Feels good, living the high life right now. how about you?
Mod note (andy) - combining two CFA® posts into one, here are the questions posed from the other:
From @"dkim1984":
First, congrats to all those that sat this past saturday for ALL levels.Second, what are some insights you have after taking the test? Best study methods/practices (nothing regarding test material please).
Third, for those having used Schweser, how effective was their material?
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living the drunk life and trying to reconnect with other humans, forgot what it was like
Yes- life is good 8)
Dota 2
I second @"HFer_wannabe"
The good life, let's go on a living spree Shit they say the best things in life are free
...except the CFA registration fees and charter renewal charges
Just took Level 2. I probably failed. Good news is I was going to be studying this Fall anyway. Bad news is it may be the same crap I just spent the last 9 months trying to learn.
Took level 2. Advice for anyone looking to sit is START EARLY. Much earlier than you think. Leave 1 month minimum for exams and question bank practice. Recommend Schweser but supplement with CFAI official material in areas you are unclear with.
Sat for Level 1. I second the advice from Asatar concerning the mock exams. The actual exam seemed fairly similar in terms of difficulty. Miserable day though... Plus I'm not feeling too great about it so I'll probably get to be miserable again in December. But we'll see.
sat for level ii - would agree that using schweser for broad strokes and supplementing with official CFA curriculum in cloudy areas is the way to go. sometimes the scwheser notes only have a single example related to a certain concept (or no examples at all), but it certainly gives you a good place to start and identifies where you need additional focus.
maybe it was more apparent to me this year compared to last, but i found the errata contained within the schweser notes rather problematic. once the errata was found (and confirmed to be such), it really made me second guess a lot of the other material. shame on you, schweser proofreaders!
lastly, level 2 candidates may want to give themselves more time to do practice exams (compared to what they gave themselves for the level 1 exam). i found that answering questions related to vignettes was much more challenging for me compared to the level 1 exam's separate questions.
oh, and bring warm clothes to your test center. maybe even a wool hat. i froze my ass off, couldn't feel my hands for the last half of each session.
I felt like it could go either way for me. I feel like I did well on the easy ones, guessed on some, and did well on Ethics. I guess if the guesses went well then I passed if not then I failed? Scweser Notes were alright for Level 1, I think it would have helped me if I had someone telling me to study X or practice Y more than Z etc.
I do not think anybody can tell you to study X or Y. Even if they can tell you that they are probably wrong. That is why many people fail.
June and July are going to be the longest months ever ...
I wrote Level 3 this year, Here's a few tips that've helped me: - Start early but not too early. Managing burnout is just as important as having a regular study schedule and sticking to it. - Schweser is pretty much needed to pass..the QBank will singlehandedly get you through Levels 1 and 2. Their practice exams tend to be more difficult than the exam itself so they're good preparation. - Accept that you're not going to understand all of the material on exam day. The key is maximizing the number of testable areas that you're competent on and not freaking out about the rest. - I hand wrote the chapter summaries of every reading. It's scientifically proven that handwriting material increases your retention of it. - Make your own flash cards as you progress through the material. When you reach the point where you've already read the books and done all the practice exams, beating formulas into your skull through simple memorization will be the only remaining way to learn things.
I disagree with jmayhem regarding Schweser. I got through all three levels only using CFAI materials. They wrote the exam, why wouldn't you study their materials? Do agree w/ managing burnout - by level 3 your at least two years in and overall sick of studying
Strongly agree with most of the comments said here, but I have heard a lot of people saying CFAI end of chapter questions are worth looking at because they mirror the difficulty of the exam a little more (Schweser for Level II was a little more difficult than the actual exam as it turned out).
I guess I should clarify that I did all of the CFAI EOC questions for each level, I didn't read any of the CFAI textbooks however.
I sat for Level I and I find that Schweser was fairly helpful. I was passing the CFAI mock exams, but I found the actual exam to be slightly more difficult. A 2 month long bender is much needed until the results are out.
