Advice for the next month

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josh_16

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Hi guys I just wanted to get some opinions/guidance from anyone who has taken the tests on my study plan so far and what i’m planning on doing next.
So far i have finished all of the curriculum. Read through all of Schweser and parts of the CFA book that I needed more information on. I did also read the entire ethics section from the CFA book.
Throughout the readings I have taken notes, and done hundreds of Qbank questions , CFA topic tests, EOC’s, and EOC Schweser Q’s. Generally I am scoring between 65-80% on them right now. Recently I have gone back to all of the areas that I felt I needed review and started making a ton of notecards. I don’t really make the notecards purely for definitions, but I try to write them in more of a questions format similar to questions I have seen.
I now plan on continuing to go through my note cards everday and still refresh and master some of my weaker areas.
Currently I have been doing the best on Quant, Equity, Fixed Income, Corporate Finance, and Portfolo Management.
I have done Ok on Econ but my results have been mixed with the different question sets that I have used. Some of them I score extremly well and others not so much.
My biggest concern right now is the Financial Reporting and Analysis section. I have never been great at accounting and am defenintly struggling with it the most. I just feel that there is so much info and it’s difficult to keep straight a lot of the slightly different rules between IFRS and GAAP. (Is the IRFS/GAAP confusion really bad for the exam)? I plan on continuing to make notecards and study them, keeping doing practice questions, and re-reading some material.
Has anyone felt this way about FRA before and how did you overcome your struggles? I understand it’s the largest weight on the test so I really need to get a better grasp of this material. Also, does anyone have any best practices for memorizing all of the formulas/ratios? (There are so damn many..)
I think the next step I will take is to start the first official mock exam…Time myself and give myself the 1hr break and then do the PM session and see where I am.
Sorry for the long post but I’m getting to be a little nervous as the test date approaches. To summarize:
  • Done with all sections. Done Tons of Q-bank, EOC, CFA test topics (60-80%) Average. Made TONS of notecards and had written notes.
  • Best topics = Quant, Equity, Fixed Income, Corporate Finance, and Portfolo Management
  • Worst topics = FRA, Derivatives
  • Would LOVE to get some help/insight into how to master FRA
  • What do you think of my plan so far and what are the next steps
Would really appreciate your feedback if you could. Thank you.
 
if you don’t pass, I don’t know what I would do….
Probably give up on CFA and do a one week course and become a CFP instead.
 
I failed band 10 in June and while being that close was really disappointing, I learned a lot about the process and what I needed to change going forward.
For me, videos covering FRA finally made the difference. I used the Wiley videos… Peter Olinto does a great job of explaining the why behind the concepts. I haven’t had to memorize near as much because it’s become more intuitive.
You have a very similar process to what I follow and at this point, I’m moving on to mock exams. Practice really is the key and it will help you identify your weak areas.
Regarding review in general, don’t let off the gas now. Make sure your family and friends know that you aren’t going to be very available for the next 6 weeks. Don’t be afraid to say “no” to activities and things that will distract you from reviewing. In the grand scheme of things, 6 weeks is a small amount of time to sacrifice for something that is really important to you.
One last thing, try to stay out of the weeds focusing on the obscure items. I got caught up in that last time and it hurt me when reviewing because I didn’t feel like I could move on from something small to the next big concept.
Paying attention to these things have made a huge difference for me this time around. I took my first mock exam yesterday and scored an 83… much better than my first mock score
 
@ Kuromusha… Not sure what you’re getting at.
@jenjenks . Thank you for the advice on the videos. I will defenitly try to check some of those out. As far as letting friends and family know I have done that and they’re all actually very accepting so that is good.
At this point I’m just doing as many practice problems as possible and going back to review what I get wrong.
What exactly do you mean about the obscure items? Do you have an example of what hurt you on the first try?
I plan on taking my first full mock this saturday and then reviewing it all on sunday and going back to practice my weaker areas.
 
josh_16 wrote:
I plan on taking my first full mock this saturday and then reviewing it all on sunday and going back to practice my weaker areas.
Click to expand...
Me, too. The second one on this Friday or Saturday. The first was only 60 %. Meanwhile, I was practing weak areas so hope to reach 70%.
 
josh_16 wrote:
@jenjenks . Thank you for the advice on the videos. I will defenitly try to check some of those out. As far as letting friends and family know I have done that and they’re all actually very accepting so that is good.
At this point I’m just doing as many practice problems as possible and going back to review what I get wrong.
What exactly do you mean about the obscure items? Do you have an example of what hurt you on the first try?
I plan on taking my first full mock this saturday and then reviewing it all on sunday and going back to practice my weaker areas.
Click to expand...
I got stuck on some calculation heavy concepts. I used Schweser mocks and apparently they are known for calcuation intense problems so after taking my first mock, I really focused on the calcuations that I missed when I should have yes, reviewed what I missed but also spent more time on the broad concepts that I struggled with. I hope that makes sense… I’m trying to avoid giving out specifics of what was on the exam.
This time as I’m reviewing, I’m really paying attention to what the LOS is asking me to do… describe, calculate, interpret etc. and making sure I can do what it is asking me to do. This has helped me focus a lot and is so far, paying off with much better practice/mock exam scores.
 
