Study the tests.  I don’t know what Fire Solution is and it has been 14 yrs since I took the 7 but for me at least after studying all the material I spent a majority of my time using the test questions as study aids.  I took every practice test numerous times.  I got myself so that I could answer the test questions with out looking at the possible multiple choice answers.  Many of the questions were VERY similiar to the actual test.     

scale back studying and take more tests

I spend no more than 4 hours a day reading the book - I went through it once casually to get an idea and im on the second read through

I took the first practice test and scored a 70 on it - obviously not great but I just went off of what i read with no notes or highlights or anything.

Rereading things has always helped me - you might learn different.

I agree with Juiced. Take more of the practice exams and study the correct answers. I took and passed the exam last month. I studied with the Pass Perfect Material for 6 weeks and I got an 80. I am studying for the 66 right now and I am studdying the same way hopefully I will get the same result

I echo the above.

Keep taking the practice tests until you are scoring 85 at minimum.

[quote=Beach]I just took a practice midterm and i barely passed. 
Now I am not a dumb guy, I graduated college with a mid 3s GPA, but any
advice on what i can do to improve would be very helpful.  [/quote]



My experience with the S7 was that the practice exams were MUCH more difficult than the Series 7 exam itself.



If you are barely passing the practice exams, you’ll probably score in
the 80s on the real thing.  I was doing mid 80s on the practice
exams (after doing a few lower) and aced the S7.



Don’t fret it.  Perhaps you need a break for a day or two to recharge your batteries.



The S7 material isn’t difficult.  It’s broad and there’s a lot of it.



Good luck.

No No…If you think you’re not ready for the exam, Don’t take it. Trust me, its better to bump it then failling it. Just keep taking exams. The key is to go over the ones you got wrong. Go back to the chapters. Read it over. Take your time. Good luck.

I think you are spending too much time and effort memorizing.  Don’t memorize.  Learn.  Think.  The answer should be intuitive, not regurgitated.  Good luck!

have a couple of beers and get a good night’s sleep

Thanks for the advice all.  I am not taking the test until late Aug.  So i have some time to work on the way that i study.  So i really have like 6 more weeks and since i’m half way done that should be enough time to past the test. 

You will pass.

When you get an answer wrong HAND write out the correct answer.  WRITING enhances learning.

good luck.

[quote=maybeeeeeeee]

You will pass.

When you get an answer wrong HAND write out the correct answer.  WRITING enhances learning.

good luck.

Joe, what is that.  Can you explain.  Also, what do you do.  It should be much easier to talk here now that Put is gone.  Who de activated him?

[quote=maybeeeeeeee]

Joe, what is that.  Can you
explain.  Also, what do you do.  It should be much easier to
talk here now that Put is gone.  Who de activated him?

Hey there..  I am a strong believer that its easy for one to over study. I mean spending a few hours learning the data is much better then looking at material for 6-8 hours. Also there is only so much productive learning possible in a day.

So advice from a guy who administers and completed thousands of tests... Focus on the hotsheets and add notes to them. Knowing that muni's and options are a large portion on test make sure you know them inside and out. Focus on the areas where you are struggling most. 

Personally I think the dearborn disk is awesome! One can figure out what areas they are having issues with and focus on that area with numerous questions.

Well good luck and most important confidence is important!

[quote=joedabrkr] [quote=maybeeeeeeee]

Joe, what is that.  Can you explain.  Also, what do you do.  It should be much easier to talk here now that Put is gone.  Who de activated him?

[/quote]

S24= registered general securities principal

You have to have one to own/supervise your own branch.

It's a higher level license than the series 8 sales supervisory license held by most wirehouse managers.....
[/quote]

Series 8 is now called Series 9 and Series 10.  They split the exam into two sections.

Additiionally, everything in Series 24 is covered in Series 9/10 so it is wrong to say that Series 24 is a "higher level" license.  They are different.

