So the results are finally out and its time to digest the information given. I was fortunate enough to pass this level 3 beast and I wanted to pass something back to this forum for all the help, support, and encouragement I received from here.
I first want to encourage anyone at this level NOT to give up! Your honestly SO close to the finish that throwing in the towel now would undermine all those hours and years we all spent to get this far. If you were in level 1 or 2, I would say maybe its worth throwing it in but to throw it in on the final stretch would be tragic.
This is not a one size fits all, but a different study plan on how you can successfully pass this exam and I hope reading my experiences here would help you all pass this program.
First, I have never read the CFAI text books (except for ethics) because it was just too much and I didn’t have the time to go through all that fluff. I initially used Schweser for level 1 and level 2 (first attempt). I decided to try Stalla for my second attempt at level 2 and I was very happy I made the switch and very happy with the outcome. Even with Stalla, I didn’t read the entire books they offered, I only referenced on areas I needed a little more detail. Below are what I think are the essentials to successfully passing these exams (in no particular order):
1. Schweser secret sauce: (amazing summary of all the core concepts you need for each CFA level exam). I actually passed level 1 reading exclusively this only and I was band 10 for level 2 (first attempt) reading ONLY the secret sauce. Don’t leave home without your secret sauce (or your study plan!)
2. Stalla lecture notes: I found these extremely helpful and I swear by them. The core of my studies was using the lecture notes for my second attempt at level 2 and my first and final attepmt at level 3. The videos that come with the lecture notes are very well done and really make the concepts easier to understand. The ONLY lecturer on the CD’s I found to be completely useless was Ben Jones. Otherwise, they were all very good (espicially Peter Olinto and David Hatherington). If you master the lecture notes, I strongly believe you will pass the exams. I think lthe lecture notes give you about 80%-85% of the material you need in each section and filters out A LOT of the fluff in the CFAI text.
3. Schweser exams and Q-bank: This is very I found Stalla to be lacking. The questions in PassMaster are not the same calibre as the Schweser question banks. I went through all the PassMaster and then went right into the Q-Bank.
4. Know your ethics! This was the only section I went through Stalla, Schweser and the CFAI text. Ethics can in some cases make or break your results.
Bottom line is that with these 4, I think you chances of passing this exam would be high. Again this is not a one size fits all, but I found this method to be very efficient and allowed me to use my limited time to concentrate on the heavy weight areas. I stress again that I never touched the CFAI textbooks (except ethics) and used the Schweser/Stalla big heavy books for reference only. The bulk of my studying was either with the Secret sauce from Schweser or Lecture notes/video from Stalla.
To give you all perspective of what I had to go through for the level 3 exam when I passed using the Stalla lecture notes, while studying for the CFA level 3 exam I was also doing my MBA part-time at a top school in Canada, working full time (3 hour commute each day), with a 1 year old at home. I really did not have the luxury of time so I managed to make the most of it by trying to be as efficient as possible. It was by far the hardest thing I have ever done when I was doing this all at once but it was definitely worth it to get through it all. I’m just writing this to show that even if you are time constrained, you CAN study effectively and beat the CFA exam.
Finally, there were two things I always considered in my study for the exam and I think this also helped me focus on the big picture:
1. To pass the CFA exam, you don’t need to be an expert in all fields, you need to be a jack of all trades and master of none. What it means is that as long as you know about 80% of the concepts in each area, its better to sacrifice the the remaining 15%-20% in each area in order to make sure your 80%-85% in all the areas.
2. If you look at past exams and CFAI sample questions, I found that out of the 6 questions in an item set, 2-3 were “freebies” and the remaining ones were the more difficult/challenging questions. By ensuring you always got those freebies you automatically had nearly 50% of an item set and could get the remainder by knowing the concepts in greater detail. In this case, knowing 80%-85% of the material was definitely enough to give you that. So I rather spend the 200-300 hours studying the Core concepts than wasting it on obscure sections that may never show up.
Disclaimer: Will the method I used to pass the exams give you above 70% in all of the sections? probably not. Will you have below 50% in a few sections? probably. Will you end up passing? Highly likely.
I hope this was helpful to anyone reading this. Remember don’t quit, your VERY close to the finish line and I think its definitely worth sacrificing a little time to get through this and finally get that elusive charter.
I’ve reposted my results below for each time I wrote the exam (the ones I found on AF). As you can see, I never killed the exams, but I never got destroyed either with this method.
