Getting your Series 66 license can be deceivingly harder than many people expect. We’ve seen hundreds of students breath a sigh of relief after passing the Series 7 Top-Off exam, only to hit a brick wall with the Series 66 exam.
If you’re wondering ‘I thought that this exam was supposed to be easy’, then let us explain why it causes so many issues.
Series 66 License: Common Mistakes
Some common mistakes that we see at Professional Exam Tutoring among students en route to getting their Series 66 license include the following:
- Underestimating time needed to study.
- Less time spent on memory work than needed.
- Little understanding of the analytical section.
Let’s review what we mean by each in brief detail.
Underestimating the Time Needed to Study
- After a long slog with the Series 7 Exam, many students hope to relax for the Series 66 exam. Our advice is: don’t relax quite yet! Getting your Series 66 license can still take quite a bit of effort. We recommend that you study at least 2 hours per day, and then 3 to 6 hours on the weekend. If you don’t think this is required you may be in for an unfortunate surprise on exam day. As we outline below, this exam is really broken up into two major parts: 1) rules and regulations, and; 2) analytical/number crunching. Both take some time to really understand.
Less Time Spent on Memory Work than Needed
- With so many rules and regulations, a lot of memory work is needed for the Series 66 exam. The Series 66 difficulty level is higher than many anticipate. While portions of the analytical section (e.g., DCF, NPV, IRR, etc.) may seem difficult, don’t forget about the rules for exempt vs. non-exempt securities, state registered and federally covered advisors, as well as the differences between advertising rules with the SEC vs. the Uniform Securities Act. Most of these rules are not intuitive. You’ll need to spend some time with flash cards, or a study sheet to improve your memory work. Also consider using RemNote. This company recently came highly recommended to us in place of flash cards.
Little Understanding of the Analytical Section
- Discounted Cash Flow. Net Present Value (NPV). Internal Rate of Return (IRR). These three terms haunt many of our students. Unfortunately there are even more like them in the analytical portion of the Series 66 curriculum. Topics such as the efficient market hypothesis, calculating alpha, and various statistical figures can be confusing. Despite their challenges, be sure not to ignore, and overlook this section. Despite their complexity, and analytical focus, the exam can deal more with your understanding of the concepts rather than the exact formulas and how to compute them. If you need help with the main idea around this section, we know a great Series 66 tutor 🙂
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Battle it Out
So what makes the Series 66 so hard? What we hear from most of our students is that they have a hard time because it seems like a two-faced exam. As mentioned above, the exam can feel like a law exam and a finance/analytical exam at the same time. Depending on your strengths and weaknesses, this Jekyll and Hyde exam can have its challenges.
Our advice is that you take it piece by piece. You’ll make it through if you’re methodical about it, and persistent. Stay the course, and of course, reach out before your test date approaches if you need an extra boost. Click here to book a tutor. Good luck!