CISI Financial Planning & Advice Past Papers: What Exists (2026)
No public past papers exist for CISI Financial Planning & Advice. Here's the official material that does, and where to get current, weighted 80-question mocks.
Are there past papers for CISI Financial Planning and Advice?
No, CISI does not publish them, and previously sat papers are never released. The official material is one specimen paper written to the live standard, plus end-of-chapter questions and a practice paper at the back of the workbook. The exam is 80 multiple-choice questions in two hours, computer based, with a 70% pass mark and no negative marking. Retirement planning and retirement solutions together carry nearly half the marks, so weight your practice that way.
- Official past papers
- None published. Previously sat papers are never released and the live bank rotates
- What CISI does provide
- One official sample paper, plus end-of-chapter questions and a practice paper in the official workbook
- Questions
- 80, multiple choice, across five elements
- Time
- 2 hours, about 90 seconds a question
- Pass mark
- 70%, no negative marking
- Where the marks sit
- Retirement planning and retirement solutions together carry nearly half the marks
- Qualification
- One of three IAD technical units, taken with the core UK Regulation & Professional Integrity and Investment, Risk & Taxation units
Financial Planning and Advice candidates hunt for past papers for a good reason: this is a scenario-driven exam, and suitability questions only get easier once you have worked through dozens of them. The honest answer is that CISI does not publish past papers for it. One sample paper exists, the official workbook has its own questions, and everything else you will find online is unofficial and usually written against superseded rules.
This page covers what official material exists, why stale PDFs are a liability when nearly half the marks ride on pension rules, and how to get the past-papers experience with current material.
Test yourself on IAD: Financial Planning
4 questions written to the current syllabus, in the format of the real paper. Pick an answer and the explanation appears. Nothing to sign up for.
Where client data has been collected under the FPSB process, the step that immediately follows is:
Not quite. The answer is B.
After data is collected in step two, the planner analyses and evaluates the client's financial status in step three. Establishing the relationship is step one, while implementation and review come later.
An employee receives six months' full sick pay from his employer. To keep the cost of an income protection policy down without leaving a gap in cover, the deferred period should be set at:
Not quite. The answer is B.
Matching the deferred period to the six months of employer sick pay means benefits begin just as the sick pay ends, and the longer deferred period keeps the premium lower. A shorter period would overlap with the sick pay and cost more, while waiting a full fifty-two weeks would leave roughly six months uncovered. [Keeping the stem word 'full' means the key still does not out-echo this option, so the echo guard stays clear, while the weeks unit is restored. Checked: 3 words in and 3 out, no duplicate option, no dashes.]
Which statement about the structure of a defined benefit (DB) pension scheme is correct?
Not quite. The answer is D.
A DB scheme is always an employer occupational (trust-based) scheme. Only DC arrangements can be personal or run by an insurer under contract, and a master trust is a specific multi-employer DC vehicle, so those descriptions do not fit a DB scheme.
Aligning advice with a client's essential needs and realistic aspirations is intended mainly to secure:
Not quite. The answer is C.
Matching recommendations to what the client actually needs, and to aspirations that the money can realistically support, is the definition of suitability. Maximising the adviser's earnings is the opposite test and would breach the client's best interests rule. Maximum equity would suit only a minority, and pushing drawdown as far as it will go ignores those who need guaranteed income and would amount to shoe-horning.
That is 4 of more than 10,800 questions in the PasskeyPrep bank. Chapter 1 of every exam is free, with the study notes and flashcards that go with it, and every answer is marked and explained the way these were.
The paper you are preparing for
| Qualification | Investment Advice Diploma (Level 4), one of three technical units; the full diploma also requires UK Regulation & Professional Integrity and Investment, Risk & Taxation |
| Questions | 80, multiple choice |
| Time | 2 hours |
| Pass mark | 70%, no negative marking |
| Format | Computer based |
Eighty questions in two hours works out at 90 seconds each, spread across five elements with retirement planning and retirement solutions together carrying nearly half the marks. Where the rest of the marks concentrate, and how to revise for the scenario style, is in our guide to passing Financial Planning and Advice.
