All this week the Brand Financial Training team will be answering questions paraplanners have submitted regarding the upcoming exams, including specific exam questions, study tips and general questions on exam technique. Make sure you check our daily email every day for their help and insight.
Today we cover off two questions around when to take specific exams.
Question 1: I am struggling with the Trusts section for AF1 and am unsure whether to book the April sitting. Would you recommend delaying my exam until September 2022 so that I can study J02 alongside and do both exams at the same time?
If this is your first AF exam, the first thing to say it that they are not easy – they go beyond what is expected from the Diploma level exams, because they are expecting you to apply the knowledge that you have learned, not just repeat it. There is a lot of work involved in preparation for the AF1 exams as indicated by the CII’s recommendation of 150 hours study time plus an assumption that you already have the technical knowledge from the trusts exam J02.
The technical content for AF1 is from R03 and J02. The exam tests various aspects of the different taxes and will always include technical knowledge around trusts and/or the taxation of the different trusts. Therefore if you are struggling with the trusts element of the AF1 syllabus so close to the exam sitting it may be worth considering deferring until September and taking AF1 and J02 together, it can reduce the need to study the content twice and can help you be more prepared for the more challenging AF1 exam.
Question 2: I have achieved the CII diploma in regulated financial planning and I am now working my way towards chartered status. In which order would you recommend I take the CII investment exams?
AF4 does have a lot of cross-over with J10 (and R02 which I assume you already have in the bank), and many students choose to sit these two exams close together as they do have significant overlap.
Both these investment exams will cover asset classes, investment advice, portfolio construction, investment ratios and analysis, and investment performance and reviews.
J12 is the newest of the investment exams, and in this syllabus, you will see more specialist areas of investment tested – for example, depositary receipts in the equities section, much more detail on warrants and foreign exchange. The dealing, settlement, and clearing chapters are of course only relevant to the J12 module, but much of the rest of the syllabus is covered elsewhere, so if you have already completed R02, J10 and AF1, then J12 would be the natural progression.
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