Introduction
The Series 63 exam, also known as the Uniform Securities State Law Examination or the Securities Agent State Law Examination, is an important qualification exam administered by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to assess the competency of candidates to perform the duties of a securities agent. The exam consists of 65 multiple-choice questions that test the principles of state securities regulation as reflected in the Uniform Securities Act.
As an educator involved in preparing students for the Series 63 exam, it is critical that you are able to craft exam questions effectively to evaluate whether candidates have developed the necessary knowledge and skills covered in the exam content outline. Well-designed exam questions serve as an accurate measurement of students’ understanding of course material and their readiness to pass the licensing exam.
This comprehensive guide provides key principles and strategies for educators on writing high-quality Series 63 exam questions. It covers understanding exam content and format, aligning questions to learning outcomes, writing various types of questions, leveraging technology, and reviewing questions. By the end of this guide, you will be equipped with the best practices to develop and enhance your question bank for the Series 63 exam.
Understanding the Series 63 Exam
The Series 63 exam, officially known as the Uniform Securities State Law Examination, is a qualification exam administered by FINRA to assess a candidate’s knowledge of state securities regulation and ability to conduct securities business in a particular state.
The exam consists of 65 multiple-choice questions, of which 60 questions are scored. Candidates are given 75 minutes to complete the exam.
To pass the Series 63 exam, candidates need to correctly answer at least 43 of the 60 scored questions, which translates to achieving a score of 72%.
The content outline of the Series 63 exam covers the following key topics:
- Securities and Issuer Registration (25%) – Securities registration, exemptions, and reporting requirements
- Professionals, Federal Covered Advisers, and Prohibited Activities (50%) – Broker-dealer and agent registration, supervision requirements, and prohibited practices
- Offering Practices and Communications Rules (25%) – Communications with the public, offering restrictions, and disclosures
It is essential for educators to have a strong understanding of the exam format, scoring methodology, and content areas to craft targeted and balanced exam questions.
Principles of Effective Question Writing
When writing exam questions for the Series 63 test, it is important to adhere to principles of effective question writing to ensure your questions are fair, valid, and reliable. Key principles include:
Clarity
- Use simple, clear, and concise language that is easy to understand
- Avoid vague terms or phrases that can be interpreted differently
- Be precise with the wording and provide enough details as needed
Relevance
- Align questions directly to the exam content outline
- Test important and representative concepts covered in the curriculum
- Avoid testing trivial details that are insignificant
Fairness
- Give students equal opportunity to demonstrate knowledge
- Avoid cultural biases or assumptions that can disadvantage some groups
- Cater questions towards different learning styles
Discrimination
- Vary difficulty levels to effectively discriminate between high and low performers
- Include an appropriate mix of easy, moderate, and difficult questions
By keeping these principles in mind, you can craft high-quality exam questions that effectively assess students’ mastery of key content while being fair and unbiased.
Types of Exam Questions
The Series 63 exam consists solely of multiple-choice questions. However, as an educator, you can utilize other types of questions as well to evaluate student learning. Key types of questions you can use include:
Multiple Choice
- Most common and versatile format
- Provide answer stem and 4-5 options with 1 correct answer
- Easy to grade objectively
- Can test both simple and complex concepts
- Prone to guessing
True/False
- Statement provided that students identify as true or false
- Useful for testing student ability to identify factual accuracy
- Guessing issues – 50% chance of getting right answer
Matching
- Students match items from two related lists
- Tests breadth of knowledge across multiple concepts
- Avoid making matches too obvious
Short Answer/Fill in the blanks
- Students provide a brief response rather than select from options
- Useful for testing student ability to recall key facts
- Time-consuming to grade responses manually
Each format has its own strengths and limitations. Using a mix of different question types caters to different learning styles and provides a comprehensive evaluation of knowledge.
Guidelines for Writing Multiple Choice Questions
As multiple-choice questions are the sole format used in the Series 63 exam, it is crucial that educators follow best practices in crafting these questions. Key guidelines include:
Craft the stem clearly
- Fully convey the complete problem or question in the stem
- Avoid negative phrasing like “which of the following is NOT”
- Use the question to provide clarifying details or context as needed
Generate effective answer options
- Have one clear best answer
- Make all distractors fully plausible but also clearly incorrect
- Use homogenous options and parallel structure
- Place options in logical or numerical order
- Vary length of options randomly
Apply higher order thinking
- Go beyond just recall of facts
- Test application, analysis, evaluation of concepts
- Provide novel scenarios that assess deeper understanding
Review and refine questions
- Check for clarity, relevance, fairness, discrimination
- Take a critical eye to identify areas for improvement
- Refine over multiple iterations
By following these best practices, you can create high-quality, well-designed multiple choice questions for the Series 63 exam.
Involving Students in Question Writing
In addition to writing questions on your own, consider involving students directly in crafting relevant exam questions. Research shows that the very act of writing test questions enhances student understanding and performance.
Here are effective strategies to guide students to write their own multiple choice questions:
- Provide clear instructions on the format and expectations for questions
- Give students rubrics for self and peer reviews to assess question quality
- Have students swap questions and provide improvement feedback
- Select the best questions to include in practice exams and tests
- Give students credit for questions ultimately used in assessments
Empowering students improves their comprehension, critical thinking, metacognition and overall exam preparedness.
Using Technology for Question Writing
Modern technologies like AI can help streamline and enhance the exam question writing process for educators. Key ways to utilize technology include:
Generate quality question templates
AI tools can analyze exam guidelines and content to auto-generate a diverse set of question templates covering various topics and difficulty levels. Teachers can then easily modify these templates.
Ensure alignment with curriculum
Automated quality checks by AI can compare exam questions against learning objectives and curriculum to highlight alignment issues.
Augment question banks
Intelligent algorithms can programmatically combine and re-arrange question components to create new variations. This helps expand the diversity of practice questions.
Expedite review and revisions
AI can rapidly analyze questions against a set of parameters like relevance, discrimination index, readability etc. allowing quicker iterations and refinements.
By handling the heavy-lifting parts of writing and analyzing questions, AI allows teachers to focus on providing a rich learning experience for students.
Reviewing and Revising Questions
It is critical to repeatedly review and revise your exam questions even after drafting them. Key steps in this process include:
Conduct peer reviews
Have other teachers review your questions and provide improvement feedback based on defined parameters.
Perform student interviews
Get direct clarity on interpretation issues from a student perspective by having them walk through questions.
Analyze performance data
Evaluate student performance on each question after exams to check for issues and areas for improvement.
Maintain organized databases
Use spreadsheets or dedicated platforms to store questions with relevant metadata like topic, type, difficulty rating etc. making analysis and tracking of revisions easier.
Retire reused questions
Ensure students don’t repeatedly see the same questions on multiple tests by retiring reused questions.
By incorporating peer and student input and continually refining your questions based on performance data, you can build a robust database of high-quality exam questions.
Conclusion
Well-designed exam questions are vital for effectively assessing student readiness for the Series 63 exam. As an educator, following guiding principles around alignment, higher order thinking, and iterative refinement using inputs from both peers and students is key to building a question bank that strengthens student comprehension and aptitude.
Leveraging technology like AI can further augment and enhance your capabilities allowing you to be more targeted and insightful with question writing, review and analysis. By providing students with high-quality practice questions that mirror the actual exam, you are preparing them for success on the Series 63 assessment and establishing foundational securities industry knowledge.
The collective impact of dedicated educators focusing on crafting stellar exam questions has the potential to uplift overall candidate performance and uphold uniform standards across the securities industry. This ultimately benefits both professionals and investors by sustaining trust and transparency in financial markets.
