Hi, I was hoping somebody who's recently taken the new series 57 in the last year or two could tell me how difficult it is. I've been studying with STC, watching the videos, taking notes, doing the custom exams etc. My test is the 11th. Anyone got experiences to share? What areas it focuses on most? I appreciate it. I searched and a lot of the old posts are several years out of date and from the early days back in 2016 and 17.
Welp. I took it today and I passed. I'll leave a post here that will hopefully help others. The test isn't that hard. It's varied. I used STC's coursework and watched the videos about 3-4 times, all 8 of them, and took detailed notes. Also used the flashcards for 45 minutes over the course of 2 weeks and did about 24 custom practice tests on the STC dashboard. (One after each chapter) and a few of their "progress exams" and one or two of their "final exams". A few years ago, people were complaining about how bad some of the study help companies were. That's just because the test was new. Now that it's been a few years, the kinks are ironed out, and the test is only moderately harder than the SIE. The average person could probably pass this in about 3 weeks of studying 3-4 hours a day. Don't underestimate it, but it's not the monster people make it out to be. It's moderately challenging, but doable with enough studying. Anyone with a bachelor's degree that involved college algebra should be able to handle it. (There's no math, beyond addition and subtraction, basic 3rd grade stuff, but the fortitude and study skills to pass college algebra will be useful.) If you could handle that, you'll master this easily. Review your notes. Get good sleep before the exam. And if you're able, do some moderate exercise the morning of.
Did you use the same studying approach with the SIE? If so, how hard was the actual exam compared to the practice final exams?