Just passed the 56 today and scored an 89. Initially I bought the material from theseries56.com. Do not make that mistake. The material on theseries56.com is often inaccurate and makes no sense. Total waste of time and money.
After realizing this, I bought the Pass Perfect material and I found the material extremely useful. I studied a lot for the exam, but in retrospect, I would have just done the section exams in the pass perfect material, read about what I did not know, and then done the practice exams and read the answers and explanations for all of the questions.
The actual exam had a few questions that were seemingly out of left field. Some of the questions were not at all covered in the Pass Perfect material.
I think these multiple choice exams really come down to game theory and how you process the questions. If somebody approaches the test with the knowledge that you have to focus on the "best answer," not necessarily what you think is the correct answer, they will do just fine.
I think I was probably "over prepared," but I'm glad that I was.
Just bumping this thread for those traders who found this thread on Google search like I did.
I took the 56 today for the 1st time and got a 77. The test took me something like 65 minutes to answer all 105 questions. I spent about 70+ hours studying the Pass Perfect book over the last 2 months. I was getting 50's and 60's the first time I took the practice exams; probably averaging around mid-70s the 2nd time around. For those who have said the PP exams are harder than the actual exam, I would probably tend to agree although they are very similar.
I didn't even bother with anything other than PP just based on what I was told and researched. The book proves more than adequate. The vast majority of the test was general exchange and clearing stuff (ch. 3-4 in PP). Considering how big the options chapter of the PP book is, there were maybe 8-10 questions on the actual exam; none of which was calculating max gain or anything like that, just general hedging strategies. I never once had to use my calculator/do any mental math. There were definitely more questions than I would've cared for that came completely out of left field, but the majority of the test was actually fairly similar to the PP practice exams. I'm hoping the 5 questions they throw out came from the random questions that were absolutely not in the PP book, and not the easier stuff.
I was definitely a little stressed about the test given all that I had read about the test being different from the PP book, but the truth is if you can learn the PP book then you should do fine. I'm just glad it's over with, and now I can forget about all that useless crap forever!
Good job passing. We will be holding a free 3 day online Series 56 review class from October 23rd through October 25th. Please email us at info@jctradinggroup.com for more details.
How different was the exam the second time around from the first? Where there any of the same questions or was it all completely new? How similar was it the second time?
I failed the 56 this past Wed. by one point.... So, like you I am now scrambling to acquire the missing material I will need for round two. Thanks.
Quote from Kovan:
Okay, after all my ranting, I managed to pass at the second attempt (67% on the first attempt, 80% on the second). I used the CBOE manual the first time around (two months agao) and found it to be unreadable and inadequate. I then used an in-house manual that was produced over the last few weeks and that made a tremendous difference.
From what I can gather, Passperfect questions are a good foundation for getting through this exam.
I kept track of the answers I was sure of - a total of 62/105. I had to guess the rest, and a number of guesses were completely blind. A couple of questions on facilitation crosses, and like the first time, questions on what happens subsequent to failure to deliver. There were a lot of questions on illegal trading practices - which I had studied pretty carefully, so that worked out well.
I still consider this exam to be tougher than Series 7 (which I got 93% on back in 2004) - I'm just glad it's over. My firm had warned me of losing trading access on October 30 if I didn't pass by October 29, so I cut it pretty close.
