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Mar 8, 2017 3:45 pm

I woud suggest that you really focus on the investment banking & research section as well as market making. Those 2 areas I struggled the most. I got a 68%; I missed it by 3 questions. Also pay attention to the dates. I strongly feel that you need to focus on the concepts. The practice questions don't really help that much. Know the concepts. It is all memorization.

Mar 10, 2017 1:27 am

Alrighty, so I took the exam this week and got a 78%. First and foremost, I want to thank everybody who posted on here with their advice, because without it, I don't think I would've achieved the same result. Here is my study plan and my time frame.

I studied for a little over 3 weeks. I passed the 7 in October, and the 66 in November, so a lot of the rules and regulations were fresh on my mind still. I originally had bought Kaplan, because it had helped me achieve postive results for the 7 and 66, but I wouldn't recommend the whole package for this exam. The testbank, like everyone said, is not helpful in the slightest. I studied for an hour before work, an hour at lunch, and 3 hours after work for that time period. You honestly have to live and breathe this stuff to keep it fresh on your mind. I read the Kaplan book in the first week to nail down the topics. In the last 2 weeks I only did practice tests. I think all in all my total questions used were around 3500.

1) Buy the Kaplan book, and the book only. It is the most organized and coherent book of them all. (The cheat sheet that you can also buy is well worth it too. I think only $10?)

2) Buy the STC questionbank. Like a previous test taker posted on here already, the crunchtime facts worksheet is worth it alone. I did all 8 practice quizes, and both closed book practice exams twice. The questions are a little more tough than the actual exam, but makes you think more deeply about the topics.

3) Buy the Training Consultants questionsbank. They are the MOST SIMILAR of all the practice questions that I used. I did all 4 practice tests, then did individual chapter tests on the subjects that I was underperforming in.

4) I also purchased the Knopman Marks 24 notecard set per the advice of another test taker.

The test blows, but you have to put in the time to read the actual topics and explanations. Everyone is different in their test taking abilities. I hope this helps. Good luck!

Mar 16, 2017 7:52 pm

Quick question, I am currently studying for the 24 with Kaplan and Pass Perfect. Am I supposed to be able to recite the rule numbers? Should I focus on the rule number, or is understanding that there is a rule for said issue enough?

Thank you!

Mar 24, 2017 12:04 am

I took the Series 24 today and passed with a 74% on my first try! I received a lot of good advice on this site, so I am trying to return the favor for those of you preparing for the exam.

For me, it was the most difficult FINRA exam to date. I have my Series 7, 63, and now 24! :-)

I passed with only using the Training Consultants book, and online exams. Read the book from cover to cover, slowly making sure you understand/comprehend what you are reading.

Take each chapter online exam until you score 85% or better consistently. Take each of the full-legth practice exams. Drill-down (re-read the book) on the chapters/areas that you scored under 70% or lower on.

Make Flash-cards for all of the Main Rules, and for the rules that have how many days/minutes do you have to notify FINRA? Those were the most difficult for me keeping them all straight.

After you take the full-length practice exams, make sure you review ALL of the questions especially the questions you got wrong, making sure to read and UNDERSTAND the explanation on why it was the correct answer. If you dont understand the concept, go back to the book.

To pass this exam, you HAVE to understand the underlying concepts, and not memorize the answers from the practice exams. You can expect to get approx 10-15% lower on the actual exam as compared to the Training Consultants full-length practice exams. Shoot for 85-90% on the full-length practice exams prior to sitting for the actual test.

You can do it! You just need to put the time in to learn/understand the concepts.

Jun 5, 2017 3:08 pm

Sounding a little repetitious, but my 2 cents worth...

I took the 24 around 18 months after passing 7, 3, and 63. Used Kaplan for the first 3 x exams, averaged high 80s in practice, and passed all 3 with a 90.

The 24 was brutal. Similar to the 7, but with anything fun or interesting removed. I constantly read the phrase 'dry' on this string, and that's exactly how I'd describe it. I worked extremely diligently, 5-6 weeks, at least 2-3 x hours per night, and used Kaplan. Best I could average on practices was mid to high 70s. In the end I passed with an 80, and felt so drained I couldn't even really celebrate. Again to agree with others, the start and end were ok, whilst the middle section was jaw dropping in places, but you just have to crack on as best you can.

