Results from the July 2010 CFP® certification examination are pouring in. Many recipients are broadcasting their results on twitter.
Click here to see real-time updates from those who passed with this Twitter search: “passed cfp”
Congratulations to all those who passed this rigorous exam. If you did not pass, I highly recommend you evaluate the Ken Zahn Live Review course.
FPPad.com is this month’s Featured Resource in Wealth Management Marketing’s newsletter. I want to welcome WMM subscribers to FPPad and provide some links to show you what’s popular on this site.
First, you can subscribe to the FPPad RSS feed by clicking here.
Don’t use an RSS reader? We recommend Google Reader. It’s free and easy to use.
Prefer email updates instead of RSS? We have an email subscription option, too. Just click here to subscribe by email.
So here’s a glimpse at what many visitors to FPPad find useful:
Thanks again for visiting and thank you to Wealth Management Marketing for featuring FPPad this month!
The moment of truth has arrived. Did all the studying pay off? Was the Ken Zahn Live Review beneficial?
Click here to view my CFP® Certification Examination results.
Update #3: 09/18/2008 2:16PM PDT: Reports are coming in that exam results letters have arrived in the mail. Check the comments below!
Update #2: 09/16/2008 2:42PM PDT: Carol Lee Roberts posted again to the Financial-Planning.com discussion boards. Among other things, she wrote, “There will be an update posted on the Board website today and I will also post the content here.” Click here to read her latest remarks.
The CFP Board website has the following statement:
NOTICE: Results from the July 2008 CFP® Certification Examination were mailed on September 16, 2008 to the preferred mailing address of each exam taker. Results will be posted to the secure online CFP Board accounts of exam takers on or about September 22, 2008. Exam results will NOT be released over the phone, by fax or by e-mail. CFP Board wishes all exam takers the best as they receive their results.
Update #1: 09/15/2008 2:21PM PDT: Carol Lee Roberts, Managing Director of Examinations and Education at the CFP Board, has addressed concerns over the delay of exam results on the Financial-Planning.com discussion boards. Click here to read Carol’s response.
Carol’s comments refer to an email sent to registered candidates on August 15. I didn’t receive the email. The last message I received was the August 14th email about the Exam Candidate Questionnaire notification that was sent in error. Other commenters at FPPad also did not receive the August 15 email. What about you?
Finally, I have some solid new news related to the release of the July 2008 CFP® Exam results!
The 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 Board.
Update 09/15/08 8:53AM PDT: If you landed here on a search, click here to read the latest post about exam results!
Just a quick note to those nervous readers who sat for the July 2008 CFP® Certification Examination.
I received a note on anxiety over the test results from Ken Zahn and his staff. Here’s the important part!
As we approach the end of your wait, you may be concerned about the release of the exam results. Fortunately, your anxiety will end shortly. According to CFP Board …
The Ken Zahn Live Review study materials are massive, but they will help you pass the CFP® Certification Examination
Ken Zahn is a leading provider of live review courses for the CFP® Certification Examination. Learn about my experience as I went through the Ken Zahn Live Review.
Originally published in August 2008, this article was updated in March 2014.
In June of 2008, 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 covers most of the United States with courses in 15 major cities, but each exam cycle Ken Zahn offers instruction in two east coast locations and one west coast city.
Ken Zahn isn’t the only live review provider for the CFP® Certification Examination, as the compay competes with similar offerings from Kaplan, Dalton, Keir, and the College for Financial Planning.
As of early 2014, Ken Zahn’s review course fee is $975 (increasing by just $50 since 2008 when I took the course), which is comparable to what most live review programs charge. You can find Internet-based courses for lower cost, but they’re less expensive because they’re not in-person classes.
So how good was the review course?
In a word: excellent.
About two or three months before the scheduled class, Ken 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:
Each topic is divided into 10 sections with a short review test at the end of each section. Topics are 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 78 principal topics established by CFP Board effective in 2012. Difficult concepts or those featuring many alternatives (e.g. retirement plans, anyone?) were simplified with Ken Zahn’s “roadmaps” or graphs and charts aggregating the data into one easy to navigate reference.
Form your own “Zahnbies” study group to increase your odds of exam success
This is the first important thing you should do to increase your odds of passing the CFP® Certification Examination!
Prior to registering, I connected with five other colleagues in a local Ken Zahn study group we affectionately called the “Zahnbies.”
We called ourselves Zahnbies because we basically ate, breathed, and slept the Ken Zahn pre-study materials for seven weeks. On our own, we typically averaged between 15 and 20 hours of study time each week (and many of us had the weight gain to show for it!)
Then we met each Wednesday evening for two to three hours to address our questions and discuss any difficult topics in detail.
So yes, when Ken Zahn says you should study about 120 to 140 hours prior to the Live Review class, that’s what you should expect.
This is the second important thing you should do: Follow the schedule provided by Ken Zahn. Deviate from the schedule at your own risk!
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, Ken 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, studying became more palatable.
This is the third important thing you must remember: Ken Zahn’s idiom is, “If you start to fight the exam and try to be perfect, you will fail!”
Despite the agony of sitting in a windowless hotel conference room for four straight days, Ken Zahn manages to keep the review course moving at a decent pace and retains 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 2:00pm in anticipation of the sweet treats delivery for the afternoon break.
Finally, Zahn left us with his last words of wisdom.
This is the fourth important thing you must remember: “Know the truths, as the truth will set you free,” says Zahn.
As clichéd as it sounds, it’s completely true. If you understand what is true for each question (especially the roman-numeral style questions, such as “I, III, and IV only”) and forget about the other fluff CFP Board puts in as distractors, you will pass.
I had about three weeks of time between the Live Review course and the day of the exam.
Again, Ken Zahn supplied an excellent schedule covering the things I should do day-by-day to stay on schedule. All studying used the abridged 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 Zahn’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:
One of the most relevant for me 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.
CFP Board carefully protects the content of its CFP® Certification Exams. Nevertheless, I found that many questions had the look and feel of Ken 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 seemed to be in the minority of those I spoke with after the exam.
I suppose my experience illustrates how well prepared I felt due to the intense review performed over the previous three months. I think this speaks volumes about Ken 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.
Six weeks later, we all waited anxiously for the white envelope to be delivered from CFP Board. For me, the delivery was a moment for celebration as I passed the CFP® Certification Exam.
Nevertheless, I try not to allow my exam results to influence how I feel about Ken 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 mention or promote Ken Zahn at all; I’m just a guy that went through the process, followed the instructions, and felt like I crushed the exam.
Updates to my blog are going to be a bit more sporadic over the next few weeks. Tomorrow I’m headed to Los Angeles to attend Ken Zahn’s live review course for the CFP® Certification Exam.
I’ll be there through Monday the 30th and then spend a short week managing the end of the second quarter quarterly reports. Hopefully the quarterly reports will go as smoothly as they did last quarter.
I imagine lots of my time will be spent studying leading up to the exam on July 18th and 19th. Until then, I imagine I’ll find time to post quick updates on Twitter.
See you on the other side.
