schweser errors beyond frustrating

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pvl1025

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Not to be a conspiracy theorist or anything but the level of errors in schweser / practice exams is absurd and almost leads me to believe they are purposefully misleading candidates. I thought the purpose of this exam was for knowledge, but schweser has realized the monetary benefit of failure. I know i sound extremely bitter and results are not even out yet, just really eats me up when I look a stupid memorization gips question that schewser has butchered in its prints for years. Why not fix the next years edition?? scumbags. I suppose if you are gonna go be a cfa big boy you gotta go with the CFA text books, but jesus christ i thought i was wasting enough of my life with schweser.
 
Schweser sucks for Level 3. I learned the hard way last year. Didn’t make the same mistake this year and hopefully cleared (fingers crossed) using only CFAI material.
 
Schweser is designed to help you pass the exam. The CFAI text is the body of knowledge that the Institute wants you to know. So while Schweser can’t cover every little detail, it covers the topics with pretty good depth and enough to get you a passing score. I understand the incentive might be to keep you failing, but I think they are smarter than that… they’d rather have you pass using their material and recommend to everyone else to use their material.
 
While Schweser isn’t perfect, I think this may be a form of self-attribution bias, namely self-protection bias: placing the blame on others for your failures (yes, something I learned reading Schweser!). Now, putting the sass aside :
I have gone through all 3 levels exclusively working with Schweser and have destroyed the first 2 levels (obviously don’t know L3 results yet but am somewhat confident). I have only opened CFAI books to do the EOC questions, I don’t think I’ve read more than 3-4 pages from the CFAI curriculum.
I was scoring mid-high 80’s on the L3 CFAI mocks and past exams. I didn’t learn those concepts through osmosis, I learned them through Schweser - so obviously it’s not as bad as you claim.
 
I thought Schweser prepared me well. Passed level 1 and level 2 on the first try primarily using Schweser. Lets see if that happens for level 3.
I was scoring high 70’s on CFAI mocks… primarily studied through Schweser.
 
I agree it’s good for levels 1 and 2 (worked well for me as well). It works for many on L3 too. However, I see so many say the AM was tough. I thought it was easy because it was covered so well in the CFAI material. Also, while not being question specific, I know one formula and one question on the PM session that Schweser does not cover in the 2013 L3 notes. After the exam I looked at my friends notes and sure enough, not even covered.
Just my $.02. Not trying to start a Schweser vs. CFAI material war.
 
I think everyone should read the CFAI books. You’re paying for them and they’re full of good readings. A nice reading from Robert Merton was in L3. Also the CFAI overemphasizes and repeats material you should know for the exams.
 
bizval4 wrote:
Also, while not being question specific, I know one formula and one question on the PM session that Schweser does not cover in the 2013 L3 notes. After the exam I looked at my friends notes and sure enough, not even covered.
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Every question was covered, and that one as well:-)
 
I rememebr for level II I read CFAI first and then Schweser second. There was a couple things in CFAI that weren’t in Schweser but it took so long to get through CFAI I couldn’t hardly rememebr even what they were. To read CFAI again would be impossible. For my time I think it’s better to read schweser twice and still have time to practice in the amount of time it takes to do CFAI once. Suck it up that there might be a couple things you miss but you know every thing else soo much better.
 
bizval4 wrote:
I agree it’s good for levels 1 and 2 (worked well for me as well). It works for many on L3 too. However, I see so many say the AM was tough. I thought it was easy because it was covered so well in the CFAI material. Also, while not being question specific, I know one formula and one question on the PM session that Schweser does not cover in the 2013 L3 notes. After the exam I looked at my friends notes and sure enough, not even covered.
Just my $.02. Not trying to start a Schweser vs. CFAI material war.
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Really? Something’s not covered by Schweser? Sorry, I don’t believe you… I thought Schweser was pretty effective for all 3 levels. Waiting for my L3 results though, but felt good after the exam (and partied till 3am on Sunday :D).
 