I've taken 17 industry exams across 5 x countries, and the 24 was the toughest. In a lighter moment a few weeks later, one of the guys who worked for me (and wasn't particularly diligent, thinking 20+ years in the game would be enough) actually walked out of his exam 20 minutes in, and told the invigilator 'there's been a mistake..I'm supposed to be taking the 24'. She replied 'you are!' Yup..you need to take this seriously, and it sounds like STC is the way to go.

Aug 14, 2017 6:31 pm

Ive also taken lots of test and agree with you this exam was Brutal.

Your jaw dropping comment was perfect.. I felt like I was sitting in the wrong exam just after I started into the questions.

Where do they come up with those horrible unrelated questions? I've got just under 40 years in the business and feel I have a very good grasp on how everything pretty much works.

I figured I would bang right through this exam since I was getting in the high 80's to 90 on the Training Consuntants materials and also doing extreemly well with the STC materials. Also averaging in the high 80's to 90. I learned quite a bit from the STC training questions which are absolutely worth the money.

I took the test earlier today and only got a 67.. so close yet so far.

I used the Training Consultants study materials and also used the question bank from STC corp. I spent a good 150 hours using these materials and passed the Green Light for STC yesterday. I feel if I had a better handle on market making avtivities ( supervision of trading) I would have sqeeked through. My friend who does execution for a large firm had an advantage since he knows the lingo and all those little market designations for trading.. If anyone has any Ideas for me. IM all ears..

Best of luck to anyone who has to take this miserable exam.

Aug 25, 2017 7:33 pm

Took the 24 yesterday and passed w/ an 88. I wanted to put out there what I did in case it helps someone in the future. I studied w/ the Kaplan material. The book was great. Great format & great delivery of the material in an understanding way. The questions, however, were great to get a BASIC understanding of the rules, but not even close to the actual questions on the exam. The questions will NOT get you ready for this exam. Start w/ these questions to get a basic understanding. Next, I ordered the training consultants question bank. The questions were great. As someone stated before, these were the most like the real exam. Get to where you can get in the 80's in every section. Finally, I ordered the passperfect question bank. These questions were a big part of the reason I passed the exam. The passperfect questions are designed to be MUCH more difficult than the actual exam due to the detail they provide. Once you get in the green in all sections you are probably ready to take the practice timed finals. The week before the exam, after I read the Kaplan manual for the second time, I started with the final timed practice exams. These practice exams were so thorough, and drilled down on the little details of each rule. It is with out a doubt a BIG part of the reason I passed. I took 2 practice finals a day until the day of the exam. I made sure to read every explanation of the ones I got wrong, as well as the ones I got right. I takes alot of time, but will be worth it when you pass. If you can score in the 70's on these practice finals, then you are ready. As I said before, they are MUCH more difficult than the actual exam. Good luck to anyone taking this exam, as it is very difficult. Don't get discouraged when taking the test. I thought I failed it when I was done. You can usually narrow it down to two answers on the exam. The final two will be very similar and both seem right. If you know the small details of the rules you should be able to make the right call. Alot of my questions had to do with manipulation rules such as what Market makers & insiders can & can't do. I don't think i had even 1 question on margin or any calculation type questions. (VWAP, selling control stock, etc.) GOOD LUCK!!!

Oct 30, 2017 8:21 pm

I Finally passed this thing a few days ago with a 78%

I took it back in August and got a 67% I was so taken back.

To initially prepare I used the Training Consultants materials and the question bank from STC which I also thought was helpful. But, someone said to me why not try Knopman Marks training materials. I called up knopman and felt that they offered good value because in addition to the book and internet training I was able to attend a 2 day Series 24 course here in midtown Manhattan. I feel that the Kaplan book provided by knopman was the best of all training materials. It was publised in 2017 and even had multiple changes in rules and regulations that the other study materials didn't offer. Now that I've been through this entire painful event I would say to anyone, go right to Knopman Marks, read the book twice, attend the classes and pass this thing the first time around.

