STC  95

Kaplan (formerly Dearborn)  90

CCH Wall Street   85

Pass Perfect      80

FIRE Solutions      70

I’d be curious to know which firms generally use which books…

SB is using Firesolutions as far as I know-

Joe

I used Kaplan for my Series 65, and found the materials to be excellent.

I recommend STC, used it for my s 6, 7, 63, 65–scored over 80% on all of them.

Read the Dearborn material and take the tests til you throw up. Then purchase the Passperfect Data Bank and test till you puke. After scoring 80+ on Passperfect take your exam. My .02

DG

I used STC only for Series 7…theres about 80 exams TOTAL including progress, open book, final and greenlight. Do EVERY single exam do not even think of ditching one. READ all the material in the binder. I did everything and scored an 80 on the exam. I didn’t even use the full 6 hours to take the exam. Sitting in the exam is a totally different feeling than sitting at home taking practice exams.

[quote=opie]I'd be curious to know which firms generally use which books... [/quote]

As far as I know, AXA, JP Morgan Chase & Ameriprise use STC. My friend at Merril says they use their own Merril Lynch materials.

[quote=derekgaddy]

Read the Dearborn material and take the tests til you throw up. Then purchase the Passperfect Data Bank and test till you puke. After scoring 80+ on Passperfect take your exam. My .02

DG

[/quote]

You're right on the money. I read the material from STC 3 times now for the 66, took all those stupid exams 2x's now and am now doing Pass Perfect. I feel like jumping off a building at this point. This stuff is so dry and wordy.

[quote=slkgirl]

As far as I know, AXA, JP Morgan Chase & Ameriprise use STC. My friend at Merril says they use their own Merril Lynch materials.

[/quote]

For years Merrill wrote their own Series 7 material, however about ten or fifteen years ago they found it to be an ineffective cost and terminated or reassigned the dozen or so people who were in that effort.  They replaced them with STC who hired some employees just to service the needs of Merrill--that should tell you that STC is the premier vendor of Series 7 material.

Two or three years ago Merrill agreed to give FIRE Solutions a try.  Morgan Stanley had been very unimpressed with FIRE and as soon as their contract with them expired they dropped them--lucky for FIRE Merrill was in the process of deciding to try FIRE.

What lends the impression that Merrill uses its own material is because the branches have Xerox copies of things that are presented on the user's computer screen and rookies are often given stacks of Xeroxed pages with a rubber band around it.

When it comes to Series 7 there is really only one great choice--STC.

Coming in a close Second would be Kaplan (Dearborn) and CCH Wall Street.

Coming in fourth would be Pass Perfect.

There's a new player out there, Reg Ed, out of the Raleigh area.  I've never seen their stuff but hear that it's very visually appealing.  I've not heard if it's technically accurate or easy to read.

I'd be interested in hearing if anbody who reads this forum has an opinion on its accuracy and/or ease of reading.

I am almost certain that Reg Ed has, or had, an agreement with STC regarding insurance licensing and continuing education.  It could be that STC bought Reg Ed and is publishing another very visually appealing course in competition with themselves.

[quote=NASD Newbie][quote=slkgirl]

As far as I know, AXA, JP Morgan Chase & Ameriprise use STC. My friend at Merril says they use their own Merril Lynch materials.

[/quote]

For years Merrill wrote their own Series 7 material, however about ten or fifteen years ago they found it to be an ineffective cost and terminated or reassigned the dozen or so people who were in that effort.  They replaced them with STC who hired some employees just to service the needs of Merrill--that should tell you that STC is the premier vendor of Series 7 material.

Two or three years ago Merrill agreed to give FIRE Solutions a try.  Morgan Stanley had been very unimpressed with FIRE and as soon as their contract with them expired they dropped them--lucky for FIRE Merrill was in the process of deciding to try FIRE.

What lends the impression that Merrill uses its own material is because the branches have Xerox copies of things that are presented on the user's computer screen and rookies are often given stacks of Xeroxed pages with a rubber band around it.

When it comes to Series 7 there is really only one great choice--STC.

Coming in a close Second would be Kaplan (Dearborn) and CCH Wall Street.

Coming in fourth would be Pass Perfect.

There's a new player out there, Reg Ed, out of the Raleigh area.  I've never seen their stuff but hear that it's very visually appealing.  I've not heard if it's technically accurate or easy to read.

I'd be interested in hearing if anbody who reads this forum has an opinion on its accuracy and/or ease of reading.

I am almost certain that Reg Ed has, or had, an agreement with STC regarding insurance licensing and continuing education.  It could be that STC bought Reg Ed and is publishing another very visually appealing course in competition with themselves.

Newbie,

You're right about STC being the best for the Series 7 prep exam. I hear Dearborn is awesome for the insurance exams but I used STC for all exams. STC was more than adequate in preparing you for the Series 7 but I didn't feel it was adequate for the Series 66.

What are your thoughts on the "best" practice exams for the Series 66? I found that most of the practice exams by STC were the same just different scenarios and or names.