How Good is Ken Zahn’s Live Review?
Earlier this summer I traveled to Los Angeles to attend Ken Zahn’s Live Review course to prepare for the July 2008 CFP® Certification Exam. As luck would have it, Ken Zahn himself was the instructor for my four-day review course.
Ken Zahn’s “territory” mainly consists of southeastern United States locations, but each exam cycle Ken flies out to Los Angeles to instruct those of us on the west coast. In other words, he’s well known east of the Mississippi as one of the best exam review course providers, but he’s still competing with Kaplan, Dalton, Keir, and the College for Financial Planning on the west coast. Zahn’s review course fee is $925 plus $8 for miscellaneous fees, which I believe is close to what most of the other live review programs charge. Internet-based classes are cheaper, but they’re not in-person classes.
So how good was the review course?
In a word: excellent.
Pre-study Materials
About two or three months before the scheduled class, Zahn mails a box containing over 800 pages (400 double-sided) of pre-study material. The pre-study material is organized into the six main topics of the financial planning process:
- General Principles
- Insurance
- Investments
- Income Tax
- Retirement
- Estate Planning
Each topic is divided into 10 sections with a short review test at the end of each section. Each topic is followed by a mock exam that contains multiple choice questions and one or two sample case scenarios. In all there are over 1,800 practice questions covering the 89 topics established by the CFP Board. Difficult concepts or those featuring many alternatives (e.g. retirement plans, anyone?) were simplified with Zahn’s “roadmaps” or graphs and charts aggregating the data into one easy to navigate reference.
I joined five others in a local Zahn study group that met each Wednesday evening to address questions and discuss difficult topics. We took 7 weeks to cover the pre-study material, and I averaged between 15 to 20 hours of study time each week (and I have the 8 extra pounds of study weight to show for it). So yes, when Ken says you should study about 120 to 140 hours prior to the Live Review class, that’s what you should expect.
Comprehensive Live Review
As one of my colleagues so eloquently said, attending Zahn’s Live Review is like making four non-stop flights to Europe. You’re basically sitting in a room with 65 other people reviewing scintillating study material for 11 hours each day. All the while, Zahn strikes down the occasional “what-if” question from the students by responding, “If you start asking ‘what-if’ during the exam, you will fail!”
Our pre-study material was replaced with a consolidated (read: distilled) Live Review book of about 300 single-sided pages. As the class progressed, I realized that the Live Review covers just enough of the material to help you pass, not to help score 100% on the exam.
This is reality: once I accepted the fact that I was not going to ace the exam and all I needed was a passing score, the studying became more palatable. Another one of Zahn’s idioms is to not fight the exam. “If you start fighting the exam and try to be perfect, you will fail!” he exclaimed.
Despite the agony of sitting in a windowless hotel conference room for four straight days, Zahn manages to keep the review course moving at a decent pace and keeps our attention by interjecting practical stories relating to the material. One thing’s for sure, I won’t forget about taking losses on Section 1244 stock due to one of Zahn’s failed company experiences back in the 1970s. And by the fourth day, we were all experiencing Pavlovian responses at 2:00 in anticipation of the sweet treats delivery for the afternoon break.
Finally, Zahn left us with his last words of wisdom. “Know the truths, as the truth will set you free.”As hokey as it sounds, it’s completely true. If you understand what is true for each question (especially the roman-numeral questions, such as “I, III, and IV only”) and forget about the other fluff the CFP Board puts in as distractors, you will pass.
Post Live Review Study
I had about three weeks of time between the Live Review course and the day of the exam. Zahn supplied an excellent schedule covering the day-by-day items to study. All studying used the Live Review materials and rarely referenced pre-study materials. By this point, if you had to frequently review the in-depth pre-study, your outlook of passing wasn’t looking good.
Zahn also added a large volume of content and study material to his website, www.kenzahn.com. If I remember correctly, there were six mock exams consisting of 60 multiple choice questions. There were also about a dozen comprehensive case scenarios that I found the most helpful. The most difficult cases included S Corporations and all the bells-and-whistles that go with them, and reviewing Ken’s answers taught me how to approach similar questions come exam time.