The quality of the Knopman Marks study materials, training courses and classes were the best ever.

Had I not changed gears, IM sure I would have failed again. The two day training course is where all of the details appear that you'll see on the real exam. And by the way, this exam was brutal so, do yourself a favor and get the best training materials first time out. You don't want to take it more than once. Now that I passed it, I can move on with my life. I never want to look at the 24 materials again.

Nov 23, 2017 11:08 am

gas anybody used the solomon audio book for the 24?

Nov 23, 2017 11:10 am

jimdarcy wrote:

has anybody used the solomon audio book for the 24?

Dec 29, 2017 12:38 pm

It is not unusual to fail the series 24 with a score that is close to passing. Most students who seek our services for help have already failed the exam at least once and sometimes twice. We can work with you in-person in NYC and online anywhere in the US

Jan 5, 2018 2:55 am

I just passed this morning on the 1st try with a 87, I went over the stc crunch time facts last night, I'd say I probably got 50 questions correct just from that alone. The Kaplan book is great but their tests are a total waste of time, way to easy. The stc question bank is way way to hard. I never scored above a 58 on the stc tests and was in the high 90s on the Kaplan tests. That being said out of the about 4000 practice questions that I took between the 2 I think maybe 20 questions I recognized out of all of them. Stick to learning the material and really go hard on the crunch time facts and don't waste as much time as I did taking practice tests.

Feb 7, 2018 2:03 pm

Took the 24 back in Spring 2009...failed it and scored in the low 60's. I am a morning person and my boss wouldn't let me take it until afternoon. It was so hard that I thought about just giving up. A few months went by and my boss asked me to try it again. Told him I would but had to be on my terms. Studied again and took it at 8am....passed with a 72. Was in my 20's at the time. I used STC. Good luck to anyone taking it. I think if you put in the work you can do it.

May 21, 2018 8:02 pm

I just took the Series 24 today and passed with a 75 (first time taking it). This forum helped me tremendously and so I wanted to offer what was given to me: advice on how one might study for and pass the Series 24 exam. Let me say that I have spent 10 years in the financial services business, primarily in retail, and have taken numerous industry exams (7, 66, Insurances, CFP, etc.). In terms of difficulty, this was about on par with the CFP. I do not mean to imply that the subject-matter is comparable , because it's not. I am saying that how the test makes you feel as you are taking it is very similar to how one might feel sitting for the CFP exam. It's pretty stringent and I was not at all sure I had passed the test when I pressed the button. In general, I am a confident test-taker. I am good with process-of-elimination, but could not have come close to guessing my way thorugh this exam. Here's how I approached it:

I found this forum early on in the process, so I adopted several pieces of its advice. I used Kaplan to study and learn the material. While you go through the book, I suggest using a highlighter. That way, when you go back through it a second time, you can hone in on the important points. I did this over the course of several months, mostly because I was just taking my time and not sticking to a study plan. I then ordered question banks from Pass Perfect and Training Consultants, which are online question banks. Pass Perfect lived up to the hype. These tests were extremely difficult, but very helpful in terms of making you think about the topics from multiple angles. I took the PP quizzes until I was consistently scoring in the 80's and 90's in each section. PP recommends that you pass at least 3 of the section's quizzes before moving on to the next section. Maybe go for 5 instead. Once you can score in 80's for 3-5 consecutive section quizzes, move on to the next section. Do this for each section until you have successfully moved though all of them. The TC quizzes are organized differently than the PP and Kaplan materials, so it might be hard to track them back accurately. I did not do many of the TC section quizzes for this reason.

Once I completed all of the section quizzes in PP, I took a PP final. I scored a 58. Doing this really discouraged me, although I took some comfort from previous posts that said you should score 10-15 pts higher on the actual exam than you do on the PP finals. I then pulled out Training Consultants for the final practice exams. There are 4 on there, but I only had time for 3. I scored (in order) a 76, 79, 79. On each of the quizzes and practice exams (both vendors) I read through each question's justification, even if I got the answer right. There are nuggets of nuance packed in those answers which will show up on the actual exam.

