Series 161 FAQ for FINRA Supervisory Analyst Part I, including exam format, passing score, Series 16 context, communications review, and study strategy.
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Series 161 is Part I of the FINRA Series 16 Supervisory Analyst qualification. It is the regulations and communications-review half of the qualification.
No. Series 161 is only Part I. It should be understood as one half of the overall Series 16 path.
FINRA lists Series 161 as 50 multiple-choice items with a 90-minute time limit.
FINRA lists the passing score for Part I of the Series 16 exam as 72%.
FINRA states that the Series 16 does not have a corequisite exam. Candidates still need the proper firm sponsorship and registration processing for a principal-level qualification exam.
It focuses on reviewing and approving research analysts’ communications and on serving as liaison between research and other parties. The exam is heavily weighted toward communications review.
It is testing whether you can think like the supervisory reviewer who protects the published communication. The stronger answer usually asks what approval, revision, disclosure, or coordination step should have happened.
The communications-review function deserves the most time because it carries 68% of the exam.
The most common mistake is treating Series 161 like a vocabulary test. You need to know the rules, but the exam is really asking whether the supervisory analyst should approve, revise, delay, escalate, document, or restrict a communication.
Use the outline as a checklist of job functions and tasks. After each study session, mark whether your misses came from communications scope, approval workflow, disclosure requirements, timing restrictions, liaison controls, or records.
Switch once you can quickly tell whether the issue is communications approval or liaison/boundary management. That split is the fastest way to clean up misses.
Review the communications-review function, liaison controls, passing-score facts, and your own missed-question log. Do not spend the final day trying to learn unrelated research-analyst valuation content.