Practice and exam technique

How CFP case studies are built, and how to take six hours of them.

CFP practice questions, and why the case studies are the whole examStand-alone questions are the easy half of this exam. The scenarios and case studies are where it is decided, because they require rules from three kn…
How case studies are built, and how to read oneA case gives a fuller client picture - assets, family, goals, constraints - supporting several questions that usually span three domains. Details are …
Practice questions: retirement savings and incomeRetirement is 18 per cent of the exam, the largest domain. These five cover the rule of 55, rollover mechanics, required minimum distributions, the pr…
Practice questions: professional conduct and regulationProfessional conduct is 8 per cent of the exam and the source material is one readable document. These five cover the fiduciary duty, conflict managem…
Practice questions: investment planningInvestment planning is 17 per cent of the exam. These five cover choosing between risk-adjusted measures, correlation and diversification, duration, a…
Practice questions: tax planningTax planning is 14 per cent of the exam and appears inside questions scored elsewhere. These five cover gifted property basis, capital loss netting, t…
Practice questions: estate planningEstate planning is 10 per cent of the exam. These five cover titling overriding the will, incidents of ownership, portability, the qualified disclaime…
Practice questions: risk management and insuranceInsurance is 11 per cent of the exam and turns on contract definitions rather than reasoning. These five cover occupational definitions, coinsurance, …
Practice questions: general principlesGeneral principles is 15 per cent of the exam and supplies machinery used everywhere else. These five cover prioritization, time value of money setup,…
Mock exams as a study tool, not a measurementSit it full length and timed, review for at least as long as the sitting, and sort every miss into knowledge, misreading or pacing. Only the first goe…
Pacing: how to spend two minutes a question unevenlyJust over two minutes a question is an average across recall items and case studies. Answer recall questions in under a minute to bank time for cases …
Ranking questions: when every option is defensibleRanking questions offer several defensible actions and ask which comes first. Resolve them by asking what is binding, what is irreversible, and what t…
What a mock score is evidence ofA mock percentage is a percentage on that bank. The real exam is pass or fail with no published mark, so no practice score predicts it. Its value is a…
Practice questions: psychology of financial planningPsychology is 7 per cent of the exam and answers follow from a few principles: understand before advising, address the emotion before the arithmetic, …