Series 65 Study Guide: The Complete Path to Passing the Uniform Investment Adviser Law Examination

Quick answer

What's the Series 65? It's NASAA's Uniform Investment Adviser Law Examination: the licensing exam most states require to register as an Investment Adviser Representative. 130 scored questions, 180 minutes, 92/130 passing score. No sponsor required.

Exam at a glance

Format

140 multiple-choice questions (130 scored + 10 unscored experimental)

Time allowed

180 minutes

Passing score

92/130 scored questions (approximately 70.77%)

Cost

$187, paid to FINRA at enrollment

Sponsor required

No, one of the few FINRA-administered exams open to self-enrollment

Enrollment window

No fixed window; schedule when you're ready

Delivery

In-person at Prometric testing centers

The four content sections (with weights)

NASAA publishes a detailed content outline that fixes the relative weight of each section. Knowing the weights tells you where to spend your time. Roughly 60% of the exam covers laws/regulations and client recommendations; that's where most failed attempts lose points.

1. Economic Factors and Business Information: 15% (about 20 questions)

The macro and quantitative-methods foundation. Tested topics include:

• Basic economic concepts: GDP, inflation measures (CPI vs PPI), unemployment, business cycles
• Monetary and fiscal policy: the Federal Reserve's tools, yield curves, the discount rate
• Financial reporting: balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement, key ratios
• Quantitative methods: time value of money, present and future value, internal rate of return
• Risk concepts: systematic vs unsystematic risk, standard deviation, beta, alpha, Sharpe ratio

2. Investment Vehicle Characteristics: 25% (about 32 questions)

The product knowledge section. Expect questions on:

• Equity securities: common and preferred stock, ADRs, rights and warrants
• Debt instruments: Treasuries, agencies, municipals (GO vs revenue), corporates, duration and convexity
• Pooled investments: mutual funds (open-end), closed-end funds, ETFs, UITs, hedge funds, REITs
• Derivatives: options (calls, puts, basic spreads), futures, forwards
• Insurance-based products: variable and fixed annuities, variable life, separate accounts
• Alternative and tangible assets: limited partnerships, commodities, precious metals

3. Client Investment Recommendations and Strategies: 30% (about 39 questions)

The application section: matching the right product/strategy to the right client. Topics include:

• Client profiling: financial goals, risk tolerance, time horizon, tax situation, liquidity needs
• Account types: individual, joint, custodial (UTMA/UGMA), trust, corporate, partnership, retirement
• Retirement accounts: traditional and Roth IRAs, 401(k), 403(b), 457, SEP, SIMPLE, defined-benefit plans
• Education and special accounts: 529 plans, Coverdell ESAs, ABLE accounts
• Portfolio construction: modern portfolio theory, the efficient frontier, diversification, asset allocation, rebalancing
• Strategies and styles: active vs passive, value vs growth, tactical vs strategic allocation, dollar-cost averaging
• Performance measurement: time-weighted vs dollar-weighted return, risk-adjusted return metrics
• Taxation of investments: capital gains, qualified dividends, wash-sale rule, tax-loss harvesting

4. Laws, Regulations, and Guidelines: 30% (about 39 questions)

The largest pure-recall section, and where careful candidates win points. Subject matter includes:

• Investment Advisers Act of 1940: definition of an adviser, registration thresholds (federal vs state), exclusions and exemptions
• Uniform Securities Act: state-level registration of advisers, agents, broker-dealers, and securities
• Fiduciary duty under the Advisers Act: duty of care, duty of loyalty, full disclosure of conflicts
• Form ADV: Parts 1, 2A (firm brochure), 2B (brochure supplement), and Part 3 (Form CRS)
• Prohibited business practices and ethical conduct: front-running, churning, misuse of material nonpublic information
• Anti-fraud provisions: NASAA model rules, Section 206 of the Advisers Act
• Recordkeeping and custody requirements, advertising and communications rules, performance presentation

The Investment Advisers Act of 1940 in depth

The Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (IAA) is the federal statute most heavily tested on the Series 65. It defines who counts as an investment adviser, who is excluded, who must register at the federal level, and what conduct standards apply. Most law-section questions trace back to one of its provisions.

