Sage Advice for CFA® III

Oreos:

Bit late guys, only 3 weeks left. From all the L3s takers/chartholders I've spoken to they all say that you have to use the CFAI books, unlike L1/2 where Schweser will do.

I unfortunately am relying on Schweser for this one due to time constraints (only got started a couple weeks ago). I feel pretty fucked thus far.

Ravenous:

I passed in 2008 since my advice might be a bit dated, but I'll give it a shot.

The writing portion is a bitch. You will definitely have one long piece about grandma's superannuation problem or some garbage like that. The year I took it, the write up for the question was at least a page long filled with tiny details and twists and turns, and you were supposed to unpack that and come up with a cogent answer. It was ridiculous, but they seemed to be fairly lenient with answer credit as long as you had a thought process that made sense and showed your work. I discussed some of the written answers post-test with some friends, and we all came up with different stuff, but all passed. I am not 100% sure there are clearly defined right and wrong answers to some of the questions. Obviously follow the material and don't wing it, but I think as long as you show your work and apply whatever they taught you, you should do okay.

They do test minutiae. There was an entire question set my year on reverse cash and carry arbitrage. When I looked after the test, that topic was covered in like a half a page of the CFAI materials. It was definitely a "gotcha" set. There's nothing you can do about that -- you either know the material or don't. Everyone I asked failed that section.

I would try to keep the written answers as simple as possible, focusing on key points. Basically you want to list out using their key terms everything that is relevant to the question and explain why it is relevant. No need to be creative, I would use their exact terminology and go for layup points (even if you can't really answer the question you should at least aim for half credit). If you get a convexity question, you should know there are several key points for convexity, and list everything applicable, for example.

The best passing strategy is to make sure you pick up all the easy points. My year, there were easy points in GIPS, ethics, and portfolio attribution. The material is easy and you know it will be on the test, and it helps that it's all extremely boring (others won't study it hard). So make sure you cross the Ts on the easy sections (they may have changed the point distribution since I took it, I don't know).

That's about it. I went into the test underprepared (studied about two months). Multiple choice section was pretty easy and saved my bacon. No matter how prepared, you will miss some written questions, so just make sure you are generally on top of the material and crush the afternoon test. Good luck.

And don't be a dumbass and forget your calculator like I did. God bless nerdy Asian kids with extra calculators :D

Great advice, I'd give you a SB if I had one.

Keep it coming...

Ravenous:

I passed in 2008 since my advice might be a bit dated, but I'll give it a shot.

The writing portion is a bitch. You will definitely have one long piece about grandma's superannuation problem or some garbage like that. The year I took it, the write up for the question was at least a page long filled with tiny details and twists and turns, and you were supposed to unpack that and come up with a cogent answer. It was ridiculous, but they seemed to be fairly lenient with answer credit as long as you had a thought process that made sense and showed your work. I discussed some of the written answers post-test with some friends, and we all came up with different stuff, but all passed. I am not 100% sure there are clearly defined right and wrong answers to some of the questions. Obviously follow the material and don't wing it, but I think as long as you show your work and apply whatever they taught you, you should do okay.

They do test minutiae. There was an entire question set my year on reverse cash and carry arbitrage. When I looked after the test, that topic was covered in like a half a page of the CFAI materials. It was definitely a "gotcha" set. There's nothing you can do about that -- you either know the material or don't. Everyone I asked failed that section.

I would try to keep the written answers as simple as possible, focusing on key points. Basically you want to list out using their key terms everything that is relevant to the question and explain why it is relevant. No need to be creative, I would use their exact terminology and go for layup points (even if you can't really answer the question you should at least aim for half credit). If you get a convexity question, you should know there are several key points for convexity, and list everything applicable, for example.

The best passing strategy is to make sure you pick up all the easy points. My year, there were easy points in GIPS, ethics, and portfolio attribution. The material is easy and you know it will be on the test, and it helps that it's all extremely boring (others won't study it hard). So make sure you cross the Ts on the easy sections (they may have changed the point distribution since I took it, I don't know).

That's about it. I went into the test underprepared (studied about two months). Multiple choice section was pretty easy and saved my bacon. No matter how prepared, you will miss some written questions, so just make sure you are generally on top of the material and crush the afternoon test. Good luck.

And don't be a dumbass and forget your calculator like I did. God bless nerdy Asian kids with extra calculators :D

Agree with comments above (passed on same year). I used Schweser, which was a close call (most my friends also used Schwerser and passed). Do as many test exams as possible, check for key words (morning) and master the logic behind ISPs and well as typical ones.

• For morning session, go for bullet points and key words. Show process, don't dwell on lengthy explanations (marginal probability of additional points low to cost in terms of precious minutes). Write what you know and pass to next case, return if needed, also if short on time skip difficult/lengthy Qs and focus on efficiently gaining as much points as possible. If time allows, go back and complete. Once finished, forget about it, particularly the ackward feeling of answering just partially and incompletely... just forget, clear your mind, focus on afternoon session.

• Crush afternoon, follow advise on Ethics, GIPS etc. Master the afternoon at all cost.

Good luck

@Ravenous - Haha yeah, it was sarcastic, but it's really funny when people ask for the copied Schweser materials on LinkedIn, exposing their real names.

blueslord2910:

Any advice for level 1, I just found out that I am using the wrong calculator :(

Buy one of the approved calculators? The TI one isn't too bad, around $50 I think.

arant:

Hi Guys can you point me to some practice questions on Ethics & GIPS or are the Shweser notes enough for this

Thanks

I used the notes for pretty much everything. 2008 was the year they were supposedly going to crack down and specifically test stuff out of the CFAI books to hose Schweser users but I still passed (they got me on reverse cash & carry though). Not sure if they have made it harder still for Schweser only people but you could probably do a search on AF and get a sense for that. The good thing about ethics is that it's all repeat from the prior levels. GIPS is new but is straight memorization, nothing hard there and the test isn't going to throw a lot of curveballs. I learned GIPS the day before the test and crushed that section. I would definitely recommend everyone use the CFAI materials for the IPS stuff though.