In a recent webinar for the FPA Virtual Congress, FASEA chief executive Stephen Glenfield said that while overall pass rates for the exam continued to be strong, this dropped dramatically among those who had already failed the exam and were returning for a second attempt.
“We’re starting to get some feel for the second sittings which are running at about a 54 per cent pass rate, so just over half of those who sit it a second time are getting through on their second sitting,” Mr Glenfield said.
Although FASEA was pleased with the fact that 93 per cent of advisers overall were passing the exam, whether on their first or second attempt, Mr Glenfield conceded that the way feedback had been constructed meant those who failed were often not clear on what they had to revise to improve their chance of passing a re-sit.
“When you sit your exam it covers three main areas – advice regulatory requirements, ethics and financial advice construction,” he said.
“When people get their results it’s either a pass or fail, and what we do is ACER does an analysis of the areas that you didn’t do well in, so if it was clearly ethics you were struggling with, you would get an advice saying the recommendation is that you concentrate on ethics in the re-sit.
“To date for most of the people failing it hasn’t been a single area, it’s been across the three domains, so the feedback they’ve got is you need to study the three domains. I think that’s part of what’s caused the angst, is [advisers saying] ‘how is that helpful for you to tell me I have to do everything?’”
As a result, Mr Glenfield said the authority planned to release more detailed data around the areas that failing advisers were having problems with.
“What we’re doing given we’ve now got through five or six exams is trying to draw a bit deeper into which areas in those domains people are having struggles with and we’ll look to put out something very shortly,” he said.
“It will be a website piece on the areas that are showing up consistently across the board for people, as a guide. We are [also] adding practice questions and we will start adding questions that go to the heart of what people are struggling with, so we would encourage people to do the practice test as well.”
Echoing comments made by Kaplan Professional last week, Mr Glenfield said a key problem area appeared to be a lack of knowledge on the part of those who had failed around how to apply regulations in a holistic sense, rather than relying on their licensee’s rules.
“Where you rely on the licensee’s policies about having an understanding of why they’re in place, you put your reliance on ‘if I do what’s in the compliance checklist, I know I’m doing the right thing’,” he said.
“Yet the exam’s asking you why you are doing that thing, what section of the act says this and therefore in this scenario what advice should you give.”
I agree that there’s absolutely no transparency with the FASEA exams and their assessing methodology. It is an irony that FASEA is assessing advisers on the ethics and trust, but where’s the trust with FASEA itself? I know advisers who failed the exam and asked for a copy of their marked results but FASEA won’t share that nor the advisers know on completing the exam how they scored in the multiple choice questions which is marked by machine and advisers should have the results immediately upon submitting their answers in exam (like in the practice tests). The system is totally opaque and there’s nothing advisers can do. I hope this gets challenged in a court of law as the whole process is one sided and defies the founding principle of law of equity. Any thoughts on it ??
How would Kaplan know what advisers are struggling with in the FASEA exam? Surely they are not privy to details of the exam or the results? The Kaplan Ethics course was equally poorly written and overly academic, so I think its more like the blind leading the blind
I found out I passed the FASEA exam (thank GOD!). However it is the most poorly written exam in my education experience (which includes an MBA, Bachelor degree, CFP, financial planning and other quals). Like many others, I didn’t feel 100% positive coming out of the exam, despite significant preparation. By comparison, I nailed the Ethics course with an exam score of over 90% and I knew I had because the questions were clear; the case studies had enough information to make an judgement and there were no errors (unlike the FASEA exam). Whoever is writing and/or authorising these exams is not writing these at the professional standard that we advisers (aka “clients”) expect and are expected ourselves to provide our services at.
Exams are made by academics. That means you are meant to answer questions in a way that academics like, even if it is not appropriate for real world solutions. The exam is also open book and the curriculum states exactly which sections of the law that need to be understood. As long as you know how to navigate these sections of law on the laptop, it is incredibly easy to pass the exam. Those that fail don’t understand these fundamental concepts.
Kaplan & Glenfield may be onto something in relation to advisers basing their knowledge on their licensee’s policies, rather than the law. I’m self licensed, and have had other advisers tell me on many occasions that I need to change my processes to A or B or C because “that’s the law”. Nope, it’s not the law, it’s their licensee’s policy. Very different thing.
