LEAVE YOUR LEGACY BEHIND - WHAT WORKED FOR YOU?! KEYWORD: GUIDE

1) Do you need to read the CFAI readings thoroughly for L3? No
Subject to the exception I make in (2) below, you don’t need to read the CFAI books to pass.
Schweser + CFAI EoC + couple of CFAI mocks was more than enough for all 3 levels.
2) Is Ethics really that difficult? From the perspective of a native English speaker, no.
When I started L1 a colleague charterholder told me Ethics was critical. Worried by his advice, I was extra thorough - read the CFAI text in detail and wrote detailed notes. Fortunately, this proved invaluable - barely had to do more than skim Ethics in L2 and L3 as a refresher.
Ethics is pound-for-pound the best topic to know well for the exam - know it well and you can fly through the Ethics item sets, banking plenty of time for the tougher questions later on.
Personally, I found Ethics the easiest topic on each exam (contrary to many on here).
3) Are mock exams helpful? Schweser mocks aren’t helpful - avoid. CFAI mocks invaluable, but I only did 2 before each exam.
4) Can you pass with less than 300 hours study? Yes.
I managed to pass with <250hrs for each level. Of course this varies person to person, but if you have a background in finance, work less than 60hrs a week, don’t have kids and are discplined enough to allocate, say, 8hrs each Saturday for 6 months (and 2-3 full days pre-exam), it can be done. Personally, it helps I had an understanding wife.
5) Tackling the AM: When I started each section of the AM, I wrote what time I needed to move onto the next question. Eg if I had an 18 minute question at 10.30am, I wrote 10.48am at the top of the page so I knew when to move on. Remember, you get partial credits in the AM - if unsure, at least write up the formula, take an educated guess, etc then quickly move on!
 
For level 3 I only used Schweser videos, didn’t do much reading. I did make notes during the videos and after each video I did schweser EOC questions. Beginning of April started doing mocks, in total I did 8 of them. Took 2 weeks off prior to the exam. Ethics I did at the beginning of these 2 weeks. It was just enough for a pass. The key is to know yourself well enough in order to select from the available tools. There are so many of them and there is little time. Pick the ones that will help you to build confidence for the exam.
 
I had a slightly different experience.
  1. CFAI BOOKS - Only did some of the EOCs. Otherwise used Schweser, not great but pretty much the only 3rd party option at this point. I hear Wiley/Elan is doing L3 material at some point, they were great for L2, might want to check out.
  2. MARGINS - Nope
  3. COMPARE DIFFERENCES - Agree
  4. NOTECARDS - Just took some notes going through Schweser, read through week before.
  5. MOCKS - Didn’t do any designated mocks but did go through most of the last 10 years of old exams, by topic. IMPORTANT TO DO THIS. ALSO TIME YOURSELF, I DIDN’T AND RAN OUT OF TIME ON ESSAY PORTION LEAVING A FEW THINGS BLANK.
  6. GIPS - Read through a summary of it right before exam. Hit or miss. Don’t waste too much time.
  7. ETHICS - Spent critical time on the (within final few days of exam), around 8-10 hours. Still only got 50-70% though I think that includes GIPS. Should have spent the time on something else.
Other things…..don’t freak out if you run out of time and leave a few things blank on essay. I did and passed. Even though I did not ‘ace’ the PM; actually got grilled on a couple of sections that I barely knew (ran out of time to study).
Cram the week before. This worked for me. Take the week off work and just live and breathe CFA.
DO OLD EXAMS NOW
 
Here’s what worked for me (>70% in Everything)
1) Open Curriculum and Past AM mocks
2) Memorize everything
3) Close Curriculum and mocks
It helped that I had 4 weeks off from work
 
Hey.
This my first and probably the last post in this forum.
Feel its like my duty to share WHAT WORKED FOR ME.
1. Its completely TRUE that scheweser books are more than enough to score above average scores in all levels of exam. This is especially crucial as it reduces so much of required hours of study. Although CFA ciricullm books are excellent, you can study them out of passion later. for exam oriented study scheweser covers everything. Afterall we all are working professionals here and after returning from office its hard to have enough energy left daily to study from ciricullum. i have never read single page out of the ciricullum.
2.Read and revise at least three times before the exam. my short term memory is good, so for level 3 i have followed this time table. i started in april and i started slow and gradually picked up speed and interests. you dont want to get exhausted one month before exam. you should be at your best as u get close to exam. so i started late. from april 1 to may15th. first round of study from schweser. then two days of practice exams. then first revision of all books in ten days. followed by all remaining papers. totally i did 10 papers. 6 schweser. 3 past year AM. and one mock exam. At last third revision in 3-4 days. you are good to go.
3. most important thing i noticed in level 3 is to study in order of ciricullum. i mean you must start with private welath managment, than insitutional than capital market expectations and so on. because the portion is constructed so beautifully, if you go in order it helps to build a perspective. i have seen people who start studying with fixed income and than equity and than something else. i feel thats not a good idea. going in order will be easier to understand and to rememeber.
4. Please try to keep your answers short in AM session, otherwise you will definitely not complete the paper.
 
