Actual questions from the CSC exam
Welcome to the CSC Exam!
What is CSC?
CSC (Canadian Securities Course) is an exam hosted by CSI (Canadian Securities Institute). (Find out more about CSI from their website: www.csi.ca.)
Here in this site, you'll find key exam points for both Exam 1 and Exam 2 that will help you study and prepare for the CSC exam.
Click here to find out actual CSC exam questions.
Click here to find out how I prepared for the CSC exam.
When I look back after taking the CSC exam, this is what I feel:
First of all, don’t wait too long after you finish studying the course materials. Why? Because the significant portion of the course materials requires memorization. The longer it lapses, the more it fades away.
I booked and wrote my Exam 1 within 3 weeks after my course finished Volume 1 (while I was still in Volume 2 of my course). I booked and wrote my Exam 2 within a month after my Exam 1.
You have to estimate when you can finish studying volume 1, and book an exam date. Exam dates are not always available in many less popular cities in Canada. In Toronto, the closest exam date that you can book is two weeks later (unless you are willing to pay extra for a sooner exam date).
The format of the exam can be paper-based or computer-base; however, the computer-based exam costs $50 extra. Computer-based exams are available only in some locations.
The advantage of a computer-based is that you will know the (tentative) results right away, whereas for the paper-based exams, CSI says that you’ll know the result in two weeks’ time. But from my experience, you’ll know the result (from you account on the CSI website) two to three days after you take the exam, depending on whether your exam time is in the morning, afternoon, or evening.
Both Exam 1 and Exam 2 have 100 multiple-choice questions, and allowed time is two hours. To time myself, my rough estimate is that I have to finish one question per minute. Whenever I encounter a question that I was not sure, a put a tiny little mark beside the question number on the answer sheet (but make sure not to confuse the machine that marks your answer to think that it’s an answer).
In Exam 1, after I finished the first round of the 100 questions, there were about 4 or 5 questions that I was not sure. And I still had about ten minutes left for me to go back to those 4 or 5 questions.
In Exam 2, I did not even have enough time to through the 100 questions. At the end, I had to wild-guess more than 12 questions. So I personally think that Exam 2 is harder than Exam 1.
You may not believe, but some (2 or 3) questions in the real CSC exam actually are the same as those I encountered in the CSC Check practices.
There are 2 or 3 questions in each Exam that test on very minor details – like a small paragraph in the textbook. That’s why I suggested, after doing the CSC Check practice, to go over the explanations of all the questions (even for those questions that you got correct) because it may touch on some minor details that you may have missed. Also, I posted those minor questions I encountered here.
So after you taking the CSC exam, if you remember some questions, please email me (TheExamGuy@gmail.com) so that I can share them with future students.
Good luck to your exam!
This is how I prepared for the CSC exam.
• Attend every class, and pay attention in every class.
• But if you are doing self-study, enroll the CSC course from CSI, and follow the online course schedule, complete the learning activities as well as the post-lesson assessment after each chapter.
• Read the textbook at least once in details. Twice or three times is even better (but I only read it once).
• At the beginning of each chapter, there is a section called "Key Terms". And at the end of chapter, there is a section called "Summary".
• When you enroll the exam from CSI, enroll also the CSC Check for $120. It's worth it. (If you enroll through some institutions or your employer, the CSC Check may be free.)
• CSC Check is a mock exam practice of the actual exam: Each practice has 100 multiple choice questions with a time limit of 2 hours.
• Practice the CSC Check a few times. If you don’t have enough time, practice at least twice.
• After you click Finish (or Submit) at the end of the practice mock exam, CSC Check will give you the score, which gives an indication of how well you have prepared yourself for the real exam.
• In addition to giving you the overall score, CSC Check also gives you some explanation to each question. Go over these explanations for the questions that you got wrong. Also, go over the explanations of the questions that you got correct. By doing so, it will reinforce your understanding of the question, and often it will bring out certain details that you have missed.
• When you do the CSC Check practice the second time (and subsequent times), you’ll find that many questions (probably about half or more of the questions) are repeat from the previous CSC Check practices you have done. So if you go over the explanations of all the questions in your previous CSC Check mock exam practices, your score should be getting better and better.
I do not have any background in the finance industry (in fact, my background is in IT). I only have crude knowledge in mutual funds as I, like most Canadians, invest my RRSP in mutual funds.
To study for the CSC exam, I could either self-study, or took a course. For personal career reasons, I wanted to pass the CS exam in as short time as possible, so I decided to take a classroom taught CSC course.
There are many taught CSC courses offered. (Just take a look at the ads around this post, you may find some that suit your needs.) I took a course taught in Chinese, and the instructor was Monika Wang, an experienced and enthusiastic good teacher.
It was an intense course that ran two nights a week (3½ hours per night) for six weeks. I also have a full-time daytime job to tend to. It was tough, but I just needed to pass the CSC exam. The marks really did not matter. (The passing mark is 60% for both Exam 1 and Exam 2.)
From the time the first class started to the time I wrote Exam 2, it took just a bit over 9 weeks. And I passed!! Actually, I did pretty well in Exam 1, but not as well in Exam 2, but I passed!