Pass Perfect is the way to go. I have only been in the industry for a few months, and I ONLY used the the Pass Perfect study guide and I passed. I got a 70%... I do believe that I would have done better if I had more experience in the industry, but it is possible to pass even if you're a newbie and you rely on the PassPerfect guide. Read the entire manual, then really focus on the final exams at the end of the binder... some of the questions on the real exam were almost exactly the same as the ones on the practice finals... and read ALL of the answers' explanations, even the ones you got right... it really reinforces your knowledge and provides some new info that's not spelled out in the chapters.
jess24 great feedback on your expereince with passperfect study guide. the most positive i heard yet it's the best source most have said to use to pass this test
This morning i took the series 56 exam and passed with an 80%. I thought the test was very hard. i spent 95% of my time studying from the pass perfect manual in which i can thank for allowing me to pass. any other resource out there is worthless in my opinion. Even after spending probably 120 or more hours studying for this thing( just a guess,probably more) i was still amazed that i seemed to be guessing on far more questions than my comfort level would tolerate. When the exam was finished and my score was being tallied, my heart was in my throat because, frankly, i was unsure if i passed or failed. i was not very confident judging by the questions i just answered. Apparently all my study time paid off because i was able to make smart educated guesses on things instead of having absolutely no clue. There were some questions that were completely from left field that was not covered in the pass perfect nor anywhere else. Well, with that said, i am going to sell my pass perfect book which has not been marked on in anyway. the only thing i did to it was staple the final exams at the back of the book together so i could go over the material easier. i unstapled the tests and placed them back in the 3 ring binder where they belong unblemished with the exception of a few staple holes. i paid 160.00 for this thing with shipping. i purchased it about 1 month ago. i will sell it for 100.00 which includes shipping and not a penny less.i will only mail in within the continental united states. Good luck everyone!!
Congrats on passing. If you dont mind, what is your industry experience? Options experience? Were the tests in pass perfect in any way close to the exams? I just picked it up today and it seems that the creators of the material have knowledge of what's on the exam. Thanks
hi there my industry experience is small. i was stupid enough to be a member of VCM before i knew about the shady nature of the thing and had no understanding about proper regulatory structure I just did not know any better. the only options experience i have is from a book i read by a guy named wade cook who eventually spent time(or still is doing time) in prison. His book explaining options was superb though. even though they were pie in the sky option theories, he did provide an excellent foundation for options. ironically, the amount of questions on the exam about options was much smaller than what i would have liked due to the fact that understanding them is one of my strengths. What i am saying is that if you have no background in the industry and simply take the pass perfect material and study it religiously(and i mean it) you will have an excellent shot at passing. Other than some options theory as well as having some practical experience actually trading stocks, i had no "behind the scenes' insight as to the underpinnings of the securities industry that this exam seeks to test. Although this info is useless in trading, the pass perfect gave me enough information to be able to pass the exam with an 80% on my first try. Without the pass perfect, i imagine that i would be lucky to get 40% i read through the book twice( very slowly) and took every test question at the end of the chapters as well as did the 450 questions at the end of the booklet twice!! As someone else has said, make sure you go over all the final exam questions and go over the detailed answer explanations that are provided. this is a great learning experience in its own right and will only help you. My advice, forget everything else other than the pass perfect and commit to spend 100 hours or so going over this. better to overkill this thing than to be put out of trading as well as keep paying 200.00 per test try. you certainly do not want to be out of the game for 180 days!! suck it up and study hard and be done with this thing once and for all!! p.s. if you do want a good resource on an introduction to options, get wade cook's wall street money machine book which you should be able to pick up off of ebay for 1.00 or so with 3.00 of shipping!!
Draytownswayer Congrats for passing the exam plus giving us your feedback and thank you guys for wishing me luck on my third attempt. It feels good knowing that the passperfect material seems the way to go, I am going trough it very carefully without hurries and actually learning some good foundations about the industry. Please keep posting your ideas, comments, suggestions and final scores. Good luck to everyone.......
Drayton, nice going on passing. It seems the general consensus is the Pass Perfect manual is more comprehensive than the CBOE manual (even though both will work). Juanangel: Kovan's earlier post had a good suggestion: Keep a running tally on the laminated worksheets they give you for all of the questions you are confident you got right, which will allow you to gage the number of questions you know are either educated or blind guesses. Then work through those questions the best you can which will hopefully boost your score to the passing mark. I had also done this and felt it was helpful. It's obviously not an impossible exam, it's just damn difficult!
Passed today. The test is difficult but not impossible. The problem is that you need multiple study guides to know a majority of the question. I studied with the pass perfect and cboe. The pass perfect is good for setting up enough background information to get the difficult questions right. Where as he cboe is good finite information. Offten information will conflict between the pass perfect and cboe- when it does, trust the cboe. But, do not even bother taking the cboe practice exam, they state this in there outline. The pass perfect practice test are good in the sense that they will test your general understanding of the concepts...but they are only partially representative of the real exam.
I passed today. Read the PassPerfect and memorized the practice questions. They're all not accurate as stated by others. I studied for about 45 hrs or so total and got a 74. I preferred the Eurex exam in 2002. At least with them all the questions were there and you could just memorize those.