Series 65 Practice Test
Free NASAA Series 65 (Uniform Investment Adviser Law) practice in English, Chinese and Spanish — economics, investment vehicles, client strategies, and the fiduciary and state-law rules that decide the exam.
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Practice questions written from the NASAA Series 65 Test Specifications and the Uniform Securities Act. Not affiliated with or endorsed by NASAA, FINRA or Prometric. Dollar thresholds, fee figures and contribution limits change; where one matters the question supplies it. Confirm current requirements with NASAA before testing.
About the Series 65 exam
The Series 65, formally the Uniform Investment Adviser Law Examination, is the exam a person passes to act as an investment adviser representative. NASAA writes it, Prometric delivers it, and — unusually for a securities exam — nobody has to sponsor you. You file a Form U10 as an individual and sit it. That makes it the most open door in the industry, and the reason a career-changer with no firm behind them starts here rather than with the Series 7.
How to study for the Series 65
Start with the law, not the products. Candidates who come from a sales background reliably underestimate the fourth topic, and it is thirty percent of the exam on its own — tied for the largest. Learn the definition of an investment adviser and its three-part test until you can apply it to an odd fact pattern, then learn the exclusions, then learn who registers with whom and why a federal covered adviser makes a notice filing instead. Nearly every registration question is a variation on those few ideas, and none of them requires memorising a number.
Treat the fiduciary standard as the spine of the whole exam rather than as one topic among many. Soft dollars, agency cross transactions, principal trades, borrowing from a client, sharing in profits, advertising and testimonials, custody safeguards, best execution — these look like separate rules and are really one idea applied repeatedly: the adviser owes loyalty and care, and every material conflict must be disclosed fully and fairly before the client decides. When a question describes conduct you are unsure about, ask what the client would need to know to consent, and whether they were told.
Do the arithmetic by hand at least once. The analytical half of the first topic — present and future value, internal rate of return, standard deviation, alpha and beta, the Sharpe ratio, correlation, the current and quick ratios, price-to-earnings and price-to-book — is a small, finite set, and the exam tests whether you know what each number means rather than whether you can compute it quickly. Work one example of each until you can say in a sentence what it measures and what would make it misleading. That sentence is usually the answer.
Finally, practise reading the client, because the third topic is the largest and it is almost entirely judgement. A question will give you an age, a time horizon, a tax situation, a stated risk tolerance and a constraint, and the four options will each be defensible for somebody. The one that is right is the one that fits the facts you were given rather than the facts you assume — a stated tolerance for risk does not survive a short horizon, and a tax-efficient recommendation is wrong in a tax-deferred account. Read the constraint twice before you read the options.
FAQ
Do I need a sponsoring firm to take the Series 65?
No. This is the exam's defining feature. Most securities exams require a member firm to sponsor and file for you; the Series 65 does not. An individual files a Form U10 directly, pays the fee and schedules at a testing centre. There is no degree requirement, no experience requirement and no prerequisite exam.
What is actually on the exam?
NASAA publishes four weighted topics: Economic Factors and Business Information (15%), Investment Vehicle Characteristics (25%), Client Investment Recommendations and Strategies (30%), and Laws, Regulations and Guidelines including Prohibition on Unethical Business Practices (30%). Sixty percent of the exam is therefore client work and law, which is where most candidates lose marks. The pools on this page are sized to that blueprint rather than split evenly.
How is the Series 65 different from the Series 7 and the SIE?
They sit on opposite sides of one line. The SIE and the Series 7 qualify you to work for a broker-dealer, selling securities under a suitability obligation. The Series 65 qualifies you to advise for a fee as a fiduciary, which is a higher duty: loyalty and care, full and fair disclosure of every material conflict, and your client's interest ahead of your own. Much of the product knowledge overlaps; the standard of conduct does not, and that is what the exam is really testing.
Why do these questions avoid dollar thresholds?
Because those are the part of the subject that moves. The assets-under-management line between federal and state registration, the qualified client and accredited investor tests, contribution limits and tax brackets are all revised by rule, statute or annual indexation. A bank that keys answers to them is wrong the year they change. So the questions here key the structure and the purpose — who registers with whom, what an exemption is for, why a performance fee is restricted — and where a figure is genuinely needed, the question supplies it in the stem and asks you to apply it.
Is the state law on this exam different in every state?
Less than the name suggests. The state half is built on the Uniform Securities Act, a model act adopted in substance across the states, so the definitions, the registration framework, the exemptions and the administrator's powers are national tested content. What genuinely varies — filing fees, form numbers, individual deadlines and whether a particular state has adopted a particular provision — is out of scope here by design, and the honest answer on the exam is usually that the administrator of that state decides it.