What worked for me

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jabroni

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Hi all,
I know there have been several similar posts lately, but I truly feel AF helped me pass L1 in June 2007, so I thought I'd share my study approach in case anyone finds it helpful. As another poster said in a similar post, take it for what you will:

A) First and foremost, get the support of your family and employer. What you're about to embark on is intense, and will require a lot more time than you may realize. Make sure the people important to you are cool with this.

B) Once you decide to proceed, I found it really helpful to set up a calendar working backwards. I started with:
1) June 2nd--exam day. Then I said to myself, I want to be through the notes etc by May 1st, so I can have the entire month of May to review and do practice exams etc. I then set up a study schedule working backwards that I thought I could realistically stick to so that I'd be able to finish everything for May 1st. (Give yourself 1 month for FSA).

C) Know yourself and your study habits. I started early. If you know your weekends in January will be spent watching NFL playoffs, take that into consideration when setting your study schedule. I started studying very casually in November, because I knew there would be weekends where I would flat out not want to study in Jan, Feb, March.

D) Use resources available to you. This forum is really great. I also used Schweser notes and the 16-week online seminar, which I found, kept me on track.

E) Do lots of practice tests under exam like conditions. At 4PM on exam day I honestly felt like I was a borderline pass/fail, but was able to focus for the final hour and answer several consecutive questions quickly and confidently. Without practice tests, I would have been burnt out and failed.

F) Don�t omit any study sessions. If you�re reading this today, you are ahead of the game. Without a doubt, someone will post something in November along the lines of �Who�s skipping quant?� Don�t be this person.

Nothing technical here, just some basic suggestions that worked for me. Good luck to all of you writing in December!
 
Thanks for the post jabroni.

I need some advice. I am done with SS-11, 13, 14. (currently on 12). I started with schweser book 4 and not book 1. Anyway, now that i am on my fourth study session, i feel i dont remember 13 all that well (13 was where i started from). Although i understood the material and did pretty okay on the Q-bank and schweser questions.

Did you go back to and re-read stuff often to keep it fresh?? Or u just went thru everything and came back to revision later on??

The problem i think i will face is when i am done with all 18 SS's, i would want to revise them over again and probably wont have time. My plan is to finish by the first week of Nov and then start exams but how do i overcome this retention problem??
 
I'll offer some unsolicited advice - the only way to successfully retain what you have studied is to do a lot of practice questions. If you have a q bank/test bank or the like, plug away at 15-25 questions every day or atleast evey other day, randomly from the topics you have already covered in the prior weeks or months.

For example, now that you have completed book 4, keep doing random questions from this section while studying book 3. Further,when you move to Book 2, go higher up the pyramid -do 30-40 questions every other day from the last 2 books combined.

By the time you have completed your studies, you''ll be able to take your first practice Test right away since you are already prepared for the topics you studied in depth many weeks before.

Ofcourse, it helps if your qbank is large. The allenresources testbank I use has around 7500 questions -which is large enough to throw new questions week after week.
Questions ,if repeated too frequently will lose their surprise/randomness element


Disclaimer: I am a december candidate and can
t claim this is a strategy that will work for everyone ..but it seems fairly foolproof to me
 
Read the material and make the questions at the end of every reading. You can even do them on the Schweser website.

Good score; move on and don't look back. Save that for the last month, it has been in your head and the last month you'll see what you still remember and add the stuff you forgot. It'll make the last month great fun too because you'll see your scores improve in the mock exams.
 
"The allenresources testbank I use has around 7500 questions -which is large enough to throw new questions week after week."

Hi Dsylexic,

Which one did u use ?
 
Dsylexic,

I like your idea. I take around 1 or 2 weeks to finish a SS, so although it will be a @#$%& to pull out time for review questions from the previous sessions (as time passes they will be alot of them), its a nice idea to keep stuff fresh.

