How often, and how, is an exam updated?
Every year, regulators and industry practitioners (brokerage and investment adviser) get together with our test development vendor to write new questions and update old ones. They look at changes in applicable laws, as well as emerging substantive issues (e.g., variable annuities, viatical settlements). The questions, however, have to still fit within the exam specifications published on the NASAA website, so that every test taker gets the correct number of questions in each of the specified subject areas. After multiple drafting and review meetings, the new or revised questions are entered into the database for each exam on a trial basis. Every test taker gets some, but they do not count towards the final score. This assures the questions are neither too difficult, nor too easy. Because of this rigorous procedure, which starts in January of each year, changes to the questions don’t actually become operational until later in the year. NASAA only occasionally updates the exam specificat