Best of luck to all next year and congratulations to all who passed this year.
Deep2002
Below is my level 2 (first attempt using Schweser secret sauce only + Q-Bank and ending up as band 10) results:
Item Set
Q# Topic Max Pts <=50% 51%-70% >70%
- Alternative Investments 18 - * -
- Corporate Finance 36 - * -
- Derivatives 36 - - *
- Economics 18 * - -
- Equity Investments 72 - * -
- Ethical & Professional Standards 36 - * -
- Financial Statement Analysis 72 - - *
- Fixed Income Investments 36 - - *
- Portfolio Management 18 * - -
- Quantitative Methods 18 - * -
Below is my level 2 (2nd attempt using Stalla lecture notes and a little secret sauce on the side + Q-bank) results:
Item Set Q# Topic Max Pts <=50% 51%-70% >70%
- Alternative Investments 18 - - *
- Corporate Finance 36 - - *
- Derivatives 36 - - *
- Economics 18 - - *
- Equity Investments 72 - * -
- Ethical & Professional Standards 36 - * -
- Financial Reporting & Analysis 72 - - *
- Fixed Income Investments 36 - * -
- Portfolio Management 18 - - *
- Quantitative Methods 18 - - *
Below is my level 3 results (using Stalla lecture notes/video and Q-bank):
Essay Q# Topic Max Pts <=50% 51%-70% >70%
1 Portfolio Management - Individual 35 - - *
2 Portfolio Management - Institutional 25 - - *
3 Portfolio Management - Institutional 24 * - -
4 Economics 14 - - *
5 Portfolio Management - Asset Allocation 15 - - *
6 Fixed Income Investments 18 * - -
7 Portfolio Management - Risk Management 20 * - -
8 Portfolio Management - Monitor&Rebalance 17 - * -
9 Portfolio Management – Performance Eval. 12 - * -
Item Set Q# Topic Max Pts <=50% 51%-70% >70%
- Alternative Investments 18 - * -
- Equity Investments 36 - - *
- Ethical & Professional Standards 36 - - *
- Fixed Income Investments 36 - - *
- Portfolio Management 18 * - -
- Portfolio Management - Individual 18 * - -
- Portfolio Management - Risk Management 18 - * -
I first want to encourage anyone at this level NOT to give up! Your honestly SO close to the finish that throwing in the towel now would undermine all those hours and years we all spent to get this far. If you were in level 1 or 2, I would say maybe its worth throwing it in but to throw it in on the final stretch would be tragic.
This is not a one size fits all, but a different study plan on how you can successfully pass this exam and I hope reading my experiences here would help you all pass this program.
First, I have never read the CFAI text books (except for ethics) because it was just too much and I didn’t have the time to go through all that fluff. I initially used Schweser for level 1 and level 2 (first attempt). I decided to try Stalla for my second attempt at level 2 and I was very happy I made the switch and very happy with the outcome. Even with Stalla, I didn’t read the entire books they offered, I only referenced on areas I needed a little more detail. Below are what I think are the essentials to successfully passing these exams (in no particular order):
1. Schweser secret sauce: (amazing summary of all the core concepts you need for each CFA level exam). I actually passed level 1 reading exclusively this only and I was band 10 for level 2 (first attempt) reading ONLY the secret sauce. Don’t leave home without your secret sauce (or your study plan!)
2. Stalla lecture notes: I found these extremely helpful and I swear by them. The core of my studies was using the lecture notes for my second attempt at level 2 and my first and final attepmt at level 3. The videos that come with the lecture notes are very well done and really make the concepts easier to understand. The ONLY lecturer on the CD’s I found to be completely useless was Ben Jones. Otherwise, they were all very good (espicially Peter Olinto and David Hatherington). If you master the lecture notes, I strongly believe you will pass the exams. I think lthe lecture notes give you about 80%-85% of the material you need in each section and filters out A LOT of the fluff in the CFAI text.
3. Schweser exams and Q-bank: This is very I found Stalla to be lacking. The questions in PassMaster are not the same calibre as the Schweser question banks. I went through all the PassMaster and then went right into the Q-Bank.
4. Know your ethics! This was the only section I went through Stalla, Schweser and the CFAI text. Ethics can in some cases make or break your results.
