If I could go back, I would have.........

[lola]

Hey guys, sounds like all the regulars crushed this thing! Good stuff!

This is a retrospective thread to all, who are finally sober and who think they could have done better.

If you could go back a few months, what would you change in your prep? What would you do differently, now that you've written the exam?

 

[countryboy]

lola, did you write the exam in june?

 

[lola]

Nope, writing in December.

 

[countryboy]

good luck

 

[bannisja]

from what people are saying, i'd spend the $$ on the CFA institute practice tests.
as for preparation and study materials, i used mostly schweser and i think it was fine- i didn't have more than a handful of questions on that test that i looked at and said to myself i have no clue how to do this one.

study early, study hard, don't stop. learn FSA inside and out- leases, ratios, etc

econ i would take the time to write out- if money supply expands, this this and this happens
if interest rates move down, this this and this happen
knowing all of that cold would've saved me a lot of 50/50 guesses on econ- there were tons of 2 part questions.

ethics was very fair on the test- study it in the beginning and at the end and know GIPS and corp governance (which is now on FSA)

hmm, what else?
pretty much just study a ton and hopefully it'll pay off. that's what i'm hoping for the next 6 weeks or so anyways.

 

[kkent]

I would have studied more than 12 hours in the last month and a half and I would have studied the last 2 weeks. Yep, I basically took the last 6 weeks off from studying. Oops.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Sunday, June 3, 2007 at 06:56PM by kkent.

 

[lola]

thanks, bannisja. Very helpful!

 

[killamanjaro]

I don't think I would ever say this but I would've used Schweser. Just considering the volume of material covered, you focus - or at least I focused - too heavily on the difficult concepts when the exam is much simpler than the study material suggests. Of course there are some questions that were difficult technically but those were in the extreme minority. If I would've read the CFAI material over once and then spent two months going over Schweser I think I would've retained more, especially more that would've been tested.

 

[lola]

thanks, kkent &killamanjaro

 

[mek]

Capital Markets theory. SML and CML learn all of that good. Practice papers bigtime. set aside a month for this. Do the Scweser ones as they're more difficult mathmatically, and if you understand why you're got thigs right/wrong it make the cfa questions on fundamental understanding a breeze. And so it world seem spend absolutely no time on derivatives or probabilities....!

But I don't even know if I've passed yet, so don't take this as gospel.

Andy

 

[JoeyDVivre]

I think that kkent has some good excuses for not studying...

lola - Just keep studying and posting questions. Everyone who does that passes. I guarantee it. (oops, was that some ethical violation?)

 

[bannisja]

not if it's a fact! well, ok fine, maybe misrepresentation... but whatever, as long as you're right.

 

[ruhi22]

I wouldn't really change anythng. Taking all the online tests was very very helpful. Better than anything out there. I think schweser prepared us really well to handle the questions. The concept testing questions were fair enough I would say. If you are calculating it correct, you've got to know the concept behind it.

Making tons of flashcards really helped me at the last moment.

 

[bhaiyyu]

I would have spent more time at 'theory' rather than opractice the numericals... there was theory even in the quantitative methods part .

much as i hate it...memorization is the key to atleast 5-10 % of qns



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Monday, June 4, 2007 at 02:19AM by bhaiyyu.

 

[veerasam]

Schweser notes are good.
I would not have paid that much money for Schweser Pro qbank.
Instead, get BSAS (3-exam set) and CFAI practice exams.

 

[Hang]

Where can I get the BSAS practice exams?
Thanks
Hang

 

[canbonbon]

Hang here is the link to buy the past sample exams.
http://store.bsas.org/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=BO&Product_Code=LISEB&Category_Code=PI

And here is the link to their online test bank :
http://www.bsas.org/education/education_detail.asp?program_id=79

Although I am not sure, but if you do their online test bank, you get their sample exams above included as part of that. I need to confirm that though with them as the website is not very clear on that.

They also have a full day practice exam towards the end, everyone on the board who has taken it, recommend it. So if you can, then you should register for the practice exam too.

--Bon Bon