Hopefully once these people pass the FASEA exam their eyes will have been opened to just how big these differences are, and start questioning why.
This is so true. I have done the exam and passed, but had to think about some of the questions as to how we do things and what is the law. I believe we do them at a higher level though.
What feedback?
I bet FASEA are rubbing their hands and licking their chops every time an adviser fails knowing they will clean up another $700 dollar exam fee to resit! I am segueing into a new and much more profitable and UNREGULATED career that pays more money, requires no education and no North Korean style of regulation, PI or mandatory ombudsman Memberships. Can the last adviser standing please don’t forget to turn the lights off when you leave – Adios!
The very best of luck to you.
Sounds interesting! What field is this?
Yes, please advise where we can join. Seriously, what field is this you are looking at?
please help us we also want to exit and leave. please assist. I have a young family and need to work hard to provide for them, any suggestions gratefully received. have a master’s degree passed fasea exam on the first attempt. quick learner. hard worker. just want to be given a go without so many encumbrances.
thank you
Count me in!!!
I assume you are going into property wealth coaching.
While I understand the need to ensure the lifting of standards is important, I remain bemused as to how such an opaque process can suffice as providing confidence to consumers and regulators.
Passing an exam essentially comes down to technique and memory. It does not confer confidence in advisers that have passed the FASEA exam.
One would have greater confidence in someone that has passed a degree type qualification If the subject matter contained in the FASEA exam is paramount, I would have thought that you needed to do this by say January 2021.
Such subjects then studied with rigor befitting the AQF7 level as required by FASEA.
The nitwits running FASEA are indeed worthy of being described as a confused dads army of intellectual derelicts. As I have said in past commentary, academics and lawyers ought not be the sole source of inspiration in the financial planning arena, As a lawyer, I am critical of the process advisers have been subject to and the level of contempt shown towards advisers in general for the failed incompetent approach of those in charge.
I remain opposed vehemently to FASEA, the AFA and FPA who have forsaken advisers. I have no confidence in any of these fools and if I was an adviser would not subscribe to these entities in any manner.
Thank you, I applaud your comments. Sadly, while we can leave the FPA and AFA behind as more than a hindrance than a help. FARCE-IA is a full on showstopper for the adviser – especially the dedicated risk specialists who have zero need of most of these unnecessary ‘qualifications’ being forced upon them. So, than you but even 35 year veterans like my good self will have to call it quits on 1/1/22 as throwing $700 a pop away on exam ‘attempts’ in order to sooth an academic or regulator for no benefit to ANYBODY (incl clients) is against common sense and I won’t be a part of it. I’m gone 1/1/22. I’ve never had a client complain in 34 years – very sad as I have many good years to give to many loyal clients yet. This is a shambles and the regulators and academics responsible should be abjectly ashamed. They’ve never given advice or sat with a family to protect them with insurance – they simply don’t have a real world clue and these are the creatures charged with ‘improving’ our industry. They are destroying it and it disgusts me!
Just sit the exam, it’s not even that hard. If you can’t be bothered or you’re not capable, then just go away.
Why wait until 1/1/22? Do the rest of an industry a favour and lift the average standard by just going now. No hard feelings & I hope you enjoy the rest of your life.
I disagree Amanda. It was “hard” because many questions are poorly written and can be subject to interpretation, not because of the content that is examinable. I found there were relatively few straight forward right/wrong questions that tested your knowledge of regulation for example. There was even a question on the role of FASEA. WTF??? What a useless waste of a question. There were a lot of SMSF based case studies, and this may have thrown a few people who don’t deal in SMSFs, even though the exam is not meant to be “technical”. By comparison, the Ethics bridging course exam I undertook earlier this year was far clearer/well written. Perhaps FASEA should ask a Kaplan Professional assessor to write their exams for them?
Your attempts at persuasive writing through personal anecdotes and sob stories are not effective. If you don’t intend on staying in the industry – why don’t you just leave [b]now [/b][b][/b]rather than wait until 1/1/22?
we also need to get rid of these troll muppets that say the world is full of icecream and sweets Anonymous
If we all will have to go on and do Uni degrees or the equivalent i dont even know why this exam is needed. We should have the politicians that passed this legislation doing these Ethics exams , and when they have all passed we will do it. Fasea should be an ongoing subject in our Kaplan and not an exam, this is a money grabbing exercise that will backfire on the government and we will be like england and NZ with huge increases in commission to save the insurers when the business dries up completely.
