It depends. Suppose you were to randomly guess your way through a provincial LLQP insurance licensing exam without any preparation. In that case, the odds are less than one in a million that you would pass. It would be a bewildering forest of concepts and terminology. And yet over 80% of people who attempt provincial LLQP exams pass on their first attempt.
The reason for the high pass rate is that students are not permitted to write provincial LLQP exams until they are certified by approved education providers as being adequately prepared. But this precertification step does not answer the question, “Are LLQP provincial exams hard?” We hope the following will reassure you that a pass on the LLQP is within the abilities of most students.
Regular vs. Competency-based exams
LLQP exams are competency-based and are fundamentally different from regular school exams. High school, college and university instructors test, in part, to separate poorly performing students and top performers for academic ranking purposes. As a result, instructors often include tough questions only a few top-performing students can pass.
The goal of competency-based exams, on the other hand, is to test whether students have met a minimum standard of knowledge. Regulators do not want to limit access to the insurance industry to just the highest performers. Therefore, whether you score 65% or 95% on your exams is irrelevant to obtaining your insurance license. In the case of the LLQP provincials, 60% is a pass.
Another difference between most school exams and LLQP provincial exams is that regulators take extraordinary care to ensure the fairness and reliability of the LLQP exam questions. They run statistical evaluations of each question before it is added to the exam pool to ensure it falls within the abilities of the average student. For example, if fewer than 40% of the students can answer a question successfully during a question’s trial phase, the question is discarded.
Language level
Have you ever read a question that is so complicated that you don’t understand what you are being asked even when you are familiar with the exam content? Regulators recognize that English or French may not be the first language for many students. The LLQP exams do not attempt to trick students with language structure so complex it would stump a lawyer. LLQP test questions are all written to the reading level of an average high school student.
While test questions have been written as simply as possible, if you are new to the English or French language, you should familiarize yourself with the meaning of qualifying terms that one would typically find in any common exam question. For example, terms like “most likely,” “least likely,” “always,” “never,” “most suitable,” and “least suitable” are bound to appear. A good education provider will provide plenty of practise questions to sharpen your skills.
Terminology and Concepts
At first glance, the LLQP study materials appear like a foreign language with industry terminology like “cash surrender value” and “incontestability clause.” But after reading the study materials just once, many of these terms will make sense. For example, cash surrender value refers to how much cash you can receive if you give up or surrender your insurance policy. Logical, right?
The same goes for most of the insurance concepts and principles. For example, any time individuals wish to transfer their risk to an insurance company, the company is likely to demand information, money, or both. Once you understand basic insurance principles like this, you can often reason your way through exam questions even if you don’t recall the specific details.
What is the exam format?
There are four LLQP modules, each with its own exam. Each LLQP module exam contains 35 multiple choice questions except for the Ethics module which has just 25 questions. There are five unscored “pilot” questions randomly mixed in with scored questions. You won’t be able to distinguish between the scored and unscored questions, so aim to answer all the questions on the exam. Good education providers will provide a timer and a simulated online exam environment to help you practice answering questions within the 75-minutes permitted for each provincial LLQP exam. There are no penalties for guessing, so do not leave any questions blank.
Are there any shortcuts for taking LLQP provincial exams?
No. Approved education providers offer everything you need to prepare for provincial LLQP exams. Be wary of any individual, company or website promising a shortcut through studying exam questions alone instead of studying the course content. Some individuals and groups work in the shadows and seek to defeat the security measures of the provincial exams. Regulators regularly conduct statistical analyses of exam results to identify individuals guilty of cheating. Psychometric analysis is a complicated science, but the net result is that regulators can pinpoint students who have had a sneak peek at exam questions. Getting caught cheating can mean being stripped of one’s license and suffering public disgrace. It is best to stick to regulator-approved LLQP training resources.
Finally, we’ve helped tens of thousands of individuals with diverse backgrounds and educational experiences pass provincial LLQP insurance exams. As a result, we can state with confidence that passing provincial LLQP exams is within reach of most Canadians.