The three-prong “ABC test”

Section 202(a)(11) of the IAA defines an investment adviser as any person who, for compensation, engages in the business of advising others as to the value of securities or the advisability of investing in them. The SEC distills this into the three-prong ABC test; all three prongs must be met for adviser status to attach:

• A: Advice. The advice given must be about securities specifically, not commodities, real estate, or insurance products that are not securities. Recommendations on asset allocation that necessarily involve securities also count.
• B: Business. The advice must be given as part of a regular business. A one-off conversation between friends does not satisfy the business prong; holding oneself out as an adviser, charging for advice on a recurring basis, or advertising adviser services does.
• C: Compensation. The adviser must receive some form of economic benefit. The compensation does not have to come from the client and need not be a separate fee: commissions, asset-based fees, performance fees, and even soft-dollar arrangements all count.

Lowe v. SEC (1985): the publisher carve-out

In Lowe v. SEC the Supreme Court held that publishers of bona fide, impersonal newsletters and similar publications are not investment advisers within the meaning of the IAA, even when the publication contains specific securities recommendations. The decision turned on a First Amendment narrowing of the statute: where commentary is genuinely impersonal, of regular and general circulation, and not tailored to individual subscribers' situations, the publisher is excluded. Tailored, one-on-one advice, by contrast, falls back inside the definition.

Exclusions: the LATE mnemonic and others

The IAA carves several categories of professionals out of the adviser definition entirely. The classic mnemonic is LATE (Lawyers, Accountants, Teachers, and Engineers), whose investment-related advice is excluded when it is solely incidental to their primary profession and when no special compensation is received for the advice itself. Additional statutory exclusions include:

• Banks and bank holding companies (other than separately organized investment-adviser subsidiaries)
• Broker-dealers and their registered representatives, when the advice is solely incidental to brokerage and no special compensation is received for it
• Publishers of bona fide newspapers, news magazines, and business or financial publications of general and regular circulation (the Lowe carve-out)
• Persons whose advice relates exclusively to U.S. government securities
• Family offices that meet the SEC's family-office rule

Federal vs state registration: the $100M line

The National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996 split adviser registration between the SEC and the states. The general rule today: advisers with $100 million or more in regulated assets under management register with the SEC; smaller advisers register with the state(s) where they conduct business. There is a buffer band between $100M and $110M during which an adviser newly crossing the line may either register or remain state-registered, and a separate cushion below $90M for advisers dropping out. Mid-sized advisers (between $25M and $100M) are generally state-registered unless their home state does not examine advisers, in which case they register federally. Pension consultants, multi-state advisers, and advisers to registered investment companies have their own federal-registration triggers regardless of AUM.

Exempt Reporting Advisers (ERAs), principally venture capital fund advisers and private fund advisers with under $150M in U.S. private fund assets, do not register but must file a truncated Form ADV Part 1 and remain subject to anti-fraud provisions.

Form ADV: Parts 1, 2A, and 2B

Form ADV is the central registration and disclosure document for investment advisers. The Series 65 expects you to know what each part contains and who reads it.

• Part 1is a check-the-box filing for regulators. It captures the adviser's business, ownership, employees, clients, disciplinary history, and affiliations. Filed electronically through the IARD system.
• Part 2A: the firm brochureis a plain-English narrative disclosure delivered to clients. It must describe the adviser's services, fees, types of clients, methods of analysis, disciplinary information, conflicts of interest, and brokerage practices. Initial delivery occurs no later than entry into the advisory contract; an offer of the brochure must be made annually thereafter, with a delivery obligation when material changes occur.
• Part 2B: the brochure supplement covers the individual supervised persons who actually give advice to a particular client. It includes their educational background, business experience, disciplinary history, other business activities, and compensation arrangements.
• Part 3: Form CRS(Customer Relationship Summary) is a short standardized document required for advisers with retail clients, summarizing the relationship in a Q&A format.

IAA Section 206: the anti-fraud spine

Section 206 is the IAA's catch-all anti-fraud provision and the source of the federal fiduciary duty. It applies to all advisers (registered, exempt, or unregistered) whenever they use any means of interstate commerce. The frequently-tested prohibitions are:

• Employing any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud a client or prospective client
• Engaging in any transaction, practice, or course of business that operates as a fraud or deceit
• Acting as principal for the adviser's own account, or as agent for a person other than the client, in any transaction with the client without prior written disclosure and consent (the principal/agency-cross-transaction rule)
• Engaging in any act, practice, or course of business that is fraudulent, deceptive, or manipulative (the broad anti-fraud sweep)

Section 205 separately restricts performance-based fees: such fees may generally only be charged to qualified clients, defined by SEC rule as clients with at least $1.1 million in adviser-managed assets or $2.2 million in net worth (thresholds adjust for inflation periodically). Charging a performance fee to a non-qualified client is a frequent test answer for what an adviser may not do.

