Find Your Learning Style

A key to success in your exam preparation is understanding your own learning preferences and strengths. Determine your preferred learning style and use the following tips to develop a study plan that plays to your strengths and increases your chance for success.

Learning Styles

For the visual learner

• Use images, maps and graphic organizers to access and understand new information
• Outline information
• Create charts
• Create study sheets
• Develop self-test questions
• Create visual images to connect the information to acronyms

For the learner with a preference for reading and writing

• Take significant amounts of notes
• Revisit materials and abstract content through writing essays

For the auditory learner

• Listen during lectures and interact in discussions to understand new content
• Participate in a study group to enhance learning through interactions with your peers
• Read passages out loud
• Recite the main points of each text section
• Explain information out loud
• Discuss study material with a partner or study group
• Record lectures and play them during daily commutes or while doing household chores
• Teach the material to someone else

For the kinesthetic learner

• Put financial planning principles into practice.
• Use scenarios and user stories in the context of the contextual variables and the student centered learning objectives
• Actively draft recommendations and financial plans to address various circumstances
• Take notes as you read texts
• Create note cards, question cards and problem cards
• Make up self-tests in the same format of the actual test and take them
• Participate in study groups and review sessions

As you prepare for exam day, be sure to review all the resources in our Exam Preparation Checklist.

Find advice and support in our online community for candidates for CFP® certification—the CFP Board Candidate Forum.