Friday Night Before Exam

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KJH

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The consensus here is to relax and take it easy. How possible is this though? Remembering back to the Series 7 Exam I was so worried I did the question bank over and over only sleeping about 2 hours. I passed easily, but I have a feeling this exam will follow suit.
Can anyone who has taken the exam share what they did? Would it be a huge disadvantage to stay up half the night?
Not that this is my strategy, I just have no idea how I’ll be able to relax and sleep soundly.
 
Wouldn’t a sleep aid carry over into the morning? I don’t know what would be worse; groggy from a sleep aid or tired from not sleeping much.
 
dont sleep thursday night .. you will fall asleep Friday
 
When I passed L1 I took the Friday off, read Ethics and Secret Sauce the last day, plus my notes
Could not really focus so I watched a couple of CSIs, went to bed with my notes and tried to sleep.
I strongly advise to do what you do on a regular basis, i.e. not take sleeping pills if you are not used to it.
And don’t worry about not sleeping much the night before, you can perfectly manage the 6 hours exam thanks to the excitation and your nerves that will keep you awake and focus.
That was my experience, will probably do the same this year for LII…
 
And if you’re not really a morning person, getting all excited when the alarm goes off, try to wake up a bit earlier and get your engines started.
 
I’m in Tampa, so I’ll be at the beach all day before exam… going for a long run in the morning, then just hanging out watching the “scenery” until evening…. maybe I’ll bring the Ethics/SoP book but I doubt I’ll touch it…. nothing like a bunch of hotties in bikinis to make you forget about the exam!! Then going to the movies that evening… maybe drink 1 beer to take the edge off, but no more than that.
 
agree with nicolargol…
Friday….take the day off…re-read the Ethics from CFAI and Secret Sauce.
Get the test center at 7am….an hour early and review the Schweser Quick sheet in your car….do the same during the lunch break.
thats what I did and it worked…sleep is the key…put it away after dinner and relax…..you don’t want to make stupid mistakes because you were not alery.
 
You better be prepared to the point where you don’t need to study the night before the exam. I just read through the quicksheet and my formulas right before going to bed the night before the exam. Then I sat awake for about 3 hours and ended up taking the exam on 4 hours of sleep. Plus, it didn’t help that I had to drive from Milwaukee to Chicago in a snowstorm and spend the night in a convention center hotel the night before the exam last Dec…. I had so much adrenaline running through me once I sat down for the exam that it really didn’t matter.
 
McLeod81 Wrote:
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> You better be prepared to the point where you
> don’t need to study the night before the exam. …..
I agree, also doing something that you are normally not used to (taking Xnanx) might have an adverse affect the next morning and could affect your abilities to sit through a six hour exam. I am taking Thu-Fri off, will take a final exam on Thu and then just review some ethics and schweser quick sheet for friday. I have to drive approx 50 miles to the exam site not sure if I should drive in the morning or get a room at a hotel near the test site.
 
if you are driving from another city…definitely should get a hotel near the exam site…too much time and money has already been invested to have an issue with traffic, car not starting, or worse case your alarm not going off.
 
jasonindc Wrote:
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> if you are driving from another city…definitely
> should get a hotel near the exam site…too much
> time and money has already been invested to have
> an issue with traffic, car not starting, or worse
> case your alarm not going off.
Yea the thought of either scenerio is scary, I will be driving from the suburb close to the city to the suburb far from the city and that too at 6 AM on a Saturday. The only thing holding me back from getting a room is the fear of not being able to sleep properly in a new place and ofcourse because of anxiety for the test next morning. That is why I am leaning more towards driving from home at the moment
 
Hank0414x Wrote:
> Yea the thought of either scenerio is scary, I
> will be driving from the suburb close to the city
> to the suburb far from the city and that too at 6
> AM on a Saturday. The only thing holding me back
> from getting a room is the fear of not being able
> to sleep properly in a new place and ofcourse
> because of anxiety for the test next morning. That
> is why I am leaning more towards driving from home
> at the moment
The best way to sleep in a new place is to establish some routine at home, and then do the same thing at the hotel. For example, at home I have a small stereo in my room, and every time I go to sleep I put on a CD with the sound of either rain falling, wind, or ocean waves. It blocks out any distracting noise pollution like sirens, gunshots, dogs barking, etc, and I sleep like a baby. When I go to a hotel I bring my notebook or iPod and a set of travel speakers so I can get the rain or wind noise there too. It might take a little while to get used to, but after you do, man it helps TREMENDOUSLY. I could sleep outside on the asphalt as long as I have my rain noise.
 
I think I got hammered the night before the series 7. CFA is a quite a different animal. Personally I have never been one to follow the “take the day off before” advice. As a professor in law school told us as exams were nearing, “when do you stop working on the brief? a minute before it’s due.” “when do you stop prepping for trial? when it’s time to walk into the court room.” I won’t study the morning of but no sense wasting Friday with anxiety taking the form of pseudo-relaxation.
 
Except prepping for a trial and writing a brief are different processes than taking a CFA exam. In the first, you are producing some tangible thing that can always be improved. In the second, you need to get yourself mentally prepared for the conflict. For the CFA exam, the incremental studying you can do the day before the exam must be meaningless but relaxing your brain can help a lot.
Anyway, the goal is to be prepared to the point where there is no anxiety. Honestly, when I took those exams, the night before the exam I slept fine with the knowledge that the chances i was going to pass were 100%. That would have been true no matter what the real chances.
 
JRado Wrote:
——————————————————-
>
> The best way to sleep in a new place is to
> establish some routine at home, and then do the
> same thing at the hotel. For example, at home I
> have a small stereo in my room, and every time I
> go to sleep I put on a CD with the sound of either
> rain falling, wind, or ocean waves. It blocks out
> any distracting noise pollution like sirens,
> gunshots, dogs barking, etc, and I sleep like a
> baby. When I go to a hotel I bring my notebook
> or iPod and a set of travel speakers so I can get
> the rain or wind noise there too. It might take a
> little while to get used to, but after you do, man
> it helps TREMENDOUSLY. I could sleep outside on
> the asphalt as long as I have my rain noise.
Hmmmm …. interesting advice, will try to see if it works in my case. Thanks JRado!
 
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