I did not take a cram course, although I know PP offers a virtual cram course. I think it is just a class where they go thorugh a bunch of questions over 4 days and explain how you would approach those questions.

Truthfully, I did not start taking practice finals until the last week before my exam. Had I started sooner and spent more time taking practice finals, I may have gained a few extra points. But to be honest (while it's still fresh on my mind), if I had failed today and had to take it again, my gameplan would be to go back into the materials to memorize more of the nuances of the Regs and would have spent more time going through PP quizzes and exams with their corresponding justifications. Thank goodness I do not have to do this.

Many of the questions on the exam are situational. If "this" happens, then you would do "this." There are some questions which have ridiculous choices which you can easily eliminate. Then there are others where you know they are alluding to a particular policy or reg, but they don't actually say it in the question. And none of the answer choices are explicitly wrong.You just have to know it. Also, there are no I, II, III, IV questions on the actual exam, but don't discount the utility of these questions in helping you prepare for the exam. This question format is an effective way to improve your knowledge of a particular topic as well as your process-of-elimination skills.

(continued in post below)

May 21, 2018 8:03 pm

(continued from post above)

If I could do it all over again, I'd:

- schedule the exam for 8 weeks in the future, or 8 weeks from when you will be able to begin studying.

- get the Kaplan materials again, but would try to finish the materials over a shorter period of time (no more than a month, studying 2-3 hours per weekday). I would not stress about trying to retain all of the information I read, more just to gain familiarity with terms and topics, building the foundation.

- go back through the Kaplan materials, section by section, and then work through the PP quizzes at the end of each section. Move on to the next section only when you can score in the 80's in consecutive attempts. This should take about a week and a half to two weeks, studying 2-3 hours per day (including weekends)

- once you have completed the material for a second time and the PP quizzes, I would begin taking the final exams of both PP and TC. I would plan to take take one of these tests every other day (assuming it takes you 2-3 hours to complete one exam), and then go back through the exam and answer justifications on the days in between. Just alternate like this on weekdays and one day over the weekend. Alternate between PP and TC, as each will help prepare you for the test in its own way. If you had to take more of one of the exams, take more of the TC exams. But try to take at the very least 3 PP final exams to give yourself the best opportunity to pass. Leave yourself one day before the test where you don't study anything. Give your brain a rest. No cramming!

*Note* The TC's exams are most similar in difficulty and question structure to the actual exam, BUT I don't feel like these questions alone would have been enough for me to pass the test. There were more than a couple of exams questions that were as difficult as the PP questions, so you need both.

I sincerely apologize for the length of this post. But if you are in here, I have to believe this exam means something to you and/or your career. Hope this helps, and happy studying!

Jun 7, 2018 7:41 pm

Like others, I found this post invaluable as I was prepping for the 24, and wanted to pay it forward with what worked for me. As many suggested here, I studied using the STC book and exams and then added on the Training Consultants question bank. I read the book once, and honestly it was a struggle to maintain focus given how dry the material is. I had to break each reading session into very small blocks just to make progress and then give myself a break. After completing the book, I focused on the STC final exams in Q&A format only (I prefer the real-time feedback of Q&A vs. answering 160 questions) and the Training Consultant topic-specific exams. I kept a running document of notes on topics I seemed to be struggling with, which I referred to often particularly in the last few days of crunch-time studying.

I found STC questions to be harder than the actual test - they employed more of the tactics designed to confuse or trick you. This is actually really good practice for the actual exam in that it teaches you to read very carefully and look for cues. Training Consultants, as many have mentioned, seemed closer to the actual exam. By the time I took the test, I was scoring in the mid 70s on STC and ~80% on Training Consultants. I passed on the first try with a 74, which was good enough for me. None of the material in the actual exam felt foreign to me, which is a good testament to the preparation provided by these two sources. But there were often 2 answers that were equally plausable or very close to seeming right.

Also agree that the STC crunch-time facts were a great last minute resource and seemed up to date with what was trending on the exam.

