Need advice on study planning

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djegu

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Hi,
I’m going to finish Schweser books by the end of the week for December exam and i don’t know what to do next… I have 3.5 months before exam
Should I go for a new reading round (2 months) and then practice (1.5 month) or should i start practicing now ? I have dozen of mock exam and QBank
Thanks !
 
My two cents (worth exactly that).
* Read the CFAI material on Ethics and Financial Reporting at a minimum.
* Take a practice test now to assess your points of weakness. Compare those areas to the most heavily weighted areas. Re-read those sections and consider reading the CFAI material through.
* Make your own outlines from memory. Note the areas where you have to check back in on the review material.
* Form a study group to discuss questions and issues. Teaching a subject to someone else is the ultimate metric of whether you understand it.
* Set aside two months for practice tests. Take at least one each weekend, grade it and assess your weaknesses, and use the rest of the week to address the areas you had problems with. Wash, rinse repeat.
 
I went through the Schweser notes twice (maybe even three times…it’s all a blur) , but the second (and third?) time I wrote down key concepts, formulas, etc. in notebooks. Going through the notes again and actually writing things out was huge for me. I never went back through and read what I wrote in the notebooks, but just writing it out once was helpful. Sometimes id even read things aloud as I was writing. Repetition is key.
Agree with JSD-NYC, put an emphasis on FRA and Ethics given their weightings.
 
Thanks for your feedback ! I will go trough Schweser a second time
 
I wanted to start a new thread but decided not to. I am on the opposite of your end. Just now started on the first book beginning of July and i already feel overwhelmed by how much material I have go through by end of November (test is December 7th). I need some serious advice on what to do now. It is now August 10 and I have not even finished study session 2. Am I going too slow? I tried and planned on to reading and go through everything from CFA Institute book. Gosh it take forever to manually calculate those Sums or Means on the BAII Plus when it would take seconds using the Excel sheet. I understand there is no short cut, but I need some helps.
 
Are you using CFAI material or a third party like Scweser? For me Schweser notes was sufficient for L1. However, I did all of the EOC questions and blue cox examples in the CFAI books. I also referred to the CFAI material if I didn’t understand a topic. Honestly, if you are feeling overwhelmed by the CFAI books, it might benefit you to use Schweser notes (or Wiley,etc). Hope this helps.
 
Thank you for the response. I am currently using the CFAI materials. Though I got these SchweserNotes books since 2014, do you think they would be efficient? I just don’t have any extra $400 to buy the 2016 edition :(. I notice the CFAI talked about Semivariance and Semideviation, while the SchweserNotes (2014) did not….
 
Maybe check out Wiley or IFT as I believe they have notes too. I have not used them, but may be worth looking into. Might be able to get a lower priced package. Good luck.
 
BaKa wrote:
Thank you for the response. I am currently using the CFAI materials. Though I got these SchweserNotes books since 2014, do you think they would be efficient? I just don’t have any extra $400 to buy the 2016 edition :(. I notice the CFAI talked about Semivariance and Semideviation, while the SchweserNotes (2014) did not….
Click to expand...
Normally on CFA website you can find what they changed in the CFAI materials over the years, find them, underline them, learn them on CFAI Materials 2016, for the rest that didn’t change, you can use Schweser. Don’t forget to do the practice problem from CFAI materials, it will highlight what you didn’t saw on Schweser 2014 that you need to check on CFAI 2016.
You will save some time
 
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