The Uniform Securities Act in depth

The Uniform Securities Act (USA) is a model statute drafted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and updated by NASAA. It is not itself law; each state adopts some version of it. The Series 65 tests the model text because NASAA designs the exam, and state administrators expect candidate familiarity with the uniform framework even where local variations exist.

Key statutory definitions

• Agent: any individual who represents a broker-dealer or issuer in effecting or attempting to effect transactions in securities. Officers and partners of a broker-dealer who actively solicit business are agents and must register; clerical employees who do not are not.
• Broker-dealer: any person engaged in the business of effecting securities transactions for the account of others or for its own account. Excludes agents, banks, and issuers.
• Investment adviser: any person who, for compensation, engages in the business of advising others as to the value of securities or the advisability of investing in them, or who issues reports for compensation as part of a regular business. Mirrors the federal definition with state-level overlay.
• Investment adviser representative (IAR): a partner, officer, director, or other individual associated with an investment adviser who makes recommendations or otherwise gives investment advice to clients, manages accounts, determines what advice will be given, or supervises employees who do.

Registration vs notice filing

State-covered advisers register at the state level by filing Form ADV through IARD and paying state fees. SEC-registered advisers, by contrast, are not required to register again with each state in which they have clients; instead they make a notice filing (a copy of Form ADV plus any required state fee) in states where they do business. The de minimis rule generally excuses a notice filing in states where the federal-covered adviser has fewer than six clients in the prior twelve months and no place of business in the state.

Powers of the Administrator

The state Administrator (the official charged with administering the state's securities laws) holds broad authority. Tested powers include:

• Issuing rules, orders, and forms that interpret or supplement the Act
• Conducting investigations, public or private, in or outside the state, and compelling production of documents and testimony under oath
• Issuing cease-and-desist orders, with or without a prior hearing in the case of an emergency
• Denying, suspending, conditioning, limiting, or revoking the registration of an adviser, broker-dealer, agent, or IAR for cause, including filings that are materially incomplete or misleading, prior felony convictions or securities-related misdemeanors, injunctions, regulatory disciplinary history, insolvency, or violations of the Act
• Issuing stop orders against the registration of a security
• Requiring restitution and seeking injunctions or civil penalties through the courts

Civil and criminal penalties

Civil liability under USA generally permits a defrauded purchaser to recover the consideration paid, plus interest at the statutory rate, costs, and reasonable attorney's fees, less the amount of any income received. The statute of limitations is generally the earlier of two years after discovery or three years after the violation, though states vary. Criminal penalties for willful violations are typically up to a $5,000 fine, up to three years in prison, or both per offense; no person may be imprisoned for a violation if they prove they had no knowledge of the rule or order alleged to have been violated.

The 1933 Act vs the 1934 Act

The two foundational federal securities statutes operate at different stages of a security's life and are frequently contrasted on the exam.

Securities Act of 1933: the primary-market statute

The 1933 Act regulates the original issuance of securities to the public. Its core requirement is that any non-exempt offering must be registered with the SEC via a registration statement, and a statutory prospectus must be delivered to investors. Key concepts include the cooling-off period between filing and effectiveness, the preliminary (red herring) prospectus, and the final prospectus. The Act also enumerates exempt securities (U.S. government and municipal securities, commercial paper of short maturity, securities of nonprofits, certain bank securities) and exempt transactions (private placements under Regulation D, intrastate offerings under Rule 147, small-issue offerings under Regulation A).

Securities Exchange Act of 1934: the secondary-market statute

The 1934 Act created the SEC itself and regulates trading of securities after issuance. It requires registration of national securities exchanges, broker-dealers, transfer agents, and clearing agencies; mandates periodic reporting by public companies (annual 10-K, quarterly 10-Q, current-event 8-K); governs proxy solicitations; sets margin rules through Federal Reserve Regulation T; and prohibits insider trading and market manipulation. Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 are the broad anti-fraud provisions that anchor most insider-trading cases.

