A study plan for the New York insurance license exam

Step one is the course, and it is not optional

New York requires approved prelicensing education before you can sit any of the five exams. Book that first. A practice exam will not stand in for it, and nothing on this site gives course credit.

Step two: one practice exam cold

When the course is finished, sit a full practice exam under the real time limit before you start reviewing. The score matters less than the pattern. It tells you which topics are costing you marks, and the outline tells you how much each topic is worth. A weak topic worth a large share of the paper goes to the top of the list.

Step three: read the wrong answers, not just the right ones

Every wrong answer in our exams carries its own sentence saying why someone would pick it and why it is wrong. Read those for every question you missed, and for any you got right by guessing. Most wrong answers on a licensing exam are a real rule applied to the wrong situation, and learning to spot that is most of the work.

Step four: a second form, a week later

Sit a different full-length form. A second paper on the same outline with different questions shows whether you learned the rule or the question. If the weak topics have moved, the review worked.

Step five: practice the pace

The 100-question exams give you 72 seconds a question and the 150-question exams give you 60. Sit your last practice exam in one go, on the clock, in a quiet room. Endurance is part of a two-and-a-half-hour exam.

What to bring on the day

PSI runs the exams for the state, and its candidate bulletin lists the identification and check-in rules. Read the current version before you go, since it is the document that decides whether you are admitted.