Thanks
 
Dyslexic got the right idea, that what I did for LI and LII. I would also add that I chose the Beginner option on the Schweser bank and graduated to the Advance option as the exam date neared.
 
kees Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "The allenresources testbank I use has around 7500
> questions -which is large enough to throw new
> questions week after week."
>
> Hi Dsylexic,
>
> Which one did u use ?


www.allenresources.com i bought their Testbank.It is excellent ,IMO.
 
secret sauce - your best ally. I would not have passed if it was not for the secret sauce. Keep studying and don't get frustrated if you miss a question or two in your review and study based on the area that has the greatest weights first.

To sum it all up:
1. read
2. do lots and lots of questions
3. Take the CFA online exams, they are a fair representation of the actual exam
4. Get the secret sauce
5. check AF frequently, it was a great assetl for me to pass level 1
 
For what it is worth, here is what I did to pass LI in June 2007. I graduated in 2003 with a business degree and this is the first time I sat to take the test.

Started studying at the beginning of January.
Began my studies in January and started off with a full exam from Book 6 to gauge where I was at without touching the material. (43%..that was a sad test)

I planned for spending exactly one week per study session (Monday to Sunday). Each day throughout the week I read through the Schweser notes and typed up my own notes for each study session (about 10 pages of my own notes per section). I would normally spend about 2.5 hours taking notes and then I would spend another 45 min to 1 hour taking 30 Schweser Qbank questions on the current study session I was on. I would do that Monday to Friday. Saturday and Sunday I would finish up the current study session I was on and generally take a 45 or 60 question quiz on all previous study sessions I had gone over. Once Monday hit, I was onto the new study session, even if I did not completely understand the previous section. I did make sure to complete the readings and finish my notes before starting the next session, but I did not make sure I had everything down 100% at that time.

On the first Saturday of every month I took another full exam, the following Sunday I would review the exam and see what I did wrong. I liked being able to see that I was doing better in the sections I had studied. It also helped me notice if I was forgetting one of the sections I had already studied. (I probably gained about 5-10% on each exam I took). I ended up taking all of the tests in Book 6, 2 exams in Book 7, the 2005 Boston and 2007 Boston exam before June 2. I also took 3000+ questions in the Qbank by the end of it all.

During the final weeks of May after I had completed all of the study sessions, I looked at the sections that I was doing poorly on (FSA and Asset Valuation). I then spent one full week on FSA and one full week on Asset Valuation, reviewing, taking tests, and making sure I had those sections down. At this point I was only using my own notes, secret sauce, AF, Qbank and the CFAI books for the topics I did not fully understand.

In the final week before the exam, I looked at the specific topics I was still having trouble in (Leases, DTL) and spent a full day going over only Leases and then a full day going over only DTL. At this point, I was only looking at the Secret Sauce, Schweser's quick summary sheet, AF and the CFAI books for clarification. I also took 2 of the CFAI exams and scored around 65% on each exam (silly mistakes I must add). Two days before the exam, I read through the Ethics handbook once more (even though I had been scoring >75% in ethics since the beginning).

I felt pretty confident after the morning section and was cautiously optimistic after the afternoon section. I ended up scoring >70% in every section except for econ and derivatives.

Overall about 350+ hours spent for me to pass.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Monday, July 30, 2007 at 03:11PM by ymichael12.
 
Dany,

I am in the same boat. I have finished SS 12,13. currently on SS14. Will finish it in a couple of days.
By the end of SS13 I did not remember anything that I studied for SS12. I am making flash cards along with reading, so I went thru them. but I like Dsylexis' s idea much better.
I am using Schweser Q bank.
 
Dany,
I wouldn't worry about it too much at this point. I think the important part is that you're understanding the studying sessions before you move on. When I made it to derivatives, all the hypothesis testing in quant seemed like years ago. I think you'll be surprised how quickly it comes back when you start reviewing. That's exactly why I think it's important to get through the material with a month to spare.
I did take the occaisional sunday afternoon or weeknight evening to briefly review everything I had studied thus far. I felt this was an effective thing to do on the times I didn't really feel like studying. (Which seems stupid, because that would still be considered studying, but perhaps with a little less concentration).
And I would echo previous comments about secret sauce being a great way to quickly review the key points of stuff you already studied.
Good luck.
 
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