The Options Institute at CBOE will have a live online class on August 8th and 9th regarding the Series 56 exam review. It's $99 and in addition to the manual (which is also $99 as stated in the prior post). Here's the link for the contact info at CBOE: http://www.cboe.com/framed/PDFframe...C11-067.pdf§ion=SEC_ABOUT_CBOE&title=CBOE - CBOE
Good to know. Has anyone ordered the manual from PassPerfect.com? The price difference is $99 for the CBOE vs. $150 from Pass Perfect, except I was told the manual from Pass Perfect is 400 pages!!! My guess is either manual will work to help pass the exam. Any feedback appreciated.
I just took the exam today and failed with 67%. I was regularly getting 96% or so on the practice tests issued by the CBOE. Only about 50-60% of the questions in the exam were covered by the Options Institute Study Guide (I had never even seen a number of the terms mentioned in the exam). The practice tests covered even less ground and I experienced a false sense of optimism as a result. I am no duffer - I got 93% in my Series 7 (but it lapsed), and I have a PhD and three Master's degrees, but I don't see how it's possible to pass this exam without a comprehensive study guide.
Something doesn't smell right here... the S7 and S56 have a lot of overlapping material. What were the discrepancies? What stuff wasn't mentioned? Why weren't you granted a waiver? All S7 holders (lapsed and active) were granted waivers... so I was told anyway.
I took Series 7 in 2004 and I left the business in 2006, only to come back in 2009. My Series 7 lapsed so my firm informs me that I am not exempt from taking the Series 56. I am a quant, so I don't deal with a lot of the administrative issues, so I've forgotten a lot from my Series 7 days (e.g margin requirements for OTC stocks), and some of it is outdated anyway. I was relying on the study guide to cover all topics, but it is too general for the requirements of the test. Series 7 required a number of calculations, which I like, but there were almost no calculations required in S56, so I found it extremely hard. I can't blame the CBOE for not coming up with a comprehensive guide - there was simply not enough time to come up with one. As it is, I believe I won't be able to take the test again until September 21, so I guess I'll have to close out my positions on September 19 and try again.
I'm afraid I can't give any constructive advice. I only missed passing by 3% and I hadn't memorized everything in the study guide, so my approach would be to study every little detail in that book and then make reasonable guesses for everything else. Forget the practice tests - they use a small bank of questions over and over again and they become easy fast. Does anyone who's already taken the test know of a more comprehensive study guide?
Mike: in answer to your points, I should mention that I took Series 7 in 2004 and since I am a quant trader, I don't deal with many of the issues in these kinds of exams on a daily basis - I rely on study material to pass them. I've forgotten much of what I studied in Series 7, but I'm sure there were questions on the Series 56 exam that would not have been covered. In any case, it would be helpful to have a comprehensive study guide. Also, I rely on having to "figure things out" to get some points, but there was virtually none of that on the Series 56 which seemed to rely on very deep knowledge of back office proceedings. Finally, my firm told me that since my Series 7 had lapsed, I had no choice but to take Series 56.