Treat this as a finance-control exam, not just a formula exam. Many questions start with a broken process or weak safeguard before they become a capital or reporting issue.
Keep one running note sheet for capital, pricing, credit, settlements, and client-asset protection because those areas often feed one another.
Start timed work only after you can explain what control failed, what exposure it creates, and what reporting or escalation follows.
30-day intensive track
Week 1: General regulatory framework; General financial requirements; Investment Dealer business model and related areas; Offering and distribution of securities; Capital adequacy, books and records, and reporting
Week 2: Corporate governance and ethics; Duties, liabilities and defences; Risk management and internal controls; Inventory, pricing of securities and underwriting; Credit risk management and client accounts
Week 3: Significant areas of risk; Operations and settlements; Protection of dealer and client assets; Other capital provisions; Ultimate Designated Person (UDP) responsibilities
Week 4: run mixed timed sets, review every miss, and re-drill the 2-3 topics that still produce hesitation.
60-day balanced track
Weeks 1-2: General regulatory framework; General financial requirements; Investment Dealer business model and related areas; Offering and distribution of securities
Weeks 3-4: Capital adequacy, books and records, and reporting; Corporate governance and ethics; Duties, liabilities and defences; Risk management and internal controls
Weeks 5-6: Inventory, pricing of securities and underwriting; Credit risk management and client accounts; Significant areas of risk; Operations and settlements
Weeks 7-8: Protection of dealer and client assets; Other capital provisions; Ultimate Designated Person (UDP) responsibilities
90-day part-time track
Weeks 1-2: General regulatory framework; General financial requirements; Investment Dealer business model and related areas
Weeks 3-4: Offering and distribution of securities; Capital adequacy, books and records, and reporting; Corporate governance and ethics
Weeks 5-6: Duties, liabilities and defences; Risk management and internal controls; Inventory, pricing of securities and underwriting
Weeks 7-8: Credit risk management and client accounts; Significant areas of risk
Weeks 9-10: Operations and settlements; Protection of dealer and client assets
Weeks 11-12: Other capital provisions; Ultimate Designated Person (UDP) responsibilities
Across the final two weeks: slow down, clean up note cards and rule sheets, then finish with timed mixed review rather than new content.
Weekly execution pattern
Day
Focus
Day 1
Read one domain for system logic: what is being measured, protected, priced, or reported.
Day 2
Build distinction notes: accounting vs capital effect, operational break vs prudential break, client-asset issue vs dealer-asset issue.
Day 3
Work short scenario sets and tag misses by failure type: pricing, capital, credit, settlement, safeguarding, or escalation.
Day 4
Add the adjacent domain that commonly creates the downstream consequence, such as pricing plus capital or operations plus client-asset protection.
Day 5
Run a timed mini-set and check whether you identify the control failure before the numerical consequence.
Day 6
Rewrite weak scenarios into one-line control rules: what failed, what must be restricted or corrected, and what reporting follows.
Day 7
Light review only, then choose the next block from the weakest control chain instead of the most recent topic.
What stronger review looks like
Tag misses by why they failed: wrong exposure, wrong control, wrong reporting consequence, or wrong asset-protection response.
Review capital questions by asking what happened operationally before the RAC or filing effect showed up.
Keep pricing, underwriting, and inventory questions linked because they often feed capital and concentration consequences together.
Treat client-account and safeguarding questions as operational-control questions first, then capital or reporting questions second.