Exam weights by Study Session

[ddrobinett]

According to the website 300 Hours, here are the exam weights by what I believe to be the appropriate Study Session.
Ethics comprises 10% of the exam. This is set in stone, it won’t change, and it will be two vignettes in the afternoon.

• SS 1&2 - 10%

As you can see, PM comprises a little over half of the exam. Here is what the weights were for last year:

• SS 3&4 - 20%
• SS 5 - 10%
• SS 6-7 - 7% (I think these two are grouped together. They seem to logically “fit”.)
• SS 8 - 5%
• SS 16 - 6%
• SS 17&18 - 5%. (Again, I think “Performance” encompasses both of these Study Sessions.)

My take: SS 17 and 18 put together make up only 5%. These seem also to be the most tedious of all the study sessions. SS 17 has a lot of little calculations that I seriously doubt will be a significant part of the exam, and SS 18 is a lot of rote memorization. Moreover, very few candidates did poorly on this section of the exam last year. I’m not sure that these two sections are worth spending a whole lot of time on. (Of course, this could be the year that they ask a lot of questions on this section, but I’m willing to take my chances.)
Now, onto the Asset Classes: It looks like it will only be about a third of the exam.

• SS 9-10 - 12%
• SS 11-12 - 5%
• SS 13 - 5%
• SS 14 - 5%
• SS 15 - 7%

My take: I haven’t covered the Asset Class material yet, so I can’t say which one of these is more difficult than the others. It’s pretty obvious that Fixed Income will be tested pretty heavily. Of the others, Derivatives may carry a little more weight, but significantly more. Does anybody have any idea what the best approach to this material is?

 

[loves2rockclimb]

My advice is to not try and game the exam and study everything, you never know what they might ask.