In this article, Luiza Todd from BTS looks at some of the challenges faced by candidates sitting this unit and shares some tips on how to approach question styles that appear on the paper.
The R06 Financial Planning Practice unit is different in style to its five predecessors. Gone are the useful exam strategies of ‘ip, dip, sky, blue’ or the equally useful ‘eeny, meeny, miney, mo’ for those questions where you have no idea what the examiner is asking you!
R06 candidates are faced with the case study (there are two in the exam), the question, and a blank space in which to type all their glorious answers.
Can I just buy a provider analysis and learn the questions and answers?
No provider (including BTS) knows exactly what questions will come up, which command verbs will be used in the question stem etc. so this approach is more likely to lead to a ‘deferred success’ situation than a pass.
Candidates looking at past R06 examiner reports often report back to us that there is nothing difficult about the answers the CII examiner is looking for. That’s true but producing answers from your own grey cells, with the pressure of the exam situation and nothing to prompt you, is a whole different story.
Candidates need strategies to approach the types of questions that regularly appear in the exam.
What is the R06 exam based on?
The R06 exam is based on the advice process – establishing the adviser / client relationship, fact finding, analysis, recommendations, and reviews. Questions that come up tend to be around these stages in relation to the two exam case studies (occasionally there is a generic question).
Let’s take a couple of question styles and consider what candidates need to be thinking about.
Fact finding R06 question styles
These tend to concentrate on either a generic area such as pension arrangements or savings and investments, or something specific that the client has such as a life policy or investment such as a bond.
Before starting to type an answer, candidates must identify the key words in the question stem. Take this question below, from the July 2022 paper:
“State the additional information that a financial adviser would need to obtain about X and Y’s current pensions and investments to enable them to provide appropriate financial advice.”
Can you spot the key word here?
We would say it’s the word ‘current’.
Before answering this question, first look at what the couple currently have and what you don’t know about these pensions and investments. Make a list from the case study of what they have currently, what you know and then list the gaps as your answers.
If you missed this key word who knows what glorious answers you would have put down. This then leads to a situation where you type a lot, think you have bagged all the marks, only to get a horrid shock when it comes to results day.
Factors based R06 question styles
Factors questions are an examiner favourite. Some exams have had as many as four of these beauties included in them. These can be generic or specific question styles.
What would a generic style factors question be looking for?
The examiner is likely looking for short, sharp factors such as age, state of health, planned retirement age, budget, expected inheritances and so on…funnily enough a bit of a generic list.
What would a specific style factors question be looking for?
Here the examiner wants to see factors linked specifically to the client circumstances. So rather than state of health, a specific factor could be that the client is in poor health with reduced life expectancy. Rather than planned retirement age, a desired retirement age of 65, which is in seven years’ time.
Don’t assume that the CII R06 examiner will use the word ‘factors’ in this type of question – another popular choice is ‘issues’ so don’t let that put you off.
Passing the R06 exam is not all about technical knowledge.
A big part of passing this unit is your question answering technique – it’s not the volume but the quality of what you type down that will score you the marks.
About Bespoke Training Solutions
Bespoke Training Solutions (BTS) have been supporting regulated exams for 19 years. Resources include digital and printed study guides, interactive-Learning modules, revision workshops and a mobile app of exam-standard practice exam questions. Visit https://www.bespoketrainingsolutions.com or contact BTS on [email protected] to find out more about support options to suit you.