Investment Company Act of 1940 highlights

The Investment Company Act of 1940 governs registered investment companies: principally mutual funds, closed-end funds, and unit investment trusts.

• Open-end funds (mutual funds): continuously issue and redeem shares at net asset value, calculated at least once daily. Shares are not traded on an exchange.
• Closed-end funds: issue a fixed number of shares in an IPO, after which the shares trade on an exchange at a market price that may be at a premium or discount to NAV.
• Unit investment trusts (UITs): issue redeemable units in a fixed, unmanaged portfolio assembled at inception and held to a defined termination date. No board of directors and no investment adviser making ongoing decisions.

Section 12(d)(1) limits fund-of-fund concentration: an acquiring fund generally may not own more than 3% of an acquired fund's outstanding voting stock, invest more than 5% of its own assets in any single acquired fund, or invest more than 10% of its assets in other investment companies in aggregate (subject to numerous statutory and SEC-rule exceptions).

The 75-5-10 rule defines a “diversified” investment company under Section 5(b)(1). To claim diversified status, at least 75% of the fund's assets must be invested such that no more than 5% of total assets are in the securities of any single issuer and the fund holds no more than 10% of any single issuer's outstanding voting securities. The other 25% of the portfolio is unconstrained for purposes of the test. Non-diversified funds need not meet the test but must disclose that classification.

Time value of money: a worked example

The Series 65 will not give you a financial calculator, but it will test that you understand how present value (PV), future value (FV), interest rate (i), and number of periods (n) relate. The core formula is FV = PV × (1 + i)ⁿ.

Worked example: a client invests $10,000 today in a vehicle earning 6% compounded annually for 10 years. The future value is $10,000 × (1.06)¹⁰. (1.06)¹⁰ ≈ 1.7908, so FV ≈ $17,908. The same relationship inverted gives present value: a payment of $17,908 ten years from now, discounted at 6%, is worth approximately $10,000 today. On exam questions, look first at whether you are solving for FV (compounding forward) or PV (discounting backward), then identify n and i, then choose the answer closest to the rough estimate. Rule-of-72 (72 / i ≈ doubling years) is a fast sanity check: at 6%, money roughly doubles every 12 years, so $10,000 growing for 10 years should land somewhere short of $20,000.

Modern portfolio theory and risk metrics

Modern portfolio theory (MPT), developed by Harry Markowitz, holds that rational investors construct portfolios on the efficient frontier: the set of portfolios offering the highest expected return for a given level of risk. The capital market line and capital asset pricing model (CAPM) extend MPT to relate the risk of an individual asset to its expected return. Series 65 questions tend to hinge on knowing which risk metric measures what, and which is most useful in which context.

• Standard deviation: measures total volatility (both upside and downside) of returns around their mean. Most useful for comparing total risk across funds or strategies.
• Beta: measures sensitivity of a security's return to movements in the broad market. A beta of 1.0 moves with the market; above 1.0 amplifies; below 1.0 dampens. Most useful for understanding systematic (market) risk exposure.
• Alpha: the return earned in excess of what CAPM would predict for the asset's beta. Positive alpha implies risk-adjusted outperformance. Most useful for evaluating active manager skill.
• Sharpe ratio: (portfolio return minus risk-free rate) divided by standard deviation. Most useful when comparing total-risk efficiency of portfolios that may have different risk profiles.
• Treynor ratio: (portfolio return minus risk-free rate) divided by beta. Most useful when comparing portfolios that are part of a larger, well-diversified holding (where systematic risk is what matters).
• Sortino ratio: like Sharpe but uses downside deviation only. Most useful when investors care primarily about downside risk and are indifferent to upside volatility.
• Jensen's alpha: the formal CAPM-derived alpha measure (actual return minus CAPM-predicted return). Most useful for assessing whether a manager added value beyond what passive market exposure at the same beta would have produced.

Brokerage account types

Account-type questions test whether you can match ownership structures and trading capabilities to client circumstances.