cgy5478 wrote:
Congrats to all who passed,
Before heading out of the dark tunnel and go into the lights, PLEASE SHARE what worked for you in level 3 & for those who did not pass this year, feel free to talk about what your biggest regrets are & how you plan to get back up & knock this one out next year.
These are some of the things I did differently in level 3 that had helped me.
STUDY
  1. CFAI BOOKS - I relied heavily on the books (60% as opposed to 30% in level 2) because most of the times, 3rd party notes do not have the same focus as the books on how materials are presented. Relative easy readings so do not be afraid to open the books.
  2. MARGINS - In the books, read everything written in bullet points & the notes written in the the margins of the graphs. I noticed that each year, you get at least 10 points from those short sentences.
  3. COMPARE DIFFERENCES - “Why is this used instead of that?” “How are these 2 strategies different?” “Do you prefer this over that? Why?” “How will these 2 investors act given their styles? The list goes on and on. When you study, look for these as you will be HEAVILY tested on the ability to distinguish & choose the preferred strategy/products given a situation.
  4. NOTECARDS - Made 700~800 notecards, great tool for review (focus on the differences)
  5. MOCKS - 6 “Timed” mocks is a must. PRACTICE the exam taking techniques below and do every individual portoflio calculations at least 3 times until you master all of them.
  6. GIPS - Do not skip this. There’s a lot to remember but after going through the EOCs, you will notice that some items show up more often than others. Remember those and just go for 3/6 and you will be fine.
  7. ETHICS - Do not underestimate this. Spend 1~2 weeks in May to do a lot of practice questions.
EXAM TAKING
AM
  • BULLET POINT - Your best friend, use it and refrain from using long nagging sentences
  • WRITE FORMULAS - Partial credits, but if running short on time, skip them
  • THINK BEFORE YOU WRITE - Repeat the answer in your head, does it answer the question directly? Does it make sense? Can I make it shorter but just as correct?
  • DAMAGE CONTROL (KEY!!!) - TOUCH ON ALL QUESTIONS. Many people made the mistakes of leaving entire questions blank by spending too much time on answering questions with less than 50/50 confidence. My recommendation to divide questions into 3 groups, (1) Questions you know the answers right away (2) Questions you know how to approach but requires more thinking (3) Complete guesses. First pass = write (1) only & identify which questions are (2) & (3), after finishing (1), go to (2) and spend some time thinking & constructing good answers. Lastly, do (3) and start filling in the blanks. Efforts are more proportionally aligned with expected utility this way.
  • TIME MANAGEMENT - Bring a wristwatch & monitor your time in increments of 2 questions (roughly 30 mins for 2 questions) & refrain from spending too much time thinking until you finish all your (1) questions.
  • ACE THE AM - FORGET ABOUT IT! NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! Score as many points as you can in the most efficient way & leave the room with confidence if you do just that. Do not punish yourself if you do not know how to answer 4 sub questions as it happens to the best of us. (btw, I failed 4 sections in AM when I thought I aced all of them lol)
PM
  • SHORT MEMORY - FORGET ABOUT AM, nothing can be changed now.
  • ABSOLUTELY NEED TO ACE PM - You passed level 2 so this is a piece of cake. READ CAREFULLY & circle the key words (increase/decrease etc). You are 3 hours away from the freedom you have desired for so long so leave no regrets here. I did 4/3/4 in AM (failed 4 sections) but made up for it by doing 1/1/6 in PM to come through inthe end.
Special thanks to Magician2000 & my fellow forum friends who have guided me through the journey. Honestly couldnt have done it without all of you. Good luck with your future endeavors & feel free to claim better investment results. lol
Click to expand...
Congratulations to all the passed… and I agree with your points however this was what I did(I am not proud of most):
  • I read CFAI and Schweser books
  • Did EOCs, Blue Boxes, QBank, Practise Exams, 2 Mocks(Scwesser, BSAS)
  • Last 3 years Exams and more tests
  • I did not use bullets and I wrote formulas sparingly
  • I did not answer 3 or 4 sub parts either because I had a “block” or I felt I did not have enough time
  • I rushed to answer many sections with less thought assuming that I knew those topics well and I did <50% in them
I however spent maybe 50% of the time to think before writing some questions and I scored >70 in those topics but as you may note (in a previous thread) my result matrix is just an eyesore because I did not follow the recommendations above.
I am just echoing what cgy5478 said because from the day I finished the exam, I began to pray to my God that I pass!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top