The Series 24 is generally considered to be a walk in the park if the candidate studies for a few days, the Series 9/10 is signficantly more difficult.  It is along the lines of the Series 27 and the Series 4.

The NASD requires those who supervise employees of NON-NYSE member firms to pass the Series 24.

The NYSE wants their supverisors to know far more, so they require the 9/10.

I am not 100% certain, but I believe that if an individual has the Series 8 (or the newer 9/10) and they leave their NYSE branch manager, or higher, job to join a NON-NYSE member firm in a supervisory position the NASD accepts their Series 8 in lieu of the Series 24.

It's something that I cannot happening. Why would somebody who was in management with a NYSE member firm toss it all over the side to accept a job with a non-member firm?

I used Fire Solutions for my 7 last month. My advice is to do the Finals over and over. The actual test was more difficult than the Firesolutions exams. The night before I went over Fed, state, and nasd rules and regs. Passed w/88% but had about 6 months to prepare due to my “window” being delayed for outside business interests.

[quote=Arkbroker]

I used Fire Solutions for my 7 last month. My advice is to do the Finals over and over. The actual test was more difficult than the Firesolutions exams.

[/quote]

That is the issue with exam prep courses.  It's like the three bears, "Mine is too hot, mine is too cold, mine is just right."

Pass Perfect is too hard, Fire Solutions is too cold, but Dearborn and STC (especially the latter) are just right.

So just right, in fact, that there are those who believe that those two firms may have some sort of inside track to the test itself.

We suspect that is not the case so much as it's got to do with the longevity in the business and the size of the organizations.  Pass Perfect is a way too small an organization to effectively keep up with things and they don't do classes so they can't develop the relationships that lead to people who just took the test talking to a coach about what they just saw.

FIRE is not only small, it's also new.  But even worse is that it's on-line.  On line delivery of learning material is still in its infancy and everybody who does it is finding it to be far more difficult than it would seem.  Merrill's MLU program is a constant source of complaints--mostly because there are too few people to properly administer it.

What seems to be happening is an online author or editor spends a singificant amount of time writing the material, publishing it to the web, insuring the links work and so forth.  Finally it is done as best they can tell and they put it on line and then move on to task two.

They are now deep into task two when the field sales force--or whomever the target audience is--begins to pick apart Task One that was, at least in theory, already done.  Emails begin to flood in, "Can't understand third paragraph on page 127...."  Well, the third paragraph can be rewritten more clearly but the person who wrote it in the first place is now working on Task Two and that rewrite will just have to wait.

Anyway, Dearborn  and STC have both been doing this since the exams started in the late 1960s.  Their material has been rewritten and rewritten till it's about as good as it gets.  The only thing that users seem to find to complain about is an incorrect letter answer in an answer key.  They say the answer is B when it fact it's D--that sort of mistake.

About 99% of the time they actually explain answer D and anybody with an average IQ would be able to say, "Look, they explain why answer D is correct but they indicated that the answer is B.  That's something they have probably already corrected."

You'd be surprised how often somebody will whine that they have no faith in the entire textbook because question 46 on test 9 had B instead of D as an answer.  That they--the candidate--are so emotionally damaged by this that they are going to need a second chance at the test in the event they fail.

[quote=Marvin Maven][quote=joedabrkr] [quote=maybeeeeeeee]

Joe, what is that.  Can you explain.  Also, what do you do.  It should be much easier to talk here now that Put is gone.  Who de activated him?

[/quote]

S24= registered general securities principal

You have to have one to own/supervise your own branch.

It's a higher level license than the series 8 sales supervisory license held by most wirehouse managers.....
[/quote]

Series 8 is now called Series 9 and Series 10.  They split the exam into two sections.

Additiionally, everything in Series 24 is covered in Series 9/10 so it is wrong to say that Series 24 is a "higher level" license.  They are different.

The Series 24 is generally considered to be a walk in the park if the candidate studies for a few days, the Series 9/10 is signficantly more difficult.  It is along the lines of the Series 27 and the Series 4.