• Cash account: the default. Customer must pay in full for purchases by settlement (T+1 for most equities). No borrowing.
• Margin account: permits borrowing against the value of securities held in the account, governed by Federal Reserve Regulation T (50% initial margin) and FINRA maintenance-margin rules (25% for long equity). Requires a signed margin agreement, hypothecation agreement, and credit agreement.
• Options approval levels: broker-dealers tier options privileges from covered calls and cash-secured puts at the lowest level through uncovered short options and complex spreads at the highest, assigning each customer a level based on suitability review.
• Joint with rights of survivorship (JTWROS): on death of one owner, the entire account passes outside probate to the surviving owner(s). Common for spouses.
• Tenants in common (TIC): each owner holds a defined fractional interest that passes to that owner's estate at death, not automatically to the co-owner.
• Tenancy by the entirety: available only to married couples in states that recognize it, with survivorship and creditor-protection features beyond JTWROS.
• Custodial accounts (UGMA/UTMA): an adult custodian holds assets on behalf of a minor. UGMA allows cash and securities; UTMA additionally permits real estate and other property. Assets become the beneficiary's outright at the age of majority defined by state law (typically 18 or 21). Irrevocable transfer.
• Trust accounts: opened in the name of a trust; the trustee directs transactions consistent with the trust document and applicable state law.
• Corporate accounts: require a corporate resolution authorizing trading and identifying the persons authorized to act for the entity.
• Partnership accounts: require a copy of the partnership agreement identifying authorized partners, and may require additional documentation for margin or options.

Fiduciary duty vs suitability

One of the most consistently tested distinctions on the Series 65. The two standards apply to different kinds of professionals and demand different things.

Fiduciary dutyis owed by Investment Adviser Representatives under the IAA and Section 206. It encompasses a duty of care (to provide advice and monitoring in the client's best interest, with reasonable diligence) and a duty of loyalty (to eliminate or fully disclose all material conflicts of interest, and to obtain informed client consent before acting on a conflict). The adviser must put the client's interest ahead of its own at all times, not just at the moment of recommendation.

Suitability, under FINRA Rule 2111, applies to registered representatives of broker-dealers. It requires that a recommendation be reasonable for a particular customer based on their investment profile. The rule is broken into three components: a reasonable-basis obligation (the recommendation is suitable for at least some investors), a customer-specific obligation (it is suitable for this particular customer), and a quantitative obligation (a series of recommendations is not excessive in light of the customer's circumstances). Suitability does not require putting the customer's interest ahead of the representative's; the SEC's Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI), adopted in 2020, layered an additional best-interest standard on top of FINRA suitability for retail customers, but it remains a distinct, generally less demanding regime than IAA fiduciary duty.

The client recommendations process

NASAA expects an IAR to gather and weigh a complete client profile before making any recommendation. The factors that show up most frequently on Series 65 fact patterns are:

• Know-Your-Customer (KYC): identity, residency, employment, and source of funds; anti-money-laundering basics
• Financial profile: income, expenses, assets, liabilities, net worth, existing investments, insurance coverage
• Time horizon: when the client expects to need the money; longer horizons generally tolerate more equity-like risk
• Risk tolerance: both the client's willingness (subjective comfort) and ability (objective capacity) to absorb loss; mismatch between the two is a flag
• Tax situation: marginal bracket, taxable vs tax-deferred account mix, residency for state-tax purposes, expected future bracket
• Liquidity needs: near-term cash requirements; how much of the portfolio must remain readily convertible
• Investment objectives: income, growth, preservation of capital, speculation, or some prioritized combination

Where any of these factors point in conflicting directions, the adviser's fiduciary obligation is to surface the conflict to the client and document the rationale for whatever recommendation results. Recommendations made without an updated profile, or in disregard of stated objectives, are a recurring source of NASAA enforcement actions.

Annuities and insurance products

Variable annuities, variable life insurance, and other insurance-based investment products surface on the Series 65 both as investment-vehicle questions and as suitability fact-patterns. A variable annuity is a contract issued by an insurance company under which premiums are invested in subaccounts that resemble mutual funds; the contract value fluctuates with subaccount performance during the accumulation phase, and the contract may be annuitized into a stream of payments or surrendered. Because the underlying separate-account interests are securities, variable annuities are dual-regulated: state insurance departments oversee the insurance side, and the SEC plus FINRA (and state securities administrators) oversee the securities side.

Tested suitability concerns include surrender charges (typically a declining schedule over six to ten years that can erase short-term withdrawals), high mortality and expense charges stacked on top of subaccount expenses, the limited tax benefit of a variable annuity inside an already-tax-deferred account such as an IRA, the loss of step-up in cost basis on death relative to a brokerage account, and the comparison between guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit riders and their explicit rider fees. Recommending a variable annuity to a client whose objectives, time horizon, or liquidity needs are inconsistent with the contract's features is a recurring exam scenario and a recurring enforcement scenario.

