Hello friends,
I’d already did almost everything you can do to prepare (EOC’s, Schweser CC’s and almost finishing QBank, CFAI Topic Tests) however I have two doubts:
Should I start to do Mock Tests?
Really, how to study ethics effectively? I scored 73% in Topic Tests (CFAI website) and a lot of questions were HIGHLY subjective in my view.
I’ve computed all my mistakes in an excel spreadsheet from all books exercises, how to review them?
Hi Andy,
You seem to be in a great shape! In response to your questions:
After each practice exam, carefully go through your mistakes and if required, re-read that portion from the CFA curriculum. Make sure the practice exams are of appropriate difficulty level. Some people fall into the trap of attempting exams that are too difficult since they contain obscure questions which are unlikely to be tested on the real exam. I do not find such “difficult” exams very helpful. Also, I would highly recommend doing the mock exams sold by CFA Institute.
Ethics is always tricky. The best resource for this topic really is the curriculum. Read the material carefully, go through the examples, and do the EOC. After that, practice exams should help you master this topic. If you want even more practice, you can try doing practice questions on Ethics from various question banks.
That’s really smart. There are many ways to review these questions. For example, you could first do a couple of practice exams, then take a break and redo all of these questions on which you made mistakes, and then go back to doing more practice exams. Another option could be that you do these questions during the week and focus on practice exams over the weekend.
You may also find helpful our short YouTube video that talks about the final month preparation strategy. Many candidates have given us good feedback: https://youtu.be/C3QY2edKgdA .
Good luck on the exam!
BullishBear Finance
Hello.
I’ve also completed reviewing the curriculum now with just under 8 weeks to go.
My plan for the next 8 weeks:
Complete all 60 CFAI EOC question sets - this week
Attempt 6 Kaplan mock exams and review each answer. Initially open book and then gradually move into timed exam conditions - a rate of 1 per week
Attempt practice questions and mock exam on CFAI website - final week
Whilst doing this, also reading through CFAI Ethics text at a fairly slow rate. Additionaly doing Kaplan QBank questions to further check concept understanding.
What do you think about this? Is anyone doing much different
With respect to:
#2: recommend taking the practice exams in exam-like settings (i.e. no open book).
#3: recommend taking the exams a bit earlier, maybe the second week of May.
I am assuming you have already read ethics and will be tackling questions on this section in the practice exams. If you stick to your plan, I think that you should be golden.
BullishBear Finance
Hi yes,
I have read the Schweser Ethics notes and been practicing many Qbank questions on them. This will be my first reading of the CFAI notes. I should hopefully complete this reading in 2-3 weeks.
#2 - I still have yet to commit many formulas to memory. I think having a cheat sheet initially will help me, rather than just skipping the question because i did not know one aspect of a formula?
For ethics, I would strongly recommend going through the CFA Institute material sooner rather than later, working out the problems within those readings as well as the EOC problems.
Good luck!
BullishBear Finance
Just do problems. Plan on missing more of them than you get correct. I read the answer immediately after completing a question - while it’s till on my mind. Even I get a question corrrect, I read the answer to confirm that I got it right for the right reasons. Plus, soometimes providers give hints in their answers on how to approach similar questions. It helps (me) to approach doing problems as an opportunity to review and learn the material rather than as a test or measurement of what I haven’t learned yet. LOL.
My own opinion is that we don’t get points for reading. Understanding the material helps us up to a point, but the exam is timed 120 questions / 3 hours = 1.5 minutes per question. You need to get really confident in your ability to efficiently work though the exam. Minimal wheel-spinning. I did thousand of questions - all of the Schweser QBank quetions at least twice. I don’t know if it was an best use of my time, but I walked out of the exam room thinking that I had a good change at passing and I did.
Just do problems. Plan on missing more of them than you get correct. I read the answer immediately after completing a question - while it’s till on my mind. Even I get a question corrrect, I read the answer to confirm that I got it right for the right reasons. Plus, soometimes providers give hints in their answers on how to approach similar questions. It helps (me) to approach doing problems as an opportunity to review and learn the material rather than as a test or measurement of what I haven’t learned yet. LOL.
My own opinion is that we don’t get points for reading. Understanding the material helps us up to a point, but the exam is timed 120 questions / 3 hours = 1.5 minutes per question. You need to get really confident in your ability to efficiently work though the exam. Minimal wheel-spinning. I did thousand of questions - all of the Schweser QBank quetions at least twice. I don’t know if it was an best use of my time, but I walked out of the exam room thinking that I had a good change at passing and I did.
Hi Folks, I’m doing Schweser Mocks, do they get difficult over time? I’d did only the first mock, Morning and Afternoon and got 90% right with ethics being my weak spot. I’d found the afternoon session more difficult than morning session.
What is the difference between EOCs and CFAI topic tests?