General Securities Principal Sales Supervisor Module Exam (Series 23) Study Guide

Before you study a single content area, lock in the exam's basic shape. The Series 23 (General Securities Principal Sales Supervisor Module Exam) is a 100-question multiple-choice exam, and FINRA gives candidates 2 hours and 30 minutes to finish.

• Number of items: 100 multiple-choice questions, distributed across five content functions.
• Time allowed: 2 hours and 30 minutes.
• Passing score: 70%.
• Exam fee: $135.

That works out to about a minute and a half per question on average, which is a comfortable pace if you know the material — the exam is not designed to be a speed test. Treat the 70% passing standard as your target line throughout every practice session: if you are consistently scoring below that on practice questions in a given content function, that function becomes your next study priority. Because this is a principal-level "module" exam layered on top of prerequisite registrations, expect the questions to assume you already know general securities rules and to focus specifically on supervisory judgment.

FINRA organizes the Series 23 content outline into five supervisory "functions," each with its own share of the 100 scored questions. Knowing the weight of each function tells you where to spend your study hours.

• Function 1 — Supervision of Registration of the Broker-Dealer and Personnel Management Activities: 6 questions.
• Function 2 — Supervision of General Broker-Dealer Activities: 26 questions.
• Function 3 — Supervision of Retail and Institutional Customer-Related Activities: 12 questions.
• Function 4 — Supervision of Trading and Market Making Activities: 28 questions.
• Function 5 — Supervision of Investment Banking and Research: 28 questions.

Notice that Functions 2, 4, and 5 together account for the large majority of the exam — trading/market making and investment banking/research alone make up more than half the questions. That means broad general broker-dealer supervision, trading oversight, and underwriting/research supervision deserve the bulk of your review time, while registration and personnel management, though tested, is the smallest slice.

The Series 23 is a module exam — it does not stand alone. To hold the General Securities Sales Supervisor registration, candidates must pass the SIE, Series 7, and Series 9 and 10 exams as corequisites.

There are also specific eligibility paths that let a candidate register for the Series 23 in the first place. One path is qualifying as a General Securities Sales Supervisor through the Series 8 exam. Another path runs through qualification via the Series 9 and 10 combination, or through the NYSE Branch Manager Series 12 qualification. In practice, this means the Series 23 sits at the end of a registration chain rather than at the start of one: most candidates arrive at it only after already holding one or more principal- or supervisor-level registrations.

• SIE, Series 7, and Series 9 and 10 are required as corequisites for the General Securities Sales Supervisor registration.
• Series 8 qualification is one accepted path to Series 23 eligibility.
• Series 9 and 10, or NYSE Branch Manager Series 12, is another accepted path.

If you are unsure which path applies to you, confirm your firm's registration plan before scheduling, since the corequisite structure affects when you are permitted to sit for this exam.

The Series 23 passing standard is straightforward: candidates need a 70% score to pass. There is no published breakdown of how points are weighted beyond function distribution, so the safest way to think about it is at the whole-exam level — you need to answer roughly seven out of every ten questions correctly across the full 100-question exam.

Because the exam is scored as a single overall percentage rather than requiring a separate minimum in each function, a candidate who is strong in trading and market making supervision can offset a weaker showing in a smaller function like registration and personnel management. That said, relying on offsetting is a risky strategy: the two largest functions, trading/market making and investment banking/research, carry enough combined weight that weakness there is hard to compensate for elsewhere.

• Passing score: 70% overall.
• No separate published minimum per content function — the standard applies to the exam as a whole.
• Given the question distribution, strength in the largest functions matters most to your overall percentage.

Use full-length practice exams scored the same way — as a single overall percentage — so your practice results map directly onto the real pass/fail threshold.

A good Series 23 study plan mirrors the exam's own question distribution rather than treating all five functions as equal. Start by mapping your available study weeks proportionally: the two 28-question functions, trading/market making and investment banking/research, should each receive roughly the largest blocks of your calendar, followed by the 26-question general broker-dealer activities function, then the 12-question customer-related activities function, and finally the smallest 6-question registration and personnel management function.

• Heaviest focus: Trading and Market Making Activities, and Investment Banking and Research — these two functions combined make up more than half the exam.
• Solid secondary focus: General Broker-Dealer Activities.
• Moderate focus: Retail and Institutional Customer-Related Activities.
• Lightest focus: Registration of the Broker-Dealer and Personnel Management Activities.

Within each function, work topic-by-topic rather than skimming broadly, and revisit weaker topics with fresh practice questions rather than simply re-reading notes. Since this exam builds on prerequisite registrations, resist the urge to re-learn foundational securities rules from scratch — focus your limited time on the supervisory judgment calls that are unique to the principal/supervisor perspective, since that is what distinguishes this module from the underlying representative-level material.

In the last week before your Series 23 appointment, shift from broad content review to targeted retrieval practice. Full-length, timed practice tests are the single most useful tool at this stage because they train you to work within the real 2-hour-and-30-minute window across all 100 questions, and they surface which of the five functions still need attention.

• Take at least one full-length timed practice exam under real conditions — no notes, no pausing — to calibrate your pacing against the actual time limit.
• Score each practice attempt by function, not just overall, so you can see whether a low overall score is concentrated in one or two functions or spread evenly.
• Re-drill any function where you are scoring meaningfully below the 70% passing standard, prioritizing the higher-weighted functions first.
• In the final 24–48 hours, focus on review rather than new material — cramming unfamiliar topics late tends to crowd out retention of what you already know well.

Walking into the exam with a clear sense of your per-function performance, rather than just a vague overall confidence level, is the most reliable way to know you are ready.