For those that passed L3 the first time

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haphols_cfa

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Congratulations to all L3 passers. I’m sure the wait was unbearable.
For those that passed L3 the first time, what did you use to study? In particular, I am curious about the quality of the DVDs / video lectures.
* Schweser = I’ve heard mixed reviews
* Stalla = A few have said the DVDs are not great (in particular Degraf and Jones). Dave Heatherinton is better. Did he cover a lot of the material this year?
* Other providers (FinQuiz, Creighton, ?) <== not sure who else has videos
Thanks for any feedback.
 
I did the 3-day review seminar (online) provided by Schweser. I don’t think it mattered that it was Schweser but having a concentrated review of 20-25 hours during the last week, with most concepts covered, was very valuable in helping me to “peak” before Saturday.
 
haphols_cfa Wrote:
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> * Schweser = I’ve heard mixed reviews
>
I used Schweser for all three levels and passed all three on my first attempt. The videos served as my “first pass” on the material each time. The quality of the videos at levels one and two were - my opinion, obviously - excellent. At level II in particular, they do a nice job combining spoken word with images and breaking down harder topics.
Level III, the quality of the videos goes down noticeably. In particular, Greg Filbeck presents about half of the material, and he is an extremely boring presenter - just mainly reading the slides on your screen, little diversions or mnemonics that help make the material come alive. The worst part is, I’ve heard that he’s an excellent presenter in person. That may be, but he’s pretty weak on tape.
Be that as it may, I still passed using Schweser for all three levels, but I was pretty disappointed with the videos for level three - the other presenters (Marc Lefevre and Andy Holmes and the others) were still good, but shame on Kaplan for giving by far the weakest instructor half the material…
My advice is definitely get the schweser books, mocks, and Qbank. If you can do a live class or an online class, you may get a better experience than the level III videos. Also, they redo the videos each year, so perhaps it’ll be better in 2012.
 
I like the Finquiz question bank and mock exam. Well worth the price.
 
I used schwesers video, quicksheet, and cfai (eoc and examples). Didn’t have the time to do mock and samples (wasted my time on worthless qbank).
 
I used exclusively CFAI material and read the entire curriculum word for word and then reviewed it lightly twice and then again focusing on weak areas. I also did all of the EOC questions at least twice and sometimes 3+ times for questions where I was weak. I also focused heavily on past exams, writing each of them at least twice as a method for simulating exam day and I think that is really made the difference for me. I purchased FinQuiz on a whim and only ended up doing a few hundred questions before I determined that it was not a good use of time for the way that I learn –it was a waste of money for me.
Now, my level II experience was quite different as I relied heavily on Q-bank and completed almost the entire collection of questions prior to the exam. I just didn’t feel that this was a helpful excercise for the format of the level 3 exam.
It really depends on how you learn but sole-CFAI for level 3 was the best course of action for my learning style, which is slow and steady and built around a disciplined routine. I started in November and I am the type of studier that puts in 1-2 hours per day for many days in a row. You won’t find me putting in long hours per day until the weekends a month leading up to the exam and even then I rarely would go more than 5-6 hours per weekend day. I had some time off work before the exam where I would also do longer days.
In summary, you are best served to find out your learning style and go from there. There is no magic bullet, so to speak. Just be aware the level 3 exam is drastically different than the previous two IMHO.
 
You’ve passed 2 levels. If you don’t have your own view by now, you never will.
And you will never be a decent analyst either as most insightful analyst calls are based on much less info than you have to answer your own question.
 
I put in well over 700h, taking 6 weeks off work before the exam and doing all exercises, CFAI and Schwesers, including the EOC and in-chapter examples of the CFAI books. I found Schwesers 3 day problem workbook to best match the actual exam difficulty, everything else in terms of multiple choice seemed too easy. I used the QBank puerly for retention.
I passed over the material about four times: First reading Schweser notes plus cross checking CFAI books whether Schweser missed something I considered interesting or important (I figured, everything CFAI does an example on is something I should keep in mind). Second, I watched the online class recording and checking the notes for anything I missed or to note a faster calculation or better way to remember things. Third, as soon as the Secret Sauce arrived I reviewed Schweser notes and consolidated all my personal notes from the CFAI books, the online class and Schweser notes into the Secret Sauce. The Secret Sauce omitted some areas I found important or required more context to understand. Fourth and finally, I did two sets of QBank exams for each area, one of purely advanced questions and one of easy/normal questions. I reviewed my edited Secret Sauce and then took the advanced exam that same day, and the easy ones in the morning of the following. This happend right before starting to hit exams. I alwasy printed QBank exams and took them paper based. This allowed me to review mistakes right before going to bed, and to ensure I don’t make mistakes twice.
About two weeks before the exam I started to build my personal list of formulas (about 16 pages of calculations or logical steps to remember) and tried to write each formula by memory until I could do 80% correct in 3 hours time. Also about two weeks prior to the exam I started to take the first Schweser exams under exam conditions, and a second and third in the last week. In between I took two CFAI morning exams. I scored between 63 and 77% based on my own grading of these CFAI morning exams. I never really practiced the afternoon part of the exam, this may be a reason I found the PM session exceptionally difficult, even though I scored surprisingly well.
Best of luck to everybody.
 
You’re a beast egal.
I went cfai text and creighton bootcamp. Depends on how you learn, but I highly recommend the bootcamp.
 
I went Windsor Week, Schweser MP3’s, CFAI text, CFAI Mocks and Scwheser Exams (no Schweser notes), 600 hrs of study, AF and a little luck.
 
jcole21 Wrote:
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> You’re a beast egal.
Thanks, but if you look at my score (62%) you will be much less impressed. I knew I needed the extra mile to pass this. Many of my friends had to do it twice or more. Fact is none of the people I know face-to-face passed level 3 the first time. This got me scared, so I figured over-studieing is superior to underinvesting and doubling down for a second try.
 
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