Seventy-five scored items, five you cannot see, and 44 percent of the exam in one section. Plan to the real weighting.

Section 1 is 12 of the 75 scored items. It covers who regulates the securities industry and with what authority, who the participants are and what each does, how primary, secondary, third and fourth markets differ, the economic factors the exam expects you to connect to bond and equity prices, and the mechanics of bringing an offering to market.

Section 2 is 33 of the 75 scored items, the largest by a wide margin. It runs through equities, debt, options, packaged products, municipal fund securities, direct participation programmes, REITs, hedge funds and exchange-traded products, then asks you to identify the risk types each carries and the strategies that mitigate them.

Section 3 is 23 of the 75 scored items. It covers order types and trade capacity, the components of investment return and the four dividend dates, settlement timeframes, corporate actions and their effect on price and cost basis, account types and registrations, anti-money laundering, books and records and privacy, communications and best interest obligations, and the prohibited activities.

Section 4 is the smallest on the exam at 7 of the 75 scored items. It covers SRO registration and continuing education requirements for associated persons, including statutory disqualification, fingerprinting and background checks, and then employee conduct and reportable events: Forms U4 and U5, outside business activities, private securities transactions, political contributions, gifts and reportable financial events.

Enter a coupon, a price and a maturity and see all four yields at once, with the discount and premium ranking the SIE actually tests. For exam practice on a hypothetical bond you type in; not investment advice.

The SIE alone does not let you transact securities business. This walks the work you intend to do to the qualification exam FINRA lists for it, and states what the SIE does and does not cover.