A lot of these people would be receptionists who happen to hold an authority, and just giving a cursory attempt to the exam.
This was my third attempt and i passed. Don’t be judgmental, no one knows what other advisers are going through in their personal life that effects the thought process in exam conditions. BTW i have over 25 years experience in financial planning and 1 exam will not determine my worth. I’m sure many of you so called younger advisers wouldn’t even see 25 years in one field so zip it up. To all that did not get through keep persisting and do not give up.
Very well done! Congratulations.
well, Don, you can count yourself amongst other notables like Winston Churchill. Churchill nearly didn’t make it to military school and even when he did qualify – barely – he did for the cavalry, which was a lower standard than the infantry, on his third attempt.
love bobby,
young adviser m.fin plan and fasea passed on the first attempt (when does this go on the FAR btw)
never give up.
Dear Mr Glenfield, what a load of nonsense. Fasea has set the bar on education and ethics. Why are your exam questions so vague and including testing of technical knowledge that’s covered in structured education. The exams are a load of rubbish . You should be assisting advisers not torturing them with overtly confusing and difficult scenarios that set a platform for many good advisers to fail. Oh and btw I passed.
With an overall pass rate in the low 90% range, I don’t see that most people are having too many problems with the exam. If you’ve failed twice perhaps financial planning isnt for you anymore….and for the guy who was complaining last week to that muppet Craig Kelly, if you fail twice you definitely shouldnt be running your own AFSL…. I mean how can you supposedly be running an AFSL and NOT PASS???!!!
The exams are confusing. I wasn’t confident I’d passed but I did. The stupid things is even people that sell timeshare and who are stockbrokers have to sit and pass the same exam. Its so kind of you to be soooooo understanding of people who have worked in the industry for years maybe as riskies who are struggling.
craig kelly has a really fat head. he is the equivalent of terry mcmaster in politics.
I know I will get a lot of heat from this but…. Those who can’t pass this exam should re-consider their career in financial services.
Pass rate of 54% for second timers.. Yeah probably.
The exams are ridiculously obtuse . I have 2 degrees and a diploma and had to do a resit. Know alls like you are part of the problem. Why test knowledge when people are required to do degrees?
It is knowledge and understanding they are testing together and, yes, it is not easy. I was amazed that 90% pass first time, that is impressive.
Because it verifies what you have learnt why do lawyers have to pass the bar why do accountants need to pass the CA and CPA, why do doctors have to pass practical exams before being licensed
If you really had a relevant degree or a degree in financial planning it wouldn’t be that difficult to pass, as I have passed it and found my masters in financial planning really helped me understand the knowledge areas.
Maybe instead of calling people names you should try and become a know it all.
We want to set the bar high so we don’t have any old fools coming into or staying in this industry.
Agreed the pass rate is just right, we don’t want 100% pass rate what is the point of having an exam then, we need to have a level of difficulty to it otherwise it totally defeats the purpose
If you can’t pass the exam after 2 attempts you shouldn’t be in this industry go into
sales it’s probably more suited to you
have you met a ca or cpa or lawyer in real life. i’d suggest you meet a real one first before you get on this forum telling us how professional and technically proficient they are.
i am a practicing adviser of 20 + years. i have more degrees than most professionals, most professionals would be embarrassed they only have one or two degrees or three degrees compared to me.
i’d suggest you meet a cpa, or ca and a lawyer first. they are hopeless.
Patb2323 how much practical experience do you have…………… hmmmmm. you can have all the degrees you like i bet you would have no clue how to deal with a 5 million dollar client #keyboardwarrior.
Agree 100%. Is there any limit on the number of times you can attempt the exam?? 3 strikes and you’re out!!
I have a degree in economics, am fully certified (having done this the hard way), and with a DFP. I passed the examination first time around. Having said that, I had no idea coming out of the exam how I went because it was obtuse and nebulous. I do not agree with your remark. It is pretty much agreed by all that the examination is “silliness”.
And those scientists trying to develop a corona virus vaccine and fail shouldn’t bother and JK Rowling shouldn’t have bothered to pursue her Harry Potter writing after being rejected by publishers etc, etc, etc.
Take your blinkers off, and change your glasses…