Here is what worked for me. Since April myself and 7 other guys got into a mock online study group. Every 2-3 days a week we sat down and approached an AM mock paper for 3 hours and swap answers; we created a central online drive where each participant will drop their answers into the drive, we marked each other’s answers. ALL 8 of us passed Level III exams (100% pass rate!).
Im no smart person- in fact I failed Level II 3 times; but i found the Level III exam fairly approachable and I attribute all this to the several hours of practicing mocks. All in all, we sat down for more than 40 AM papers (including almost all recent CFAI past exams; Schweser, FInquiz, Konvexity, etc).
On the other hand, I have a close friend who was also doing level 3 exams this year and his approach was different. He had gone through the CFAI curriculum three times and knew the material inside out, had loads of notes, flash cards etc; and only managed to do one mock paper right at the end. Unfortunately he failed level III exams again.
My take from apporaching past mocks is that the CFAI curriculum has hardly changed since mid 2000s except for behavioural finance topic and there is not much leeway for the examiner to vary the questions. Practising past papers and mocks is the nearest experience to the real thing. My advice is to do mocks from March/April time (even if you haven’t finished the curriculum).
Anyway If anyone is looking for some study material – I have a collection of 2015 material from a few providers that I used in 2015 including CFA past AM exams and several mocks, please pm me.
Glad im done with this sh…..t!
Im no smart person- in fact I failed Level II 3 times; but i found the Level III exam fairly approachable and I attribute all this to the several hours of practicing mocks. All in all, we sat down for more than 40 AM papers (including almost all recent CFAI past exams; Schweser, FInquiz, Konvexity, etc).
On the other hand, I have a close friend who was also doing level 3 exams this year and his approach was different. He had gone through the CFAI curriculum three times and knew the material inside out, had loads of notes, flash cards etc; and only managed to do one mock paper right at the end. Unfortunately he failed level III exams again.
My take from apporaching past mocks is that the CFAI curriculum has hardly changed since mid 2000s except for behavioural finance topic and there is not much leeway for the examiner to vary the questions. Practising past papers and mocks is the nearest experience to the real thing. My advice is to do mocks from March/April time (even if you haven’t finished the curriculum).
Anyway If anyone is looking for some study material – I have a collection of 2015 material from a few providers that I used in 2015 including CFA past AM exams and several mocks, please pm me.
Glad im done with this sh…..t!