Exactly how hard is the exam (all 3 levels)?

Ohhhhh man, I’d say level III just cuz you’re so close to finishing, but it is such a crap shoot with the 10 essay questions.
 
Well, in another thread, I just posted a scathing attack on most of the Level 3 curriculum. Level 3 doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I’m more of a Level 2 guy, personally.
 
I think you might want to let others come to a conclusion about whether your attack is “scathing” or not. It’s not normally the sort of thing one says about one’s own arguments.
 
SLOW FRIDAY AT MY OFFICE. LONG POST AHEAD.
Greenman72 wrote:
My question is directed to those who have passed Level 2 or Level 3–what’s your take? Am I stressing too much about the exam? Should I lighten up? Or is this totally normal? Who has the same experience?
Again, I’m interested in hearing from current Level 3 candidates, Level 3 burnouts, or Charterholders.
Click to expand...
Charterholder here. I’d say you’re stressing too much…probably.
The exam is a tough exam, no doubt, but it’s not realistic to say:
Greenman72 wrote:…it has consumed their life. You start fighting with your spouses all the time, because you spend so much time studying. You don’t get to see your kids. You get stressed out easily. You stop working out and start eating a bunch of unhealthy crap. You can’t enjoy any time off–if you’re lucky enough to get any time off. You start drinking waaay too much to try and relax. You can’t focus on anything but the test, and you start wondering if you’re getting enough study time in. You focus too much on the test and not enough on your job, so your job performance suffers. You take vacation days off–then spend the whole time studying.
Click to expand...
WHOA NOW, BUDDY. The exam is tough, and it’s really time consuming, but it’s not a meth addiction or a crippling disease. It’s a tough, rigorous exam that requires a lot of focused time (let’s say 250 - 400 hours for the majority of people) to pass. The number of hours you need, where you choose to get these hours from, how spread out they are, how pleasant they are, and how the rest of your life is going will determine what your life looks like. You have control over some of these things, though not all.
I studied a hell of a lot for all levels, had a full time job (about 45-50 hrs/wk), and had a girlfriend and friends who I certainly wasn’t going to stop seeing because of the exam. I basically studied like 15-20 hours per week, over 5-6 days, for a little over 4 months prior to each exam date. 20 hours a week SUCKS, without a doubt, but if you’re focused and scheduled, you can get it done and keep this schedule up without killing yourself.
Mon - Friday: Minimum of 3 days / wk, leave work and go to the library. Study for 1.5-3 hours. Leave when the library closed, don’t study after that. Minimum of two days per week, get up 90 minutes early, drink coffee and study before morning routine. This left a few weeknights per week free for gym or just relaxing.
Saturday / Sunday: Spend most of daylight hours studying, but at a slower pace. Bullshit with roommate, clean the apartment between lessons, cook myself breakfast and lunch, etc. Typically would spend 10AM through 6PM in this kinda “slower paced” studying mode and I’d get 5-7 hours of studying in.
Did this schedule suck? Well, it wasn’t fun to get up at 5:30 on some days, and coming home at 9PM after a full day of work and 2 hours of studying was tiring. But it left my nights free, and I could have relatively normal weekend nights where I went to bars, saw movies with friends, took GF to dinner, etc.
Was this schedule sustainable? Yeah. I did it for all three exams, though for level 1, I didn’t need to do the 5:30 AM early rises since that exam required slightly fewer hours for me.
What’d you study with? Schweser materials almost entirely. I watched 100% of the videos, did probably 90% of the practice exams, did probably 70% of the CFAI end of chapter questions, did hundreds of Qbank questions endlessly, and took a minimum of 3 mocks for all levels (typically did all six or however many Schweser gave me).
How’d you do on the exams and pre-tests? Passed all levels on first attempts, was typically scoring somewhere between like…70-85 on my Schweser mocks, depending on the level.
TL:DR: Have a plan, give yourself a schedule, and allow sufficient time to execute on it. Keep track of your hours and make sure you’re on course for where you need to be. Don’t sacrifice your whole life. Leave yourself some time to do the crap you enjoy doing.
 
I do appreciate your suggestions and ways you followed for your success in all the levels of CFA exam. I believe studying with full level of enjoyment which are the energizer to reach the destination.
 
Rookies.
Blue dragons breathe lightning. Red dragons breathe fire. See, all those hours studying the D&D Monster Manual when I was 12 totally paid off.
And the picture does represent the exams accurately.
 
No need to look it up.
Blue - lightning
Red - fire
Green - poisonous gas
Black - acid
White - frost / ice
Like I said, rookies. Of course, I can’t easily recall the breath weapons of the good dragons (gold, silver, bronze, brass, etc.) And speaking of Dragonlance, when I was in the 7th grade I really wanted to meet Silvara in the flesh… total HCB. Ha ha ha.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top