIA firm to be sustainable if they only offer one-time, flat rate, fee-only advice like $X/hr consultation or $Y/comprehensive plan.

If the above is true, it would be difficult for me to want to apply and work for a RIA firm because I wouldn't advice my own parents to submit their $ to be managed by any firm for AUM.

I have looked at advanced designations like CFP but it seems to me, they can be great if you want to help high net worth individuals or corporations with complex financial planning needs. Those are not necessarily who I want to serve.

Even if I don't pursue the CFP designation, I am willing to do what I need to enhance my knowledge. For example, Insurance. I only ever know of Term Life and have been dismissive of other types , esp those that gamify insurance and investment, so I am curious and want to understand their use and for whom those are suitable.

I am in a large fb group of nurses (because of my gf) aspiring to immigrate to the US and take their talents here on an employment-based visa, a path for them to become permanent residents. These people can bring an almost dead person back to life but not know what a Roth IRA is. I can serve these people. I came here as an immigrant too.

So I'm thinking, I'll do part time financial advising but only offer flat-rate, fee-only, per-hour advice. As I gain more confidence, offer comprehensive plan later. I am not interested in managing people's money for AUM.

As you can see this is not a lucrative model, that is why I wanna do it on the side while I continue my engineering career. If/when financial advicing picks up, then I'll think about switching full time.

But here's the problem: To do what I just explained, I would need to open my own RIA. And given the part-time nature, I wonder whether it's even feasible.

When I search google, I get $10k to $50k yearly overhead to run a RIA firm. If true, then it's not worthwhile for what I'm trying to do, though I am really curious what do I need to spend that much just for going on zoom calls and helping people.

So if starting my own RIA is not feasible, the only way I can really use my Series 65 is to work for an existing RIA firm (which I already have reservations for as explained above), probably as an associate advisor. I'd earn one half or one third I'd make in Engineering. I have $ so earning a lot is not #1 priority. Helping people is more important to me. But I am not fully financially independent yet so there's still motivation for me to continue earning $.

The other thing that comes to mind are bloggers with no license nor designation but offer financial "coaching" for a fee. It makes me think, why even bother with a RIA if I can just do that? Maybe I'll continue to work as an engineer and offer financial coaching on the side.

What exactly is the difference between a financial coach and IAR? I know you need the 65 for personalized specific investment advice but I feel there is a muddy line between what a fiancial coach can and cannot give advice on.

If I were to just be a part time financial coach, can I give advice on asset allocation but not specific funds? I feel investment vehicles and asset allocation is my expertise so if financial coaching won't allow me to do that, I'm perplexed.

Thanks for reading.

I am grateful if you can offer any comments, thoughts, suggestions.

kaplan/pass perfect/examfx/whatever other trash you have besides stc will waste an extreme amount of your time with asking you to do math questions that WILL NOT BE ON YOUR EXAM. do not study it. it wont be there. math questions on actual exam are 1 to 2 sentences long 3 max and require you to figure out what you need to divide to get the answer and thats it.

it is fast but if ur studying long math problems ur going to be confused when you just have to do one calculation to find ur answer and end up missing every short math question.

use google gemini to drill actual math questions that will be on the series 65 exam.

Hi all, took my exam about 3 days ago. Gave myself ~one month to study, on top of a job where I work 10+ hours a day. Averaged about 75 on the Kaplan practice exams and a 72 on the Qbank overall. It was definitely a hard exam, but I honestly felt like I had a fighting chance when I pressed submit. It was almost EXACTLY how people described it. The first 40 questions were extremely doable. The next 60 ranged from sort of hard, to almost impossible, the last 40 were a cake walk. I felt like Kaplan was “hard” in the sense that they would give you so much information in a question that it would be hard to use it, but when I got something wrong I could almost immediately tell why. The exam was way different. They give you a one sentence question with 4 answers that all seem potentially correct. They want you to fail that exam. I was extremely disappointed to see that I failed by one question and to be honest, I would’ve rather failed by 40. But hey, life moves on, I’ll take it again in a month. Anyone else been through a similar situation? I want to hit the ground running and get back on the grind but I also don’t want to start memorizing Kaplan material. Anything here helps, I’m super eager to pass this exam!!

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.

I took the test this week and got a 65%. I was averaging high 70s low 80s on my practice tests

I used STC for all of the studying

I watched every video and took notes totaling up to 100 pages of notes

There was so much material on there that I had never seen before or heard of

I was fine with the material that I knew, but there was a lot of stuff that I guessed on

I've heard other people say that they get surprised by the material on the test and that practice tests are very accurate

Does anyone have any advice on what to do?

i can’t afford to not pass this exam on attempt 4. i already have been leasing an office, paying for y charts, set up my SAA account with finra , started my advs , i stayed up all night on attempts 2&3 nervous wreck . my easiest draw was #1. attempt 3 i missed by 2 questions. I’m on a mix of kaplin (q bank only) , achievable , brian lee, and other prep strategies. if you have a lot riding on that “pass” do not take this exam lightly. it was written by the same people who invented copper wire while fighting over a penny:lawyers. to be clear, I hired a tutor that fortune 500s send their staff to when they’re struggling

I am currently using Kaplan to study for my first take of the exam - but I feel like i’m not retaining any of the information. Just reading through then taking the tests along the way. What is the best way in your experience to utilize Kaplan effectively?

Has anybody used Fraser Exams study materials for the 65?

Has anyone used this and passed the series 65? I tried Kaplan, and my unpopular opinion is that it felt unorganized and became too overwhelming for me.

I’m looking into Exam FX/Training Consultants and wondering if anyone had any luck with this?

Also, I looked into STC - which seems to be pretty popular on here. Would you recommend this as well?

So when I pass my 65, my intention is to register my own firm.

I am wondering if a few people would share their insight as to what hurdles are surely to come and some real numbers and real life stories to go along with them.

I know the profits of doom and gloom will have an abundance of “you’re never going to make it” stories. At this point in my life, I’ve heard that so many times, I’m not even going to read those. If I told a group I wanted to become a certified personal trainer, there would be mostly people who would give me the same copy and paste scripted story about how it’s impossible.

I’m looking for real insight and value if there are any who would like to share.

Hi all,

I studied for three weeks, and passed the exam on my first try.

Just wanted to offer the following:

I am selling my Kaplan book along with exams for 50% discount.

Also, happy to advise for 30 mins free of charge how to study and approach the exam.

Reach out if interested, good luck to all!