Two weeks to cram. Please help!!

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whatever_gets_y

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I have 80-100 hours between now and the December exam to cram. I know it’s a tough place to be, but I want to use my time as wisely as possible. I was planning on reading Schweser notes, watching the videos (which I find very helpful) and Pro till next Thursday, and then taking sample exams and reviewing topics. A lot of the material is not new to me, but the amount is overwhelming, just getting a handle on the details and remembering the logic of the formulas and the formulas themselves. I definitely couldn’t take an exam now and pass, I really need to do a thorough review first. I would appreciate any advice that will give me the best chance of passing! THANKS!
 
100 hours is a little unrealistic imo. I would say you could probably do about 60-70 tops without crashing. I think your best bet would be to take the mock tomorrow and see where your weaknesses are and focus on the ones that are weighted the most. I would probably start the review with FRA - Ethics - Fixed Income - Quant - Equity - Econ - Corp Fin - Derivatives - PM - Alt Investments
 
You’re out of your mind if you think 100 hours will do unless you’ve got a PhD in Finance or have close to a photographic memory. You could probably get through the notes in 40hrs, then the video’s are another 40…you’re at 80 before you even look at a question…3.5 practice exams isn’t bad but still…If you have your heart set and are already signed up, I’d read the Secret Sauce twice, make flash cards for all the equations and differences between GAAP and IFRS then start going through them, read the CFAI Ethics portion then start hitting questions or exams. The video’s will waste more time than you have because the professors will go off topic some times which is fine for being a few months out but not when you’re starting to train for a marathon 2 weeks before. Good luck.
 
The thing about the videos is that they explain the underlying concepts very well. I heard the exam is more about understanding, and less about formulas, that you can memorize all you want, but if you don’t get the “big picture,” it’s not going to be worth much. Is that correct? Are you suggesting that I should read Secret Sauce THEN go through all the notes, and only THEN crank through SchweserPro questions and CFAI EOC questions? I’d get a few pass-throughs on the material that way at least. Let’s conservatively estimate 60-80 hours total.
 
The exam has conceptual questions that require a deep understanding of the material, some formula related ones, and some that require memorization of minute little concepts as well. You must have everything covered. If I had just 100 hours Id focus on notes and SS.
 
i don’t think this question is a serious question at all. Either it is a mockery of everybody else who is studying, or just a waste of time for everybody else.
 
80-100 hours over two weeks is not unrealistic if you don’t have anything else to do - i.e. you are unemployed or you are taking time off. Even if you have a 40 hour/week job, you might still be able to put in 40 hours/week of studying; some people have regular 80 hour work weeks.
Anyway, it’s probably not a good use of time to read the entire notes again. You will waste time reading material that you already know well. Hopefully, you’ve made your own condensed version that you can review quickly. You should do as many practice questions as you can. If you get a question wrong, figure out if it’s because you didn’t know the material or if you just made a mistake. If you didn’t know the material, re-read that section in the notes. Repeat until you have no weak sections.
Anyway, that’s about it. Lots of people spend 100 hours total on the Level 1 exam, so you have lots of time.
 
I’m very serious. I am willing to work my bum off for the next two weeks, I can devote 90% of my time to preparation. I wish I’d had more time but sometimes life happens, I’m not going to bore people with details or excuses. I got a hold of someone’s old Schweser notes a few years ago and read through them, but the material is far from fresh/processed in my mind. I don’t feel ready to apply the concepts via exam questions/SchweserPro until I have reviewed them more. It sounds like the consensus is that a combo of SS and the Notes will do that for me. I can try to crank through them this week and devote next week to reviewing through questions. Does that make sense?
 
From a broader perspective, if you have the time off from work I’d just forget about the studying and head to Florence, Italy for a week. I’ve seen lots of people do this. Some pass and some don’t. The bigger problem is that your cramming gets you nothing except a stuffed short-term memory. Nearly everyone who does this gets smacked hard on Level 2 because they don’t know Level 1. Then it’s just impossible to study for Level 1 because you’ve already passed it, but you don’t know enough to pass Level 2. That means you join the legion of people who pass Level 1 and then drop out of the program. There’s just no value in that.
On the other hand, Florence is pretty empty this time of year. You can sit in the room with Michelangelo’s Pieta and feel the power of the great master’s tombstone. He carved it knowing that when he finished it he would die so he chose the hardest marble he could find. As he carved it, the sparks flew from his chisel as he begged Death to stop tugging at his robes…
 
If you want success (short term) you can put in your best to pass the exam but if you are looking for excellence then you should understand every bit of what the curriculum or topics aim to elaborate. I agree with JoeyDVivre that strong foundations in Level I help a lot in understanding the complexities and in-depth understanding of Level II and often without them the probability of passing becomes less. EOC summaries are effective for exams perspective do go through them. FinQuiz smart summaries for Level I can help you remarkably in remembering & retaining the exam testable material in a week maybe. I had used them & surprisingly in Economics I only went through them and was able to get above 70 in it.
 
Don’t forget to sleep with the book under your pillow.
It’s a form of learning osmosis
 
Don’t forget to sacrifice a chicken to the dark lord Argnu.
 
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