How to Pass the CISI Introduction to Securities & Investment (First Time)
This guide covers the UK unit, not the International Introduction to Securities & Investment. Pass it first time: the 11 elements and their weightings, a realistic study plan, the calculations, and exam-day tactics.
Sitting the International Introduction instead?How do you pass the CISI Introduction to Securities & Investment exam?
You need 35 correct out of 50 multiple-choice questions in 60 minutes, a 70% pass mark, across eleven syllabus elements. Revise to the weightings, because Equities, Bonds and Investment Funds carry 19 of the 50 questions between them. Budget 60 to 80 hours if you are new to the industry, drill the calculations, and use repeated full, timed, weighted mock scores as one input when deciding whether to book. There is no negative marking, so answer everything.
- Format
- 50 multiple-choice questions in 60 minutes, computer based
- Pass mark
- 70%, which is 35 out of 50
- Level
- Level 3 foundation award, 11 syllabus elements
- Highest weighted
- Equities 7 questions, Bonds 6, Investment Funds 6, so 19 of 50 between them
- Hardest part
- The volume of look-alike terminology rather than any single topic
- Calculations
- Dividend yield, flat yield on a bond, effective annual rate, forward exchange rates using interest rate parity
- Negative marking
- None, so answer every question
- Study time
- 60 to 80 hours is the common guide for someone new to the industry
The Introduction to Securities & Investment is the foundation award most people start their CISI journey with, and it is one of the more passable professional exams in UK finance. That is the good news. The bad news is that "passable" lulls people into reading the workbook, sitting the one official sample paper, and walking in underdone. This guide is how you pass it first time and do it properly.
It is a Level 3 award. The exam is 50 multiple-choice questions in 60 minutes, with a 70% pass mark, so you need 35 correct. It is computer based, there is no negative marking, and it covers eleven syllabus elements spanning the whole of financial services. None of it is hard in isolation. The challenge is breadth and precision.
The exam at a glance
| Level | 3 (foundation award) |
| Questions | 50, multiple choice |
| Time | 60 minutes |
| Pass mark | 70% (35 out of 50) |
| Format | Computer based, no negative marking |
| Syllabus | 11 elements |
That works out at roughly 72 seconds per question, which is comfortable if you know your material and tight if you are reasoning each one out from scratch. Speed comes from practice, not from being clever on the day.
Know the weightings, then revise to them
This is the single most useful thing on this page. The 50 questions are not spread evenly across the syllabus. CISI tells you, more or less, how many questions come from each element, and you should let that shape where your hours go. There is no point spending equal time on an element worth three marks and one worth seven.
| # | Element | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Financial Services Sector | 3 |
| 2 | The Economic Environment | 3 |
| 3 | Financial Assets & Markets | 5 |
| 4 | Equities | 7 |
| 5 | Bonds | 6 |
| 6 | Derivatives | 4 |
| 7 | Investment Funds | 6 |
| 8 | Financial Services Regulation | 5 |
| 9 | Taxation, Investment Wrappers & Trusts | 5 |
| 10 | Other Financial Products | 3 |
| 11 | Financial Advice | 3 |
Look at where the marks concentrate. Equities, Bonds and Investment Funds together account for 19 of the 50 questions, nearly two-fifths of the paper. Add Financial Assets & Markets and Regulation and you are at 29. If those five elements are solid, you are most of the way to a pass before you even touch the lighter topics. That does not mean ignore the threes, it means do not let Equities slide while you polish your knowledge of professional bodies.
Test yourself on Intro to S&I (UK)
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.
What is the name for the activity of an online platform that matches individual lenders directly with borrowers without lending from its own balance sheet?
Not quite. The answer is A.
Peer-to-peer lending platforms introduce lenders to borrowers and take a fee for arranging and administering the loans; the money lent belongs to the lender, not to the platform. Open banking is the runner-up as another platform-based development, but it governs access to bank account data rather than the supply of credit. Robo-advice automates portfolio recommendations, and online share dealing is simply buying and selling shares through a broker's website, which arranges no loans at all.
The Office for National Statistics measures UK gross domestic product for a quarter. Which of the following is NOT included in that measure?
Not quite. The answer is B.
Gross domestic product counts output produced inside the country's borders whoever owns the producer, so profits earned abroad by the overseas subsidiaries of UK firms belong to gross national income instead. What a foreign-owned bank earns on business done here is UK output and counts. Health services the state provides to households without charge are included at what they cost to provide, even though nobody buys them, and repair work a garage sells to households is ordinary domestic output bought and paid for in the usual way.
In a GBP/USD quote of 1.2500, the figure shows:
Not quite. The answer is D.
The first currency named is the one being priced, so GBP/USD 1.2500 means one pound buys 1.25 dollars. Reading it the other way round, as pounds per dollar, inverts the quote and is the single most common error. The euro does not appear in this pair at all, and the number is a price rather than a movement in the rate.
An offer of new shares made to existing shareholders in proportion to their holdings, at a price below the market price, is known as:
Not quite. The answer is C.
A rights issue offers new shares pro rata to existing holders at a discount, so take-up is attractive and their percentage stake is protected. A bonus issue is the closest alternative but the new shares are free and raise no money for the company. A placing sells shares to selected institutions, and a buyback takes shares out of issue.
