Kaplan Financial Education

While this textbook had a wealth of knowledge on the SIE exam, it was honestly a sloppy mess of a publication. On one hand, there were typos, grammar and syntax issues, general mistakes. I'm not the kind of person who's gonna knit-pick that sorta thing too much, but the sheer number of problems made it clear that this book was not well-proofread before going to print. In some cases, it even affected understanding. For example, on pages 222-223, there are a few important formulae given: current yield, capital gains/losses, and total return, though on the total return section, the formula is labeled as the formula for capital gains. So which formula am I to trust is accurate? I had to look it up on Google to be sure.

Another major issue I had was the lack of regard for Header priority. This was an even bigger issue than the grammar problems because in several cases it actively creates confusion. For instance, in Unit 7, there's a portion for how nonexempt issues should be filed. After The cooling-off period (designated as Header 2), there's a description for what the cooling-off period is, then the last sentence says "During the cooling-off period, the following are allowed." The proceeding sections are all also designated under Header 2.

So, according to the header hierarchy, here's what all are allowed during the cooling-off period: the issuer may place a tombstone advertisement, a preliminary prospectus may be delivered, indications of interest may be gathered, due diligence takes place, state registration requirements, the release date, and the final prospectus. Now, if you are familiar with the process, you know that the release date and the final prospectus definitely do not happen during the cooling-off period, and that state registration requirements are more of an aside than a nested subject, but all these portions are given equal weight according to the layout.

That was just the most blatant instance I could find, the layout editing is a mess throughout the book. In a textbook, which is made specifically to educate and foster understanding, having such abysmal editing both on the layout and the copyedit sides of things are not just sloppy, they're irresponsible. Especially in a course that's supposed to be covering rules and regulations to help financial professionals in their roles so that they fairly and ethically assist clients with their money and financial wellbeing.

I could go on to include how the online companion course is similarly poorly edited, how the quiz questions sometimes have actively incorrect answers, and how it's not optimized well so you'll lose progress because everything froze, no matter the browser or device you're on. To the online course's credit, the scoring and performance tracker are well laid out and are good for pin-pointing weak areas, but I won't go too into the online course because this is largely just about the textbook itself. It's not a good book. It could be, if someone took the time to properly edit and fix layout issues, but as it stands its lack of care for those things aren't just annoying and distracting -- they actively hinder the material.… (meer)