Most students that have taken the certified financial planner (CFP) board exam agree that the case studies are the most difficult and important portion of the test. The exam itself is 10 hours long, with one four-hour session on Friday and two three-hour Saturday sessions. The exam consists of 285 multiple-choice questions, with one case study per session. While the total number of questions relating to the case studies will vary from one exam to another, approximately 20% of the exam will consist of case study questions. This amounts to 55 or 60 questions, making it absolutely necessary that students know how to analyze and reason through the case studies in order to pass the exam.

SEE: Studying For The CFP Exam Case Study FormatCase studies are often placed near the end of each section of the exam. Each will begin with at least eight to 10 pages of information describing the hypothetical client's situation. This includes a page of demographic information listing all of the people involved (usually a family or business, or both), their ages, physical and mental health status, plus any relational conflicts or difficulties between each character.

Often these studies will incorporate a divorce or other rift within a family, or else have a spendthrift child that must be dealt with. The case study will also include basic cash flow and balance sheet pages that outline all of the client's personal and business assets and liabilities, income and expenses and every type of insurance coverage. The assets will be further broken down into the client's investments and retirement accounts, and the income ledger will show each investment's rate of return.

In addition, the case study will illustrate the estate breakdown, showing all relevant wills, trusts and other legal documentation. If there is a business, a complete list of all employees and their ages is usually given, along with its cash flow and balance sheet and the general outlook for the future of the business. After all of this reading, you will be asked 15-20 questions pertaining to the information presented.

SEE: Why You Should Draft A Will

Knowledge Alone Isn't Enough The CFP board exam requires much more than mere familiarity with the course material. The student must also be able to evaluate, synthesize and apply that knowledge correctly when answering the questions. This is true even with the non-case study questions, but these questions will often focus on one specific issue or topic. Case studies effectively force the student to proactively determine exactly what rule or topic pertains to the information presented in the informational breakdown.

Unlike the standalone questions, case study questions often do not focus on a specific topic, such as asking whether the clients presented in the study are eligible to contribute to Roth IRAs. Case study questions frequently force the student to examine much broader concepts, such as whether the client's portfolio has too much risk, or the right kinds of risks. If the student was posed with this question, then he or she must be able to effectively evaluate the client's overall portfolio. This means being familiar enough with the specific characteristics of each investment or type of investment in the portfolio to evaluate, either mathematically or through investment-principle-based reasoning, whether the portfolio is sound or needs to be changed.

This is, of course, only an example. The student will be asked to make several three-dimensional evaluations of this nature in each case study, pertaining to all areas of the client's finances. An estate-planning question could ask the student to evaluate the client's will and trust, which would require the student to be proactively familiar with all of the different types of wills and trusts and know which types would be appropriate for the client in the given situation. An insurance question will force the student to make the same type of evaluation for all of the different types of insurances carried by the client. Investment and retirement questions will often involve computations and a fair amount of number-crunching before real evaluations can be made.

How Do I prepare for this?There are a number of ways that you can improve your chances of succeeding on the exam. While any strategy must begin with an understanding of the format and type of information that will be presented in the studies, this alone will seldom suffice in providing you with the background you'll need to be able to effectively reason through case study questions. A couple of common strategies are outlined as follows:

Read the Case Study Thoroughly As obvious as this suggestion seems, the entire case study must be read and evaluated before attempting to answer any of the questions. The vast majority of the information given in the study will be relevant to at least one of the questions asked. Whenever a divorce or other family issue is presented, questions regarding which type of trust to use are often asked. A careful evaluation of the study's balance sheet information will reveal whether estate taxes will be an issue, and so on. Even seemingly innocuous information can provide critical clues that can be used to answer questions.

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The Key To CFP Exam Success