pvl1025 wrote:
Not to be a conspiracy theorist or anything but the level of errors in schweser / practice exams is absurd and almost leads me to believe they are purposefully misleading candidates. I thought the purpose of this exam was for knowledge, but schweser has realized the monetary benefit of failure. I know i sound extremely bitter and results are not even out yet, just really eats me up when I look a stupid memorization gips question that schewser has butchered in its prints for years. Why not fix the next years edition?? scumbags. I suppose if you are gonna go be a cfa big boy you gotta go with the CFA text books, but jesus christ i thought i was wasting enough of my life with schweser.
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Could you post your erratum (if it’s not already available on Schweser’s web portal)? I don’t recall seeing any obvious detrimental errors (and I read SchweserNotes cover to cover)..
Yes, I totally agree that Schweser is a profit-making machine (or a blood sucker wrapped around CFAI’s head). But they do it by at least trying to produce helpful prep materials. If you find an error, you should let them and fellow users know. :)
 
Good - don’t believe me - and I’m not saying you can’t pass with Schweser, and I hope you do. It’s quite obvious that people have, can and will continue to do so. If you know Schweser in and out, then it does a good job covering most of the material enough to get people across the finish line. However, it doesn’t include everything. If you don’t believe me, open your CFAI book and look at every formula (including charts, graphs, footnotes and EOC’s - all testable) and see if Schweser includes all that. Of course they don’t.
One formula was not included in Schweser that you needed to know - and another question you couldn’t answer unless you knew the material better than what Schweser presented it. Some people can figure out formulas and answers by being smart and/or good test takers. Since I can’t talk about specific questions, I’ll end it there.
 
I agree that there was a frustrating amount of mathematical and conceptual errors in the Schweser L3 material. In particular, there were times that in order to get their answer you would have had to make assumptions that were neither stated nor reasonably implied.
But what really ticked me off was the atrocious spelling and grammar; it read like a middle school term paper in many parts. Don’t they edit the text? I can’t recall how many times they used “complimentary” instead of “complementary” or had basic subject-verb disagreement. There was also at least one instance of mistaking “affect for “effect,” blah blah blah.
The coverage of material was, as always, very good, but they need to do some quality control before marketing themselves as a professional-level resource.
 
Level 3 CFAI text books are much nicer and easier to read. I enjoyed reading CFAI level 3 texts except a minor part ( BRICS ). These are the only academic books I kept in my home library . If you know programming Level 2 end of the chapter questions help you build algorithms for financial problems.
 
kartelite wrote:
But what really ticked me off was the atrocious spelling and grammar; it read like a middle school term paper in many parts. Don’t they edit the text? I can’t recall how many times they used “complimentary” instead of “complementary” or had basic subject-verb disagreement. There was also at least one instance of mistaking “affect for “effect,” blah blah blah.
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Haha, agreed 100%…
Also, “principle” vs. “principal”
 
Schweser uses judgement to remove what they deem is not required to meet the LOS. They look closely at the wording and command words in the LOS to determine what they feel is required to meet the LOS. If it’s a “discuss” LOS, then they may judge that the formulas or calculations shown in the curriculum are not required to meet the LOS.
That does make sense to me - however, there is some judgement involved and they will not always get it right. CFAI is not for some ambiguity and Schweser does the best they can from an outsider’s perspective. They do a great job IMO and the professors that narrate the seminars and video libraries are highly regarded and knowledgeable.
 
I have mixed feelings toward the CFAI texts, and I don’t mean the mock exams you find online but the actual cirriculum and end of chapter questions.
I find the questions in the text are more ambiguous and difficult than Schweser, and those extra tricky end of chapter questions are very different from what you would expect on the actual exam. They may provoke more understanding of the material but toward the end i was very discouraged and thought i was more confused trying to get every answer (and the answer key isn’t very well written as well).
Meanwhile, Schweser texts may not be the end all be all, but the end of chapters questions are more reasonable and the mock exams do a better job at prepping me for the exam than the CFAI mock exam and end of chapters questions combined.
 
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