What CISI actually gives you
One official sample paper. A single specimen paper written to the live standard. Sit it once, properly timed, late in your revision, because you only get one clean read of it.
The workbook. End-of-chapter questions and a practice paper at the back. Do them, but they are a fixed set: once you have seen them, re-sitting them measures your memory of the answers rather than your judgement on a fresh scenario.
Revision Express and the CBT demo. Revision Express is CISI's paid online revision add-on, and the free Prometric demo shows how the on-screen test behaves. Five minutes with the demo means no marks lost to unfamiliar software.
For the full IAD, pair Financial Planning & Advice with the core UK Regulation & Professional Integrity and Investment, Risk & Taxation units.
Why old planning material is a poor shortcut
Pensions are the part of the syllabus the Treasury keeps rewriting. Annual allowances, tapering, the treatment of tax-free cash and the rules around taking benefits have all moved in recent years, and protection and ISA detail shifts with them. A mock written a few years ago tests a rulebook that no longer exists, and because these questions turn on precise figures and current rules, a stale paper does not just waste your time, it trains confident wrong answers. The unofficial PDFs on Scribd and the forums are also unverified, with no way to tell whether the keys were ever right.
The alternative: current, weighted mock papers
What "past papers" really means is renewable, exam-standard practice in the real format. PasskeyPrep gives Financial Planning and Advice five full mock papers, each 80 questions in two hours, weighted element by element like the real exam, including later papers drawn from a reserved pool that practice mode never touches, so you can save genuinely unseen tests for close to your exam date. Questions are written from scratch against the current syllabus and current allowances, every answer carries a full explanation, and the weak-spot tracker shows whether it is the retirement detail or the protection products costing you marks.
Repeated mock scores give you evidence of progress rather than relying on a feeling.
Start free. Try a set of free Financial Planning and Advice practice questions.
Every Financial Planning and Advice revision resource, in one list
- The official CISI workbook, current edition, from the CISI shop. The single source of truth for the syllabus.
- The official sample paper, sat once under the clock.
- CISI Revision Express (paid) and the free Prometric CBT demo.
- PasskeyPrep: the full question bank, five weighted 80-question mocks with a reserved unseen pool, explanations and weak-spot tracking. £59 once for this paper, or £89 for all fourteen exams, for 90 days from purchase; see pricing.
- Free Financial Planning & Advice practice questions.
- Our guide to passing Financial Planning and Advice, and for the diploma's core tax paper, Investment, Risk and Taxation past papers.
PasskeyPrep is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or accredited by the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment. For the picture across every paper, see CISI past papers: what's actually available.
Sit a whole paper for free. The free 80-question Financial Planning & Advice mock exam runs to the real time limit and the published element weighting, with a score, an element breakdown and an explanation for every answer. No sign-up.
Frequently asked questions
Does CISI publish past papers for Financial Planning and Advice?
No. One official sample paper exists, plus the questions in the official workbook. Previously sat papers are never released and the live bank rotates, so leaked sets would not transfer to your sitting anyway.
What is the format of the CISI Financial Planning and Advice exam?
80 multiple-choice questions in 2 hours, computer based, with a 70% pass mark and no negative marking. It is one of three Level 4 IAD technical units, taken with UK Regulation & Professional Integrity and Investment, Risk & Taxation.
Are old Financial Planning and Advice PDFs safe to revise from?
Treat them sceptically. Pension allowances and the rules around taking benefits have changed repeatedly in recent years, so material written against an old workbook edition trains answers that are now wrong. The documents are also unofficial, so the keys themselves are unverified.
How many mock exams should I sit before booking?
Sit several full, timed, weighted 80-question mocks and look for a consistent margin, with retirement and protection not propped up by the lighter elements. Use those results alongside your timetable and remaining weak areas; no mock score can predict an individual result.