CFA® Test T-17 days

Hey, Need more info: Are you talking about Level 1? Whats your Undergraduate background like?

Yeah have the test 2 June.

I'm not 100% sold on the "do 1000's" of questions thing. Like when I do two hours of questions am I really learning much? Would I not learn more with two hours of reading the material?

Now I will say at this stage I have done thousands of Q's.....simply because I had the time....I'm at the stage now where Im splitting it between final review and sample exams but if I was tight for time and did not feel confident on the material I would def focus more on that.

For me the questions are about practicisng what you've learned + exam technique rather than learning the material.

If you are doing L3, you probably have already discovered that this is a very different beast from L1 and L2.

Practice, practice, and practice! Get into the examiners' mind set and refer briefly to CFAI texts when you don't get them right. This is the best strategy given the amount of time you have left.

Ideally you have already gone through the BOK and have a framework. Good luck!

Schweser qbank. Wouldnt have killed all 3 papers on the 1st attempt without this baby

This does NOT replace reading and writing out problems and doing what ppl who passed the test say. However, one thing you can do is find cfa videos or audio material and listen to it no stop all day except for when you are reading and writing out problems, or if you work.

So when you wake up, make sure there is cfa audio/video material playing while you eat breakfast, or waiting for train, etc.... When your brain is to tired to process things visually and cognitively (reading/writing) then you can push it even more by using your listening sense.

There are tons youtube channels that are devoted to cfas, like this one. http://www.youtube.com/user/AllenResources/videos.

Download firefox video download, for each video, then convert it to mp3, put it in your phone, so you can listen to it outside of the house while walking.

You have to have read the material first after you have gone through everything do 1,000 of questions to get used to the test. The wording on the test is difficult thus you need to know the format and how they ask the questions, thus the practice tests.

Make sure you have the timing right, time yourself it is crucial that you don't run out of time during the test.

TO BE CLEAR : Doing practice questions without reading the material will not help you much

If you come from a finance background taking L1, there's probably some benefit to taking a practice exam pretty early so you know what you need to study.

For L2 I have supplemented reading by listening to audio while exercising.

Doing thousands of questions for L1 seems like a waste of time. L1 is a straight-up memorization exam, there are few problems that require critical thinking. I never did a single end of the chapter problem, and only did one mock exam the day before (and I'm from a non-finance background). Just make sure you know how to use the calc and can do TVM calculations. For L2/L3, though, practice Qs are critical because it is all about applying the knowledge you know with the item set questions, rather than simple "which of the following is a difference between a capital and operation lease?"

All the Best

Do as many questions as possible. At this point, it's better to do questions and mock exams than continue reading. You might have some time left for reading but if you're not close to being done all the material, focus only on the 'most important' material (see analystforum for discussion on these topics).

There are so many questions that will be the same or very similar, that simply practicing questions will give you a much better chance of success than continued reading / reviewing. Now when you get a question wrong, you go to that section, you review that section and make sure you understand what you did wrong and how to do it right. Then move on to the next question. You continue doing this in exam-like format (ie: to a lot of questions in x amount of time, then review your answers). That's how you spend your time before the exam. The last week before the exam, you should be doing a practice exam / day and then Qbank questions for additional practice (if it's Level 1). Make sure you get enough sleep and don't make any major changes to your life in the next few weeks if you can help it.