Study schedule overview

Most candidates target an 8-week study plan: roughly 10–12 hours per week of mixed reading, practice questions, and full-length simulator runs. Intensive students, typically those already working in finance or those between jobs, often compress the same volume of material into 4 weeks of full-time study. Either path works; what matters is that you cover all four sections proportionally and reach the readiness criteria before scheduling.

See our week-by-week study schedule for a day-by-day breakdown.

What to study (in priority order)

1. Investment Advisers Act of 1940. The single most-tested federal statute. Read the actual text (linked in Sources). Know who is and isn't an adviser, the $100M registration threshold, and the brochure-delivery rule.
2. Uniform Securities Act (USA). The model state law. Know the four-prong adviser definition, de minimis exemptions, and the state administrator's powers.
3. Fiduciary duty (Advisers Act) vs suitability (FINRA). A high-yield distinction. Understand why an Investment Adviser Representative is held to a higher standard than a registered representative.
4. Brokerage and advisory account types. Cash, margin, discretionary, fee-based, wrap, and the disclosure requirements that attach to each.
5. Time value of money and quantitative methods. Present value, future value, IRR, NPV, and how to use them in client recommendations.
6. Modern portfolio theory basics. Efficient frontier, capital market line, capital asset pricing model, beta, alpha, Sharpe and Treynor ratios.
7. Ethics and prohibited practices. NASAA's Statements of Policy on Unethical Business Practices, a frequent source of fact-pattern questions.
8. ADV filings. Form ADV Parts 1, 2A, 2B, and Form CRS: what goes where, who files, and when.
9. Prohibited practices. Front-running, churning, scalping, soft-dollar abuses, and misuse of customer information.

Exam day

The Series 65 is administered in person at Prometric testing centers. Plan to arrive at least 30 minutes early. You'll be asked to present:

• One government-issued photo ID (driver's license, passport, military ID)
• One secondary form of ID with your signature (credit card, employee badge)

Personal items (including phones, watches, calculators, notes, food, and water bottles) must be stored in a provided locker. The testing room provides a dry-erase scratch board and marker. An on-screen four-function calculator is built into the testing software; you cannot bring your own.

See the full exam day guide for what to expect from check-in through results.

Scoring

The Series 65 is scored on 130 of the 140 questions you answer. The other 10 are unscored experimental items NASAA uses to calibrate future exams; they are mixed in randomly and indistinguishable from scored items, so treat every question as if it counts. The passing cutoff is 92 of 130 scored questions, or approximately 70.77%.

You receive a pass/fail result at the testing center within minutes of completing the exam. NASAA does not release section-by- section scores for passing candidates; failing candidates receive a breakdown by content area to guide their retake preparation. A retake is permitted after a 30-day waiting period.

After you pass

Passing the exam is a prerequisite, not registration itself. To register as an Investment Adviser Representative, you (or your sponsoring firm) file a Form U4 through the FINRA Web CRD/IARD system with the state(s) where you intend to do business. Most states recognize the Series 65 alone as the qualifying exam for IA registration; a smaller number accept the Series 7 plus Series 66 combination instead.

Continuing-education obligations vary by state. Beginning January 1, 2022, NASAA's model IAR CE rule has been adopted by a growing list of states; it requires 12 CE credits per year (6 in Products and Practice, 6 in Ethics and Professional Responsibility). Check with your state administrator for current requirements.

Get the full course

This guide is the high-level map. The full ALAN Series 65 course includes the complete textbook modeled on the official NASAA outline, more than 850 original SME-authored practice questions, a full-length exam simulator, spaced-repetition flashcards, and a weak-topic heatmap that tells you where to focus next.

The built-in readiness tracker measures three criteria: 90% of lessons completed, 850+ practice questions attempted, and 90% on at least one full-length practice exam. We don't promise a pass; we help you know when you're ready. Earn the READY status before you schedule.

Included with ALAN PRO: see what's inside

Sources

• NASAA Exam Study Guides: the official content outline and study aids published by the North American Securities Administrators Association.
• FINRA Series 65 page: enrollment, fees, and administrative details from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
• Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (full text, SEC.gov): the federal statute that anchors the law section of the exam.