Took and passed the Series 7 today, it's a tough test but very do-able if you prepare properly.
Study materials - BiSys -
www.bisys-education.com. I used the study course but did not sign up for the live classes, this worked fine for me. The course covered everything I needed to know, and does a good job of reviewing thru review questions and practice tests. If you try to study for this by just reading, the test covers such a wide range of topics that it feels like information you learned last week is leaking out of your head as you do more reading this week. The Bisys course dealt with this thru repetition in different forms - read, do drills, do short chapter tests, then do a review section that covers everything again but more briefly, then longer practice tests, then a course outline that's an even briefer review, then more practice tests. During all this there's audio tapes for more reinforcement.
Do lots of the practice tests and questions, and study the ones you got wrong.
I probably studied around 100-120 hrs, 67-70% of that over the last 3 weeks. Bisys recommends 120-180 hours depending on whether or not you have past industry experience, and whether you take their classroom program. I think that's realistic, less would leave the average person unprepared.
6 hours is plenty of time for 250 questions. Took me 5 including reviewing my answers (wasted time, didn't change but 1 answer), and the earlier reports of 3-4 hours is very doable if you know your stuff cold. An earlier reply said if you look at a question and cannot figure it out quickly, move on. For example, most of the single-answer multiple-choice questions have 1-2 answers our of 4 that are clearly wrong, so you can narrow the odds quickly even if you don't know the answer for sure.
If your study course doesn't already have them, put together your own condensed study sheets, particularly for formulas and other "facts" kinds of stuff -
Margin calculations
Formula for valuing a rights offer
Financial ratios (unless you have an accounting background)
Dates/time periods - particularly those with regulatory significance
etc, etc, etc
There are more questions on debt securities/Treasury debt/municipal debt, and on options, than any other topic. However, all topics are covered. Know how to calculate breakeven and profits on options strategies - Bisys recommended a strictly mechanical approach to this, the other way is to figure it out from fundamentals - you choose which works best for you.
Study hard, study fast, pass it on the first try. No problem if you're prepared.
