ex dividend date vs shareholder of record date

Am I right about the following? a. the record date is simply the date on which the company looks in its books to determine who actually receives the dividend check b. the shareholder of record date has no impact on who actually receives the dividend, because that was already determined based on whoever owned the stock on the last business day before the ex-dividend date by the way, do they ever ask these types of questions on the actual exam? i remember they used to ask a ton of questions like this on the series 7 exam. Thanks a lot

a. yes b. no There was a good long thread on this topic ~1 month ago (though perhaps a different forum); use Search.

Ex-date is just the first day the stock trades ex-dividend, and record date is really not important. I would know basics like this, although they may or may not be on the test…anyone wanting credibility in finance should know basic “regulation” stuff like this. This is also what makes the exam harder, there is alot of material, yet 240 questions that may not cover much of the stuff you learned…but you learned it , and that’s the point.

there was a question like this on the Sample CFA test for Dec 06.