AF exams - sitting more than one at a time

Slykant

Hi all, hoping those more experienced than I can give me some guidance with exam pace.

I have recently completed R01 to R06 and planning on working through the AF exams next. My R01 to R05 results averaged around 90% with 75% on R06 so hope I have a strong foundation knowledge (but realise AFs are a different beast).

I was a mortgage / protection adviser for 10+ years however only 2.5 years proper experience in pensions / investments.

How achievable is it to successfully study for two AF exams simultaneously for each sitting whilst holding a full time job. It was not my intention to rush them as I genuinely want to understand and digest as much info as possible however there is now a company business need for me to gain chartered status as soon as possible.

All advice / thoughts are greatly appreciated.

TomLloyd_Read

Is it is certainly possible to do, but requires a good study plan. I'd also caveat that with just having four AF papers possibly means you will need to get extra points elsewhere so in some cases you may end up doing three exams at a time.

AF5 can usually be done at the same time as one of the others, assuming you have completed your study for the other exam prior to receiving the case study. AF4 for me was the easiest so a decent pair for AF5, but I'd also back AF4 up with J10 and possibly J12 (both multiple choice) if you need the points. That'd be 3 or 4 exams within a few weeks of each other.

If you do AF1 or AF2 it is sensible to do JO2 or JO3 respectively at the same time (all written exams), so doing another written paper in that sitting might be a bit too much, or there might be clashes with your preferred additional AF paper.

And of course you can do the two pension papers simultaneously given only one is now an exam. When it was G60/AF3 it was foolhardy to attempt anything else at the same time!

I guess it really depends on how committed you are and whether you have the time and discipline to do the study.

Slykant

Thanks Tom. Thankfully I have credits from FPC1/2/3 and mortgage exams so technically just need 120 level 6 credits. I had originally planned doubling up the AF exam with the related J0 however I get your point re dates clashing.

Any other people’s views would be welcomed.

Yonkers420

I would think you could do AF5 and any other AF exam at once, then the AF8 coursework whilst you await exam results

SW1990

I did AF1, AF5 and J02 in October last year - it’s certainly possible to do with a full time job but will say I couldn’t have done it without expert pensions course (to help me be organised) and a lot of hard work! Thankfully passed all three so was totally worth the stress and tears!!

I was due to sit AF4 in April but was cancelled so ended up doing AF6 coursework then AF4 and J10 (good combo) in October just gone and May sit J12 for the credits soon as very similar.

I would definitely say worth giving AF5 a crack with another AF as you can’t really prepare until 2 weeks before with the case study so you can do lots of revision on the other AF in the lead up. If you decide doing two AFs is too much then definitely look at doing a double bubble by doing the relevant J/R0 equivalent if you haven’t already done so as it’s extra credits for similar content

Good luck whatever you decide