The SIE brain dump: what to write down the minute your exam starts

People search for an "SIE cheat sheet" and the honest answer is that you cannot bring one. Nothing of yours comes into the exam room: no notes, no formula card, no phone. What you can do is the legal version that experienced test takers swear by, called the brain dump. The moment your exam session begins, you write everything you are afraid of forgetting onto the scratch surface the test center provides. Five minutes of writing, and for the next hundred minutes your most forgettable facts are sitting in front of you instead of rattling around your working memory.

The ground rules first

At a Prometric test center you get an erasable note board and marker after you check in. Testing online, you get a virtual whiteboard instead. Either way, the surface starts blank and everything on it must come out of your head. Write your dump as soon as your session starts and the clock is running, and follow your proctor's instructions about when writing is allowed. The time cost is real but small: the SIE gives you 105 minutes for 85 questions, and most prepared candidates finish with 20 or more minutes to spare, so spending five up front is a good trade.

Block 1: the options grid

Options questions are where memory fails under pressure, and the entire topic compresses into one small grid. Write the four positions with their sentiment, their rights or obligations, and their math:

The options gridpasslineprep.com

Calls

Puts

Long call

Bullish

Right to buy

Max gain

Unlimited

Max loss

Premium paid

Breakeven

Strike + premium

Long put

Bearish

Right to sell

Max gain

Strike − premium

Max loss

Premium paid

Breakeven

Strike − premium

Short call

Bearish or neutral

Obligation to sell

Max gain

Premium received

Max loss

Unlimited

Breakeven

Strike + premium

Short put

Bullish or neutral

Obligation to buy

Max gain

Premium received

Max loss

Strike − premium

Breakeven

Strike − premium

The footer of that chart is the shortcut worth writing in big letters: call up, put down. Calls break even at strike plus premium, puts at strike minus premium, no matter which side of the trade you are on.

Block 2: yield formulas and bond relationships

Three lines cover almost every calculation the SIE actually asks:

Current yield = annual interest (or dividend) divided by current market price.
Tax-equivalent yield= municipal yield divided by (1 minus your tax bracket). This is the formula behind every "which bond gives the highest after-tax income" question, where the lowest headline rate often wins.
Price and yield move in opposite directions. Draw the arrows. Then note the ordering: a bond trading at a premium has nominal yield above current yield above yield to maturity, and a discount bond runs the same chain in reverse.

Block 3: settlement and account numbers

These are pure memorization, which makes them perfect dump material. One warning: settlement changed in May 2024, and older study materials still show the old numbers. The current rules:

Regular way settlement for stocks, corporate bonds, and municipal bonds is T+1. Options and government securities also settle T+1. Cash settlement is same day. Regulation T payment is due two business days after settlement, and the Reg T initial margin requirement is 50 percent.

SIPC covers $500,000 per customer, of which at most $250,000 can be cash. FDIC covers $250,000, and the exam loves asking which one covers what: SIPC protects brokerage customers if the firm fails, never against market losses, and FDIC covers bank deposits.

Block 4: the regulatory numbers

A short list of limits and windows that show up constantly:

The FINRA gift limit is $100 per person per year. Political contributions under MSRB rules allow a $250 de minimis per election to candidates you can vote for, and violations bring a two-year ban on municipal business. A retail communication is anything distributed to more than 25 retail investors within 30 calendar days; 25 or fewer is correspondence. Cold calls are allowed only between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m.in the prospect's local time. Form U4 amendments and Form U5 filings are due within 30 days. Accredited investors need $1 million net worth excluding their home, or income of $200,000 single and $300,000 joint for the past two years.

How to practice the dump

A brain dump only works if producing it is automatic. In your last week of prep, rewrite the whole sheet from memory once a day, and time it. The first attempt takes fifteen minutes with mistakes; by the fifth it takes five minutes clean. On exam morning, do it once more at breakfast. Walking in knowing you can reproduce every number on demand also does something a cheat sheet never could: it removes the fear of blanking, which is worth more than the sheet itself.

What not to put on it

Resist the urge to dump everything. Suitability logic, definitions, and product characteristics are understanding, not recall, and no board is big enough for them. The dump is only for facts with no internal logic: numbers, limits, formulas, and the options grid. If you find yourself wanting to write full sentences, that is a sign the topic needs more practice questions, not more scratch paper. The honest way to find out which numbers you personally blank on is testing yourself: our free 10-question diagnostic takes five minutes, and drilling the concepts you miss beats copying someone else's list every time.