Private Series 3 Tutoring Built Around Your Weak Areas
Series 3 tutoring for candidates stuck on one half of the exam. The National Commodity Futures Examination is scored in two parts and you have to pass both — most candidates are strong on one and losing the exam on the other. We find out which, then fix it.
Series 3 passes from real candidates
Score reports shared by Exam Bootcamp students after passing the Series 3.
Who Series 3 tutoring is for
Almost everyone who books a Series 3 session is failing one half, not both.
- You passed the market knowledge half and failed the regulatory half, or the reverse
- Hedging questions go wrong because you pick the wrong side of the market
- Spread outcomes are guesswork once the price relationship changes
- Options on futures behave differently from equity options and it shows
- Margin on futures does not work the way you expect it to
- NFA registration categories and exemptions blur together
- You are registering to solicit futures business and have a deadline
- Your practice scores swing wildly between attempts
What we cover in a Series 3 session
Two separately scored parts: market knowledge, and rules and regulations. You have to pass both, and most candidates fail on one.
Contract mechanics and pricing
Specifications, delivery months, tick values, and how a position is offset rather than delivered. The exam works in whole contracts and expects you to move between contract units and dollar values without hesitating — a fluency worth building deliberately.
Hedging
Which side of the market a commercial takes and why. Long hedge, short hedge, and basis: candidates who memorize the definitions still choose the wrong side when the question describes a producer with inventory. We work the logic until the side is obvious from the setup.
Spreads
Intramarket, intermarket, and inter-exchange spreads, and what a widening or narrowing price relationship does to the position. Spread questions look like arithmetic and are really about direction — get the direction right and the arithmetic follows.
Options on futures
Premium, intrinsic and time value, moneyness, and what actually happens on exercise — you land in a futures position, not in the underlying commodity. That single difference from equity options is behind a large share of the misses we see.
Margin and the daily settlement cycle
Initial and maintenance margin, variation margin, and marking to market. Futures margin is a performance bond rather than a loan, and treating it like equity margin produces confident wrong answers.
NFA and CFTC regulation
Registration categories — FCM, IB, CTA, CPO, AP — the exemptions from each, the disclosure documents, and prohibited conduct. This is the half most market-savvy candidates underprepare, and it is scored separately, so underpreparing it fails the whole exam.
How we diagnose and teach
The Series 3 has an unusual failure signature: candidates from a trading background lose the regulatory half, and candidates from a compliance background lose the market half. Because both are scored separately, being strong on one buys you nothing. So the first thing a session does is establish which half is actually failing — usually from your practice results — and then spends the hour there rather than splitting attention evenly.
From there it’s pattern recognition — teaching you to recognize the handful of question shapes the exam reuses — elimination discipline, and timing, so the method holds up at the end of the exam as well as it does at the start.
Who you’re working with
- 15+ years in the securities industry, including a career inside major banks
- Thousands of hours of one-on-one tutoring across FINRA and NASAA exams
- A track record of retake rescues — candidates who failed once or twice, often after a big-box course, and passed once the approach to reading exam questions changed
How a Series 3 session works
One hour, live, one-on-one — and you leave knowing what to do next.
Book your hour
Pick a time that works, pay, and your slot is locked in. Send your score report or practice scores ahead if you have them.
Diagnose the real gap
We work through questions you missed to separate topic gaps from reading and elimination mistakes.
Teach it, then apply it
Targeted instruction on the topic, followed immediately by exam-style questions on it.
Leave with next steps
A written plan for the days before your exam: what to drill, in what order, and what to stop spending time on.
PRICE AND BOOKING
1-Hour Private Series 3 Session
$220
- One hour, live and one-on-one
- Built around whichever half of the exam is actually failing
- Hedging, spreads, options on futures, and margin as needed
- NFA registration categories, exemptions, and prohibited conduct
- A written next-steps plan before your exam date
Check available times
Browse upcoming 1-hour session slots. Booking + payment opens after you select a time.
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Series 3 tutoring FAQs
- A private session is $220 for one hour, one-on-one. No packages, no subscription.
Book a Private Series 3 Session
Bring your score report, your practice results, or just the questions you keep missing. We’ll find what’s costing you points and fix it.
More Series 3 resources
- Series 3 study guide and question bank — the material and exam-style practice to work through between sessions.
- Free Series 3 practice assessment — 50 exam-style questions with a topic breakdown, so you know what to bring to the session.