The NASD requires those who supervise employees of NON-NYSE member firms to pass the Series 24.

The NYSE wants their supverisors to know far more, so they require the 9/10.

I am not 100% certain, but I believe that if an individual has the Series 8 (or the newer 9/10) and they leave their NYSE branch manager, or higher, job to join a NON-NYSE member firm in a supervisory position the NASD accepts their Series 8 in lieu of the Series 24.

It's something that I cannot happening. Why would somebody who was in management with a NYSE member firm toss it all over the side to accept a job with a non-member firm?

[/quote]

Wrong sir.  The series 9/10 is the standard certification for NYSE member branch managers.  It is a license which strictly allowed a principal to 'supervise sales efforts'.  Inf fact, it is called "General Securities Sales Supervisor".  Sales....sorta sums it all up.  That is pretty much all that it's about at a wirehouse branch, not about taking care of the clients, or having pride in the quality of one's work product.

  The 24 entitles a principal to manage essentially all aspects of a firm, including investment banking, trading, sales, and approval of advertising.  A ser 9 holder is not authorized to approve advertising.  That would be why your compliance officers-either in branch or in the home office, generally have a series 24 license.  Fresh out of the Dearborn series 24 study guide.

[quote=joedabrkr]

  The 24 entitles a principal to manage essentially all aspects of a firm, including investment banking, trading, sales, and approval of advertising.  A ser 9 holder is not authorized to approve advertising.  That would be why your compliance officers-either in branch or in the home office, generally have a series 24 license.  Fresh out of the Dearborn series 24 study guide.

[/quote]

As is often the case, a little knowledge is dangerous.

It is true that the Series 24 allows one to approve advertising while the Series 9 does not.

First, the Series 9 is an options test and has nothing to do with advertising or anything else besides options.

But let's give Joe a break, he's had a bad run of being wrong, let's suppose he meant to say Series 10.

Fine, Series 10 is the NYSE equvialent of the NASD Series 24--the NYSE refers to it as a General Securities Sales Supervisor while the NASD refers to their version as a General Securities Principal.

But why would the holder of a Series 10 not be able to approve advertising?  Well, here's the deal.

Back about 1985 or so the NYSE decided to cede several of their supervisory duties to the NASD.  There was duplication of effort and the members of the NYSE appealed to the NYSE board to simplify their lives by allowing them to work with the NASD alone instead of the NASD and the NYSE.  Chief on that list of dupicate activity was advertising approval.

Pre 1985 there was an advertising standards committee of the NYSE and an advertising standards committee at the NASD and firms that belonged to both--i.e. Smith  Barney--had to submit everything twice. Sometimes the NYSE was more demanding than the NASD, but not always. It was a guessing game.

Well, once the NYSE advertising standards committee was gone there had to be a person at a place like Morgan Keegan who would be empowered to approve the firm's advertising.  But since the NYSE no longer had such a committee the NYSE no longer had the power to empower an individual to do something on behalf of the NASD.

A chance for the NASD to get MORE TESTING FEES!  People at wirehouses--primarily compliance types--had to qualify as a principal with the NASD as well as with the NYSE.  They had to take the rather silly Series 24 exam.

What one must never forget is that the Series 10--the NYSE version--is a 145 question exam for which four hours are allowed.  The NASD version--Series 24--has 150 questions, but less time.

One would wonder why the NYSE version has fewer questions, but allows more time.  And the answer would be because it is a lot harder.

Additionally, those who take Series 10 also take Series 9 which is a 155 question test on NOTHING BUT OPTIONS.  You get 90 minutes to do 155 options questions.  It is failed a huge percent of the time because when you can ask 155 things about a single topic there's lots of room to get really tricky.

I passed it in 20 minutes with a 98.7%.  I missed two questions.  I intentionally missed one so that they wouldn't think I had cheated, but damn if I didn't miss a second one somehow.