In addition to the study schedule, Zahn provided several excellent test-taking strategies for the day of the exam. Eat a good breakfast, arrive early, and wear earplugs were good, but the most relevant was the strategy for approaching the cases. His advice on when to tackle the case scenarios and when to skip them was the most valuable for me.
Day of the Exam
The CFP Board protects the content of its Certification Exams extensively. Nevertheless, I found that many questions had the look and feel of Zahn’s study questions (perhaps that’s because it’s true the other way around: Zahn’s materials are similar to the format of the exam). I swear more than once I had the feeling Ken was standing over my shoulder saying, “This question is just like the pre-study. Just remember the truths and you’ll pass.”
I exited the two-day exam feeling fairly confident about my performance, a feeling that seems to be in the minority of those I talked to after the exam. I suppose my experience illustrates how prepared I felt due to the intense review performed over the previous three months. I think this speaks volumes about Zahn’s materials, live review, and exam strategies. Without the live review, I believe I would have allowed the exam to beat me and I would have been deflated.
Summary
It’s a little hasty of me to post a review of Ken Zahn’s Live Review right now since my Pass/Fail letter has yet to arrive [Update! See my results by clicking here]. However, the results should not influence how I feel about Zahn’s curriculum. For the money, I feel like I received excellent preparation materials and instruction.
If you’re considering Ken Zahn along with the other live review providers, I believe the best choice you can make is to sign up with Ken. I don’t get paid to say any of this; I’m just a guy that went through the process, followed the instructions, and feel like I crushed the exam.
Enjoy FPPad.com?
Subscribe to the RSS feed or 
subscribe by Email
August 9th, 2008 at 9:01 am
I used two providers to prepare for the CFP(R):
1. Ken Zahn
2. Kaplan
Here are the differences as I see them, Kaplan has more study material so that you can study in different ways. For example, they have audio CDs, flash cards on each topic area, CD-Roms of questions, including board released questions, and virtual live review that you could watch from the convenience of your computer.
Ken Zahn on the other hand will do far more to teach you how to pass the exam. Giving Kaplan their due, they give you enough study material to drown yourself in, however, especially in the live review, they have far too little focus on the content relative to the actual exam. Kaplan live instructors are also far too willing to answer “what-if” questions which are nothing but a waste of time. The exam is the exam and asking “what-if” is like a recipe to fail.
The exam is challenging no matter what provider you use. You have to give it the time and “respect” it deserves. Kaplan has some helpful tools, like the audio CDs. However it is my opinion that Zahn’s focused approach will serve you far better than his competition. Zahn’s test-taking techniques alone are worth the price of admission.
August 9th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Kaplan vs. Ken Zahn. Zahn does have flash cards available through Brett Danko for about $100.
A few people in our study group also purchased the Kaplan flash cards and review material, so I had the opportunity to review them. In my opinion, Kaplan’s cards were way too specific. How critical is it to know that there’s only $2000 of jewelry coverage in a standard HO policy? There were tons of cards with this minutia.
Personally, I prefer the condensed material provided by Zahn. You’re right: Kaplan gives you plenty of material to drown yourself. If you even try to commit all the Kaplan material to memory as you can, you’ll probably end up failing the test because you can’t distill it all over the 2-day exam.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Big Bill,
100% agree with you. I took the Dalton (which turned to Bisys, which I think is now the kaplan review) review and failed the exam the 1st time. It was way to much material as you say–mostly geared towards memorization and did not fit my study style.
Next time I took the Zahn study material, applied myself over a five month or so time period and passed. It was a much better fit to me.
I took the live review in Tampa with Ken which was great. You have to get used to Ken’s personality a bit at first. I kept expecting him to jump up on the table and the front and flex like Hulk Hogan. Once you get past that his course is very helpful.
Great post Bill.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
[...] odd thing is (perhaps not so odd considering the past) that my exam review provider, Ken Zahn, has been more proactive on the communication front than the CFP [...]
September 19th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
[...] moment of truth has arrived. Did all the studying pay off? Was the Ken Zahn Live Review [...]
November 5th, 2008 at 3:34 am
[...] of FPPad have been following my recent experience preparing for the certification exam, attending Ken Zahn’s live review course, and communicating with the CFP Board regarding exam [...]