If you have the time and money John Harris’s Financial Accounting workshops for L1/L2 of the CFA exam are amazing. Or at least L2, which I went to, was really helpful and I”ve heard the same for L1.
No, I get zero compensation or anything for recommending him
 
jenjenks wrote:
josh_16 wrote:
@jenjenks . Thank you for the advice on the videos. I will defenitly try to check some of those out. As far as letting friends and family know I have done that and they’re all actually very accepting so that is good.
At this point I’m just doing as many practice problems as possible and going back to review what I get wrong.
What exactly do you mean about the obscure items? Do you have an example of what hurt you on the first try?
I plan on taking my first full mock this saturday and then reviewing it all on sunday and going back to practice my weaker areas.
Click to expand...
I got stuck on some calculation heavy concepts. I used Schweser mocks and apparently they are known for calcuation intense problems so after taking my first mock, I really focused on the calcuations that I missed when I should have yes, reviewed what I missed but also spent more time on the broad concepts that I struggled with. I hope that makes sense… I’m trying to avoid giving out specifics of what was on the exam.
This time as I’m reviewing, I’m really paying attention to what the LOS is asking me to do… describe, calculate, interpret etc. and making sure I can do what it is asking me to do. This has helped me focus a lot and is so far, paying off with much better practice/mock exam scores.
Click to expand...
This is exactly what I have noticed about the Schweser Q-bank in comparison to the Wiley one. (I used a free trial of the Wiley and thought it was really really helpful). The Schweser seems to focus very heavily on calculations while Wiley does a great job of mixing calculations with concepts. I took a few Wiley ones and scored really low and realized that I needed to go back and focus on the concepts way more.
As far as focusing on the LOS… what a coincidence because today i just printed out a list of the entire LOS for each chapter and was going to really review what they’re asking and saying. Specifically about the “describe” vs. “calculate” etc. Thank you for that advice! I will for sure pay attention to this.
 
I would really consider the Workshop but since I don’t live in NY that won’t be possible. He doesn’t do any virtual classes does he?
 
Josh, Ha….yea, I first thought you were talking about forward rate agreements (FRA)?!? so, right, Financial Reporting and Analysis just plain sucks for me too! I have been at this for a year now (band 8 in June). In my defence, I started 100% from scratch (never took a single accounting, econ or finance course in my life!). I still feel like evey day I find more crap I have not memorized yet or don’t understand 2% of a concept…. which is enough to 100% get the problem wrong! so frustrating. I just keep doing problems and then I ask myself what concept is missing from my knowledge. Then I make a flashcard for that concept. I think It is a good idea to look at the back question in “FRA” on this forum. The key to retaining detailed information it to keep attacking it from different angles, strengthening the connections between concepts. Following how others struggle with a concept can help with gaining exposure to different viewpoints and therefore stregthening your own understanding. It is easier to make random tedious details stick to a well built web of information.
 
…….also, If you have not noticed, many of the ratios can be easily remembered as types
—–“margin” is always something over revenue
“return on”——- is always income over something
——“turnover” is revenue over something (except for inventory and payables turnover)
Thats about 60% of the ratios right there!
 
Agree with you that there are a lot of differences between IFRS and GAAP accounting.
Besides just memorizing the differences, one thing I did was create a very simple PowerPoint slide with 3 columns (1) FRA Topic (example, inventory write-downs), 2) GAAP, 3) IFRS).
Each time I came to a topic that stated a GAAP version and an IFRS version, I would briefly bullet point the differences. I would refer to that all the time.
Very useful to look at while you are watching TV, at lunch at work, or in the middle of a study session to refresh yourself with the differences between the two. No need to spend a lot of time grinding through it, just 5 -10 minutes a day, 3-4 times a week for the next few weeks.
You’ll have them down in time for the test
Good luck.
 
KMeriwetherD wrote:
…….also, If you have not noticed, many of the ratios can be easily remembered as types
—–“margin” is always something over revenue
“return on”——- is always income over something
——“turnover” is revenue over something (except for inventory and payables turnover)
Thats about 60% of the ratios right there!
Click to expand...
Thank you for that advice I never realized that… That will be very helpful going forward.
 
TE600 wrote:
Agree with you that there are a lot of differences between IFRS and GAAP accounting.
Besides just memorizing the differences, one thing I did was create a very simple PowerPoint slide with 3 columns (1) FRA Topic (example, inventory write-downs), 2) GAAP, 3) IFRS).
Each time I came to a topic that stated a GAAP version and an IFRS version, I would briefly bullet point the differences. I would refer to that all the time.
Very useful to look at while you are watching TV, at lunch at work, or in the middle of a study session to refresh yourself with the differences between the two. No need to spend a lot of time grinding through it, just 5 -10 minutes a day, 3-4 times a week for the next few weeks.
You’ll have them down in time for the test
Good luck.
Click to expand...
Great Idea ! You’re right I could easily just review that while around the house or at work. Thank you! Good luck as well.
 
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