Bottom line is that with these 4, I think you chances of passing this exam would be high. Again this is not a one size fits all, but I found this method to be very efficient and allowed me to use my limited time to concentrate on the heavy weight areas. I stress again that I never touched the CFAI textbooks (except ethics) and used the Schweser/Stalla big heavy books for reference only. The bulk of my studying was either with the Secret sauce from Schweser or Lecture notes/video from Stalla.
To give you all perspective of what I had to go through for the level 3 exam when I passed using the Stalla lecture notes, while studying for the CFA level 3 exam I was also doing my MBA part-time at a top school in Canada, working full time (3 hour commute each day), with a 1 year old at home. I really did not have the luxury of time so I managed to make the most of it by trying to be as efficient as possible. It was by far the hardest thing I have ever done when I was doing this all at once but it was definitely worth it to get through it all. I’m just writing this to show that even if you are time constrained, you CAN study effectively and beat the CFA exam.
Finally, there were two things I always considered in my study for the exam and I think this also helped me focus on the big picture:
1. To pass the CFA exam, you don’t need to be an expert in all fields, you need to be a jack of all trades and master of none. What it means is that as long as you know about 80% of the concepts in each area, its better to sacrifice the the remaining 15%-20% in each area in order to make sure your 80%-85% in all the areas.
2. If you look at past exams and CFAI sample questions, I found that out of the 6 questions in an item set, 2-3 were “freebies” and the remaining ones were the more difficult/challenging questions. By ensuring you always got those freebies you automatically had nearly 50% of an item set and could get the remainder by knowing the concepts in greater detail. In this case, knowing 80%-85% of the material was definitely enough to give you that. So I rather spend the 200-300 hours studying the Core concepts than wasting it on obscure sections that may never show up.
Disclaimer: Will the method I used to pass the exams give you above 70% in all of the sections? probably not. Will you have below 50% in a few sections? probably. Will you end up passing? Highly likely.
I hope this was helpful to anyone reading this. Remember don’t quit, your VERY close to the finish line and I think its definitely worth sacrificing a little time to get through this and finally get that elusive charter.
I’ve reposted my results below for each time I wrote the exam (the ones I found on AF). As you can see, I never killed the exams, but I never got destroyed either with this method.
Best of luck to all next year and congratulations to all who passed this year.
Deep2002
Below is my level 2 (first attempt using Schweser secret sauce only + Q-Bank and ending up as band 10) results:
Item Set
Q# Topic Max Pts <=50% 51%-70% >70%
- Alternative Investments 18 - * -
- Corporate Finance 36 - * -
- Derivatives 36 - - *
- Economics 18 * - -
- Equity Investments 72 - * -
- Ethical & Professional Standards 36 - * -
- Financial Statement Analysis 72 - - *
- Fixed Income Investments 36 - - *
- Portfolio Management 18 * - -
- Quantitative Methods 18 - * -
Below is my level 2 (2nd attempt using Stalla lecture notes and a little secret sauce on the side + Q-bank) results:
Item Set Q# Topic Max Pts <=50% 51%-70% >70%
- Alternative Investments 18 - - *
- Corporate Finance 36 - - *
- Derivatives 36 - - *
- Economics 18 - - *
- Equity Investments 72 - * -
- Ethical & Professional Standards 36 - * -
- Financial Reporting & Analysis 72 - - *
- Fixed Income Investments 36 - * -
- Portfolio Management 18 - - *
- Quantitative Methods 18 - - *
Below is my level 3 results (using Stalla lecture notes/video and Q-bank):
Essay Q# Topic Max Pts <=50% 51%-70% >70%
1 Portfolio Management - Individual 35 - - *
2 Portfolio Management - Institutional 25 - - *
3 Portfolio Management - Institutional 24 * - -
4 Economics 14 - - *
5 Portfolio Management - Asset Allocation 15 - - *
6 Fixed Income Investments 18 * - -
7 Portfolio Management - Risk Management 20 * - -
8 Portfolio Management - Monitor&Rebalance 17 - * -
9 Portfolio Management – Performance Eval. 12 - * -
Item Set Q# Topic Max Pts <=50% 51%-70% >70%
- Alternative Investments 18 - * -
- Equity Investments 36 - - *
- Ethical & Professional Standards 36 - - *
- Fixed Income Investments 36 - - *
- Portfolio Management 18 * - -
- Portfolio Management - Individual 18 * - -
- Portfolio Management - Risk Management 18 - * -
