Micah,

Thank you for your feedback on Zahn’s live review. I’m happy to hear that you found the course as beneficial as I did.

Also, your tip on scanning the study materials into searchable PDFs is an excellent one. In fact, I highlighted the practice in this paperless document post on FPPad.

Thanks again,
Bill

* – I scanned Zahn’s review manual after the exam, and made searchable .pdfs from them as I find them to be very good reference material.

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.

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.

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.