For all those that wrote L3, did you rely heavily on Kaplan? Only reason I ask b/c I used Kaplan solely for L1, used it again for L2 but spent a lot of time going through the CFAI books 3 weeks prior to the exam. Felt much more prepared after doing that. I'll probably stick with the same strategy if (knock on wood, fingers crossed) I pass L2, but curious to hear what others did.
HFer, I relied solely on Kaplan for all 3 levels and did not even bother to crack open the CFAI materials, which in retrospect was a mistake. I am hoping to have gone 3/3 on the exams but if I had to do it all over I would have relied on CFAI for ethics and done the EOC questions. With that said, I felt that Schweser adequately prepared me for the recent LIII exam and thought that the test was generally pretty straight forward. The time constraint is by far the biggest hurdle, especially for the morning section. @"jmayhem", what did you think of the exam?
Good to hear and thanks for the response. And yep, the strangely similar message I heard from all the L3 takers afterwards was, "Didn't finish."
I thought it was pretty straight forward, definitely easier than the 2013 AM. Finished the AM in 2.5 hours and then reviewed until the end. Finished the PM in 1.5 hours, reviewed for 30min and then left.
A bunch of people on Analyst Forum are talking about a bunch of "tricks" on the morning session but I have no idea what they're talking about.
Definitely agree with mock exam sentiment. Left only a week for mock q's and was scoring horribly but improved by 20pts by the end of the week (day before the test). Was still pretty inconsistent though, mid 70 and then a low 60 etc, so the only way I could've passed was with a healthy dose of luck. I spent way too much time "reviewing" the material by reading and taking notes, in the end it proved pretty ineffective for me and kinda killed my chances of passing.
For level 2, I found the CFA's mock exams to be fairer and written better than schweser's. it's not that the Schweser exams were tougher- it's that they were poorly written.
I spent 70% of my time on CFAI material and 30% on 2013 Schweser notes a friend lent me.
I really wish the CFAI hadn't done a whole ethics section on talking about the exam. I took level 1 seven years ago and don't remember any of that being covered in the readings. It would be nice if the CFAI was more transparent about past exams and minimum passing scores. If you're going to take a fricking year to write the exam, you should have the ability to write a new exam every year in a way that didn't rely on keeping the prior exam obscure.
Anyone else lose weight from not drinking the month of May?
I studied almost entirely from the Schweser notes, practice exams and q-bank. Feel reasonably okay with it... I would say on exam day I felt extremely confident on probably 65% of the material, and hopefully guessed good enough on the rest to make a passing score. If not I will take level 1 again come December and hate my life for the months of studying leading up to it.
Side note: I also lost weight from not drinking in May, and by not drinking I mean not drinking heavily.
I find Schweser to be a very good run down in terms of material, and the questions are good to warm up. But definitely work through the questions in the CFA text books as they are more in line with what the actual exam questions are like (The Schweser are too easy).
Just did level 2 myself, feel like it is going to be a close one.
@"jmayhem", Wait, you just left the PM sessions early? How? The proctors at the test center I sat were really strict about people not even getting up from there seats until every test had been reconciled and counted.
No one is allowed is leave in the 30 min of the afternoon session. Other than that, I think it was fine, at least at the test center I was at.
@"jmayhem", Wait, you just left the PM sessions early? How? The proctors at the test center I sat were really strict about people not even getting up from there seats until every test had been reconciled and counted.
You can't leave within the last half hour, before that you can.
As far as material, I found Scwheser sufficient for all 3 levels. The CFAI material would probably prepare you better, but at the cost of probably 30% more time. If that doesn't bother you, go for it.
Ah, makes sense. I thought it was forbidden to leave at all and forbidden to even get up during the last 30 min.
Wrote L3. AM was okay. Missed a question. PM was much better. Could go either way because of AM.
Are there other L3 candidates who didn't finish?
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