Aug 8, 2018 1:54 am

I would like to echo the experience of some of the more recent posts to this thread. I passed the series 24 last week on my first attempt with an 82. I started studying in early June and spent about 8 weeks preparing for the exam. I primarily used the Kaplan textbook which does an excellent job of explaining concepts.

I initially used the Kaplan tests to gauge my level of understanding. I focused primarily on the simulated exams instead of the chapter quizzes. The Kaplan questions are relatively easy, but have value as part of an initial study process. I scored between 80 and 88 on all of the simulated exams, but failed their "Mastery" exam with a 65 about 3 days before my actual exam.

About 2 weeks before my exam date started using the Training Consultants test bank for my final preparations (STC no longer offers a stand-alone test bank option). The format of the Training Consultants questions and the layout of the test bank software were similar to the actual exam. I completed all 4 of their exams scoring between 79 and 84.

In addition to the Kaplan and Training Consultants, I also recommend reading the actual rules on the FINRA website. The textbooks explain the main concepts, but the actual rules are filled with additional details not presented in the books or test banks. There were several questions on the actual exam that I would not have understood had I not read the actual rules. This step alone can make the difference between passing and failure.

Each person has their unique learning style, but this thread pointed me in the right direction which paid off with a successful score. Hope my comments help and good luck to future test takers.

Aug 10, 2018 8:48 pm

Hey all my fellow 24ers! I just passed the series 24 on my second attempt with an 82%. The first attempt I failed with a 69% and only used training consultants. It had never let me down with previous exams, but it did not cover enough material for me. Keep in mind I scored an 85% on their practice exams so I was shocked when I failed. On the second attempt I used STC practice tests only, which I found to be extremely helpful. Still every question has two possible answers and no matter what when you hit grade there is a chance you will make a 60% or an 88%. My suggestion is to use two different types of practice tests. Also, while you are taking the actual exam you have to stay focused and POSITIVE throughout the whole thing. I hope his helps someone!

Aug 21, 2018 7:20 pm

FINRA does not publish passing rates for the series 24 exam. They do not publish passing rates for any exam.

Oct 4, 2018 11:15 pm

I recently passed the 24 and I wanted to share my experience since I relied heavily on the advice of others in this thread.

My second attempt was after the new rules, so I did not receive a score- just a passing result. However, when I initially sat for the 24 in July, I scored a 68. I used Training Consultants almost exclusively- but looking back I did not have a good enough handle on the material (hindsight = 20/20). I took about a week off, and when I started to study again, I started from the beginning as if I had not gone through the material before. I didn't want to make any assumptions about what I remembered, knew, or didn't know since my results did not reveal a specific area of improvement- just 60-70% throughout.

For the second attempt, I used Training Consultants, but I also purchased the Pass Perfect test bank. I listened to the entire lectures and then took the chapter exams. At the end of TC's lectures, I started taking the PP chapter quizzes. They suggest you take three until you pass.

I studied for 2 hours every day including weekends for the first three weeks. Then, I studied for 4-5 hours every day for two weeks. A week and a half before the exam I studied non-stop taking special care to review the concepts I struggled to recall.

While days, dates, and times are central to the exam, I found it more important to focus on the concepts. You will need to be able to understand the rules and regs well enough to answer scenario based questions that include a lot of unnecessary information and out of the four answers you will have two correct options to choose from -with one being the most accurate. That is what makes this exam difficult - judgment.

As others mentioned using more than 1 test bank will be critical to your success because you are testing your understanding against questions that are structured differently. Also, the exam is not real world application - its testing world. Some of the answers they are looking for might not make sense to you because it would look different in the real world.

During the exam, you will see questions you have not seen before and have to understand the concepts well enough to apply them to the question that might allude to a rule or reg (without specific reference) to make a judgment call about the scenario. When you've poured over the material extensively staying focused is difficult but necessary. Keep going through it until you know the rules, regs, and associated days, dates, times, and amounts off hand or at min. can recognize them when you see them listed (i.e. 50k or 50m? business days or calendar days?)

Lastly, someone mentioned staying positive throughout the actual exam -this can't be underestimated. Don't slump in your seat when you start to see questions you struggle to answer and try not to become frustrated -square up your shoulders and press forward. Godspeed!