As you may know, I stopped trading about two months ago to pursue a job as a Financial Adviser. As part of my pre-employment qualification process, I have to pass the Series 7, Series 66, and Life, Health, and Variable Annuity exams. Most of the last 6 weeks has been spent cramming my brain full of securities related garb in preparation for the 7. I have read two books totaling about 800 pages (one I basically read twice), handwritten about 150 pages of notes, highlighted about 100 pages of crap, and answered over 600 multiple choice questions. What does all of the work add up to; sitting for a 6hr 250 question exam.

Yesterday I studied from 7:00 AM till midnight and got up at 5:00 this morning to drive to Jackson, MS for my test. I was quite nervous because my practice exam results were pretty pathetic. My scores on the four practice test were 84, 75, 65, and 62. Not so great. My trip this morning was a bit edgy also, as I drove about 100 miles with one eye on the road and one eye on study materials. “Municipal bond interest is tax-free except when… WHO IS THIS FOOL PULLING OUT IN FRONT OF ME!” You get the picture.

Any way. The exam is a two part test of 130 questions each with a 1hr break for lunch. There are 10 “bonus” questions on the Series 7, which I find to be quite juvenile. It’s all computerized so you can easily mark questions for review and go back over them at the end. One other advantage (maybe disadvantage) is that you know your score immediately upon completion of the exam. I am accustomed to waiting a few days or weeks to get test results after 6 years of college (don’t laugh, I changed my major twice and switched colleges about 5 times). So I get through with the first half of the exam in about 1.5 hours, and I am feeling pretty confident. My hour lunch break was spent shoving down buffalo wings at Chili’s and contemplating ordering a Presidente Margarita to calm my nerves. I wonder if FINRA (NASD) has any rules about TWI (Testing While Intoxicated). The hour went by much too fast, leaving me only 5 minutes before signing back in for the final push toward certification.

When I got back, some bastard had taken my computer so I had to be re-deployed to another machine. Sorry about that Computer 9, I really wanted to finish what we started. Computer 15 is a loser! The room was cold, and the hum coming from the A/C unit did nothing to help my concentration. The second part of the test was more difficult. I came across several questions that totally confused me, and some that pertained to information that wasn’t in the two books I read. “Ennie-Meeny-Miny-Mo” came in real handy on a few occasions. As I got closer and closer to the last question, tension began to build to the point that I was reluctant to click the little “Exit” button signaling my completion of the exam. The worst part was waiting the 10-20 seconds it took to actually calculate my score. Boy did that ever seem like a lifetime! Did I mention if I fail the exam I have to wait another month before taking it again?

When my score was finally processed it was not what I was expecting. I was expecting to see my score prominently displayed on the screen in bold font and flashing colors. Not the case. When I finally found my score it was neatly tucked away in a small corner of a large report showing all the statistics from my exam. The first thing I see is “Pass”. A little relief. “Where is the damn score”? Ah, there it is “84%”. Nice! I skim over the report and see that the national pass percentage is currently 66% with the national average score coming in at 73%. I guess I am above average, or maybe I just studied 11% more than the average joe. Next up, Series 66. I will be back with the details on that one later.

-Ainkurn