Passers...material question??

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Prison Mike

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Okay Passers…what study material did you use? Did you use CFA specific stuff as well? If so, when and how did you use it (i.e. “I took the CFA practice exams 2 weeks before the test”, etc.)? I’ve used Schweser a couple of times, and whether it’s me or the material…something’s not working, and it’s time for a change.
 
First read from CFA text - worked all blue boxed and EOCs. Then read Schweser material once (read chapters and work questions + qbanks - I use it as a revision. Q-banks are not so useful but I did them as they help you master concepts. In the last three weeks or so (if you have time) attempt Schweser practice exam questions and then do the CFA Mock. The last three days I reworked some of the blue boxes (mainly FR, FI and Der) whilst reading the end of chapter summaries. For me CFA text is key, schweser helps you to retain stuff as it is concise/
 
Schweser Notes
Schweser Videos
Finquiz Practice Questions
CFAI EOCs
CFAI Mocks
Last 3 weeks, only do CFAI Mocks and CFAI EOCs.. Very important: redo the questions that you got wrong on the CFAI mocks AND the ones you got right but guessed and/or felt shaky on. Keep redoing those until you can do them in your sleep!
 
I’m sorry to hear it hasn’t worked out for you a couple of time. I may be going against the herd here buy I strognly suggest you give the Elan videos a chance.
 
Read Schweser notes, then skimmed the corresponding chapters in the CFAI curriculum for anything Schweser left out. Did all CFAI EOCs and blue boxes. Last 6-7 weeks redid all EOCs and took all Schweser and CFA Mocks several times.
 
I used Schweser only for both L1 and L2… worked for me, but I guess it wasn’t the most thorough preparation. I am a finance major though.
 
I read Schweser and the Elan videos… The videos were key.. I also did the blue boxes 2 times and EOC 3 times
 
Thanks guys…keep it up!
And i guess I’m specifically looking for those that used something besides Schweser. Again, it might be “user error” and not the material, but I used it a couple of times with negative results…so, time for a mutual parting of ways.
 
Schweser + CFA Curriculum EOC + Blue Boxes. Irfanullah Videos were very helpful too make sure you do the videos at the end. The key is to PRACTICE ALOT
 
2nd January to 5 March - for every topic I went through schweser books in detail, had a very quick pass through the CFAI books (pretty much skimmed the detail but focused on blue box questions), then anwered schweser questions, then answered cfai questions
5 March - 4 May - Went through things I was pretty comfortable with quickly for a second time but a bit more slowly on topics i struggled with (derivs and FRA)
5 May - Exam day - did a week of Schweser Q bank trying to do as wide a variety of problems as possible. Then tackled 4 schweser mocks. And then the week before did the CFAI mock. I will admit (although this was silly) I didnt actually do a single timed mock because they would exhaust me and I wouldnt be able to do any further study that particular day.
Probably did about 425 hours in total so it was a fair slog!
 
schweser books but with CFAI books open at the same page when i was reading. Was a good way to see what schweser covered badly or skipped. did the bb and eocs as i went
Videos didn’t work for me at all.
 
1st pass; CFAI including all EOCs. Skipped blue boxes. Mid October - mid March. All EOCs worked in Excel, written notes taking up 2 notebooks.
2nd pass; 2012 Schweser videos my coworker gave me. Mid March - April
3rd pass; qbanks May
If I were doing again, I would start the qbanks sooner.
 
did 5 cfai mocks. each one of them open book mocks.
if i could answer a question confidently only then i’d answer it, else i’d go back to the cfai text to read and understand material until i understood it in and out. It meant that sometimes i spent many many minutes or even hours to get 1 question right. But that meant my concepts got clear. material is insanely huge, but cfai ends up asking the same concepts again and again, just different words.
5 x 60 = 300 cfai questions mocks. i can confidently say that on the actual exam 80 questions (66%) out of 120 seemed familiar to me just cuz i did those 300 questions. I’d strongly suggest do mocks. also FYI: i didn’t study derivates, PM, AI, or Economics other than the questions that were on the mocks.
 
i studied using Schweser books (read only the ethics part from CFAI), did all 6 schweser practice exams (started doing them about ~2 weeks before exam), CFA mock
i havent been making any notes whatsoever when reading the books, what i aimed to was to read each book twice, first time i read it pretty thoroughly, doing all the concept checkers etc., the second time i was actually speed-reading through them to just remind myself what i need to remember for the exam
i haven’t even touched the CFAI EOCs or blue boxes at all
i use the same tactic for level 1 and passed both the exam in first attempts
 
CFAI for ethics… Scheweser for everything else… 15% of qbanks… 4 mock exams. 400 hours.
 
1) Read CFA from start to finish
2) Read Schweser from start to finish
3) Did Schweser and CFA end of chapter questions
4) Read Schweser from start to finish
5) Read Schweser from start to finish
6) Videos Schweser from start to finish
7) CFA end of chapter questions and schweser
8) Mock tests and review weak sections
9) Spent majority of time on Equity, FRA, Corp, AI, Derivatives, PM (little did that help) and FI
10) review ethics last week
11) paid lip service to econ and quant. Hated quant, liked econ so did better on that. When you have people who have masters degrees in econ scratching their head, what chance does a guy like me have?
 
used Schweser notes and practice exams for L1 - passed
used Schweser notes and practice exams for L2 - failed
used CFAI notes, mocks, EOC questions and Schweser practice exam only for L2 again - passed
would be doing the same again for L3.
prefer to read the CFAI notes as its more complete, albeit a lot more boring and wordy.
 
I read the CFA-curriculum first, then used Elan for both L1 and L2. I passed both on the first attempt.
As indicated in other topics, Elan delivery times are shaky. However, because they forgot to deliver my books, I got free access to the videos (which I did not purchase in my package) and those helped me comprehend more difficult topics as well.
I had a copy of Schweser as well, but I find Elan to be more clear and better covering the material.
What I did do, was after every reading solve the Schweser end of chapter questions, Elan PQs and QBank questions (but that’s mainly because I retain better solving questions to immediately highlight where my reading fell short).
Overall I would recommend Elan over Schweser anyday, providing they get their delivery process up to par.
Good luck!
 
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