I'm trying to figure out whether to pursue the Series 65 or Series 66 for my IAR certification and I'm getting conflicting advice from people at my firm. I already hold the Series 7, which makes me eligible for the Series 66 route, but some colleagues are saying the 65 is actually better prep even for people who qualify for the shortcut. I'm spending about 90 minutes a day studying and want to sit in roughly 8 weeks.
The Series 65 has 130 questions and you need a 72% to pass - that's 94 correct. The 66 has 100 questions with a 75% threshold, so 75 correct. On paper the 66 looks slightly harder percentage-wise, but the overlap with Series 7 material means I'd be covering familiar ground. My practice scores on 65 material are around 69% right now, which isn't there yet.
My weak areas are state securities regulations and the ethics standards - the investment analysis side I can handle since I've been doing this work for 2 years. It's the regulatory and compliance sections that drag my scores down. Has anyone found a particular prep approach that locked in those regulation sections faster?
Also curious how the testing experience is - I've heard the question phrasing can be deliberately confusing and that reading carefully is more important than knowing the material. That's a different skill than just studying content.
The question phrasing thing is real. I passed on my second attempt and the difference was slowing down and reading each answer choice fully before selecting. The wrong answers are designed to look right at a glance.
For regulations, flashcards on the state act definitions helped me more than reading passages. Just drilling the definitions until they're automatic.
If you have the Series 7, do the 66. The overlap is real and it cuts your study time significantly. I went from 68% to 81% in about 5 weeks by leaning hard into the state law differences, which is where the 66 is most distinct from 7 content.
I took the 65 without a 7 and passed with a 76%. The ethics section is about 10% of the exam and it's mostly application questions not definitions - they give you scenarios and you pick the most ethical action. Harder to study for but also less random than pure recall.
Your 69% on 65 material 8 weeks out is right on the line. I'd be aiming for 78-80% consistently before booking a real date. One month of focused work on the regulatory sections should get you there.
I just passed mine last month so I'll give you my two cents. I went the Series 66 route since I already had the 7, and honestly the thing that made the biggest difference wasn't the studying strategy at all, it was realizing how much of the exam is the economics and ethics sections rather than the product knowledge I thought it'd be. The 66 leans heavy on the regulatory and fiduciary stuff because it assumes you already covered the product side in your 7. If you go 65 instead you're getting all of that plus the product material the 7 already taught you, which is why people say it's "better prep." It's not better, it's just more redundant for someone in your shoes.
My one specific tip. Don't sleep on the ethics and unethical practices questions. I kept getting them wrong in practice because they're written to be tricky, two answers look right and you have to pick the one that's most correct. Once I started drilling those exclusively for like three days straight my practice scores jumped way up. If you've already got the 7 and you're eligible, take the 66 and save yourself the extra hours. The 65 only really makes sense if you don't have a qualifying exam already.
I just passed the 66 a couple weeks ago so figured I'd chime in. If you already have your 7, honestly the 66 route makes more sense, no reason to sit for two exams when one covers you. The 65 vs 66 prep is pretty similar content wise, but the 66 leans on you already knowing the 7 securities material so it's not really "easier," it just splits things differently. Don't let people talk you into the 65 just because they think it's better prep, that's mostly noise.
The one thing that actually moved the needle for me was drilling the economics section over and over. I kept bombing questions on monetary policy and the business cycle until I started grinding through this set iar/questions/economics economic indicators and something finally clicked. Leading vs lagging indicators, GDP, yield curve stuff, it shows up more than you'd expect and it's easy points once you've got it down. Wish I'd started there instead of saving it for last.