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.
Where people slip
A few specific things trip candidates on this paper, and they are all avoidable.
The terminology volume. This exam wants precise definitions across a huge surface area: the difference between a unit trust and an OEIC, between immobilised and dematerialised securities, between mandatory and voluntary corporate actions. Vague familiarity gets punished. You need the exact distinctions, and the only way to fix them is to be tested on them repeatedly.
Look-alike concepts. CISI loves pairs that sound similar and mean different things. Ordinary versus preference shares. Flat yield versus redemption yield. Placement, layering and integration in money laundering. UCITS versus NURS. The questions are often built precisely around whether you can tell two close cousins apart.
The calculations. A handful of questions ask you to compute something, and these are the easiest marks on the paper if you have drilled them and the most stressful if you have not. More on these below.
Regulation that has moved on. Because Regulation, Tax and Other Financial Products all carry current figures and rules, revising from old material is dangerous. Make sure whatever you practise from reflects current UK regulation, not a workbook from a few years back.
A study plan for this exam
Around 60 to 80 hours is the figure commonly quoted for someone new to the industry, spread over a few weeks of evenings. Here is how to spend it.
First, build the map (a few sessions)
Read the workbook once, steadily, to understand the shape of the syllabus. Do not try to memorise on this pass and do not highlight half of it. You are building a frame to hang detail on.
Then, test by element, heaviest first (the bulk of your time)
Start with Equities, Bonds and Investment Funds because that is where the marks are. Answer questions, read the explanation every time you get one wrong, and be honest about the ones you got right by guessing. A right-but-guessed answer is a gap, and pretending otherwise just moves the failure to exam day.
Then, hunt your weak spots
Whatever is still letting you down, give it disproportionate attention, even though it is the uncomfortable option. This is where your score actually climbs.
Finally, sit full mocks
In your last week, switch to complete 50-question papers under the 60-minute clock, weighted like the real exam. Review each one by element. Use repeated full, timed mock results alongside your timetable, confidence and remaining weak areas when deciding whether to book; no mock score can predict an individual result.
Find your weak elements in minutes. The free PasskeyPrep diagnostic runs you through exam-standard questions and samples nine of the 11 elements and highlights the sampled topics to revisit, so you know exactly where to start. No payment, no commitment.
The calculations you must be able to do
You will not face many calculation questions on this paper, but each one is a clean mark if you are ready. The ones that come up:
- Dividend yield. Annual dividend divided by share price, expressed as a percentage. Straightforward once you have done a few. Full worked examples in our dividend yield guide.
- Flat yield on a bond. Annual coupon over the market price. The exam will often test whether you can distinguish it from the redemption yield, so learn both together. See flat yield versus redemption yield.
- Effective annual rate. Converting a quoted rate into the true annual cost, which the Other Financial Products element leans on.
- Forward exchange rates using interest rate parity, from the Financial Assets & Markets element. The arithmetic is easy; people get the direction of the adjustment wrong, so practise it.
Do not just read the methods. Do ten of each until the question type is instantly recognisable. Under the clock, recognition is everything.
Exam day tactics
Read every question and all four options fully before answering. This paper is built on close distractors, and rushing is how you walk into them. Watch the clock but do not panic; just over a minute a question is plenty if you have prepared.
Answer everything. With no negative marking, a guess can only help you. If a question is eating your time, flag it, put your best answer down, and move on. Come back at the end with the time you banked.
On your review pass, resist the urge to second-guess. A prepared candidate's first instinct is usually right. Change an answer only when you can point to a concrete reason.
How to know you are ready
Not by feel. Use repeated full, timed mock results alongside your timetable, confidence and remaining weak areas when deciding whether to book; no mock score can predict an individual result. That gives you more evidence than relying on hope alone. If you want the honest version of this paper's difficulty before you start, read how hard the CISI exam really is, and for the method across every exam PasskeyPrep covers, see the complete guide to passing your CISI exams.
Hunting for past papers? Read Introduction to Securities & Investment past papers: what actually exists.
Sit a whole paper for free. The free 50-question Introduction to Securities & Investment 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
How many questions are on the CISI Introduction to Securities & Investment?
Fifty multiple-choice questions, to be answered in 60 minutes. The pass mark is 70%, so you need 35 correct. There is no negative marking, so answer every question.
Is the CISI Introduction to Securities & Investment hard?
It is widely regarded as one of the more accessible CISI papers. It is broad rather than deep, so the difficulty is the volume of precise terminology, not conceptual complexity. People who fail almost always revised passively and never practised under timed conditions.
How long should I study for it?
Around 60 to 80 hours is the common guide for someone new to the industry, which is a few weeks of steady evening study. Spend most of that time answering questions and sitting mocks, not re-reading the workbook.
What is the hardest part of the exam?
For most people it is the volume of look-alike terminology rather than any single topic, plus a few calculation questions if they have not been drilled. Equities, Bonds and Investment Funds carry the most marks, so weakness there hurts most.
Can I resit if I fail?
Yes, you can rebook and resit, paying the exam fee again. Strong mock results can reduce uncertainty but do not rule out a resit; use them alongside your timetable, confidence and remaining weak areas.