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FP II Study Plan

April 6, 2026

Study plan for FP II with structured tracks built around the official CSI weighting, Canadian integrated-planning judgment, and exact FP II practice.

On this page

Use this plan to turn FP II into an integrated Canadian planning workflow instead of a disconnected set of retirement, tax, insurance, business, family-law, and estate notes. Pair it with the FP II guide home, the Cheat Sheet, the FAQ, the official resources, and exact practice on MasteryExamPrep.

FP II pressure map

CheckWhy it matters
60 questions in the current site configeach question matters more; one weak integrated decision costs more than on FP I
180 minutes in the current site configtime pressure is moderate, but second-order effects still need to be recognised quickly
20% retirement planningthe heaviest domain and the clearest integration test on the paper
15% small business and 15% family lawthese chapters punish candidates who solve only one domain at a time
10% planning practice, savings/debt, investment/tax, insurance, and estatelighter blocks still decide many borderline answers because they create second-order effects

Before you start

  • Treat FP II as an integration exam, not a stack of independent topic silos.
  • Keep one running notebook for cross-domain links such as retirement -> tax drawdown, business -> estate liquidity, or family-law change -> insurance and beneficiary redesign.
  • Review with longer client scenarios often enough that implementation order still feels visible under time pressure.

Why this order works

Study stageWhat you are stabilizing
planning-practice firstthe recommendation frame and the fact-finding discipline that hold the whole paper together
debt, investment, and tax secondthe core engines that shape many mid-case recommendations
retirement thirdthe highest-weight integrated planning block in the exam
insurance, business, family-law, and estate laterthe domains that sharpen or weaken the recommendation once the base plan exists
mixed review lastwhole-plan judgment under time pressure
TrackSequence
6-week intensivePlanning practice -> debt, investment, and tax -> retirement -> insurance -> small business -> family law and estate -> mixed review
10-week balancedWeeks 1-2 planning practice and debt; weeks 3-4 investment and tax; weeks 5-6 retirement; week 7 insurance; week 8 small business; week 9 family law; week 10 estate and integrated review
14-week part-timeAdd one main domain every 2 weeks, then spend the final month on integrated client scenarios and miss-log cleanup

Weight-aware build order

DomainWeightWhy it belongs here
Financial Planning Practice10%this is the process-control layer that stabilizes every later recommendation
Savings Planning and Debt Management10%weak cash-flow resilience can break otherwise strong plans
Investment and Tax Planning10%after-tax structure often changes the ranking of plausible answers
Retirement Planning20%this is the paper’s main integration engine
Insurance Planning10%often acts as the continuity or protection layer for retirement, debt, and estate decisions
Financial Planning for Small Business15%owner-manager facts create some of the hardest integrated cases
Family Law15%relationship change can force a full-plan redesign
Estate Planning10%often acts as the final test of whether the overall strategy is workable
PhaseWhat to do
Reading blockLearn one main domain and write the client facts that usually decide the recommendation in that area.
Reinforcement blockDo short drills on the same domain within 24 to 48 hours so the concepts do not stay abstract.
Integration blockPair two domains in one session, such as retirement plus tax or business plus estate.
Mixed review blockUse timed mixed sets only after you can explain why one plan is stronger overall, not just locally.

Good pairings for integrated review

PairingWhy it works
Investment and tax planningaccount structure and after-tax effects often change whether the recommendation is really good
Retirement and insuranceretirement income security and protection planning often sit in the same decision chain
Small business and estate planningsuccession, liquidity, and continuity problems rarely stay inside one chapter
Family law and retirementsupport, property division, and beneficiary changes can reshape the entire plan

When to open exact practice

Use the exact FP II practice page on MasteryExamPrep in stages:

StageWhat to do
after planning practice plus debtuse short mixed sets to check whether you are still identifying the dominant planning issue correctly
after investment/tax plus retirementuse medium sets to test second-order effect recognition under time pressure
final two weeksuse fully timed mixed sets and review why the rejected answer failed the wider plan

How to review misses well

Tag each miss by type:

  • wrong primary planning issue
  • weak second-order effect analysis
  • unrealistic implementation step
  • retirement or tax interaction miss
  • business, family-law, or estate consequence miss
  • locally plausible answer that weakens the overall plan

That usually shows whether you missed the client problem, the cross-domain consequence, or the recommendation mechanics.

What a good FP II miss note looks like

For each miss, write five short lines:

  1. dominant planning issue
  2. main constraint
  3. second-order effect you missed
  4. why the wrong answer still looked attractive
  5. why the better answer is more workable across the whole plan

If line 3 is weak, you are probably still studying FP II like FP I.

Better study instinct

  • if the recommendation looks strong in one domain but weak in tax, liquidity, legal, or timing reality, it is probably not ready
  • when two answers both look plausible, prefer the one that preserves more of the overall plan
  • use formulas to support planning judgment, not to replace it
  • if you cannot explain the rejected alternative, your recommendation logic is probably still too shallow

Final 7-day plan

DayFocus
7planning practice plus savings/debt
6investment and tax
5retirement planning
4insurance plus estate
3small business plus estate continuity links
2family law plus full-plan redesign review
1light review only: chapter snapshots, second-order effect notes, and pressure checklist

Final stretch

  • Rework misses into planning chains instead of single-domain notes.
  • Practice explaining how one recommendation affects at least two other planning areas.
  • Spend the final review week on recommendation quality, not just topic recall.

Final-week checklist

  • you can identify the main planning issue in one sentence
  • you can explain at least one second-order effect on another domain
  • you can defend why the chosen recommendation is stronger than the nearest alternative
  • your miss log is grouped by pattern, not just by question count
  • you have used the exact FP II practice page for mixed sets and pacing
Revised on Thursday, April 23, 2026
8. Estate Planning
Cheat Sheet