I received a couple of comments regarding my posts on the Series 65 exam and the Series 66 exam which I would like to share with the community.  Both comments were made by Chuck Lowenstein, a Senior Editor – Securities at Kaplan Financial Education.

Regarding the post Differences between the Series 65 and Series 66 Exam, I received the following comment:

I must take issue with the statement that the Series 66 exam is easier to pass than the Series 65 for those with a Series 7 registration. Our experience with many thousands of students who have taken these tests indicates differently. An applicant with a Series 7 license will almost always have an easier time passing the Series 65 than the 66 and there are several obvious reasons for this.

1) Passing score on the 65 is only 68.5% while it is an industrywide high requirement of 71% on the Series 66.

2) The “extra” material added to the Series 65 is on subjects very familiar to most Series 7’s. For example, there are questions on common and preferred stock, mutual funds, options and limited partnership programs; all topics thoroughly covered on an Series 7 training program. There is extensive coverage of economics and analysis, but very little that is not part of the Series 7 exam.

3) 80 of the 100 questions (80%) of the Series 66 are based upon state and federal laws, while only 45 questions (35%) of the Series 65 cover this topic. Because these questions deal with the intracies of the law, these are typically the most difficult questions for students to handle.

The real advantage in taking the Series 66 is that, for those who will be selling securities as well as giving advice, is that it “kills two birds with one stone”. That is, instead of being required to sit for both the Series 65 and the Series 63 (Uniform Securities Agent State Law Examination), taking the Series 66 covers one for both.

Regarding the post The Series 65 Exam, I received the following comment:

Hi:

Thanks for the kind words about the Kaplan course. I have recently taken the responsibility for editing the Series 63, 65 and 66 exams and was amazed at the number of errors. Although most were typographical in nature, there were far too many where one would mark the correct answer to a question only to be told that it was wrong.

Our 4th Editions of the Series 65 and Series 66 are just released and I believe I have caught virtually all of these mistakes. In addition, our new platform allows us to post errata on our website on a daily basis so, just in case there is something that I overlooked, it will be posted for all to see.