Does anyone else see this as a stupid question? People have different learning styles and speeds. I never log my hours studied.
So I pose this question to you - who here NEVER logs the number of hours they studied?
Some people here get way to hung up on this “I studied x amount of hours, will I pass?” nonsense.
Never logged them officially. Just guesstimates. And I agree; it’s mostly a pointless endeavor. Much more important is the quality of those hours.
I never logged my hours. It was pointless for me personally because I could be looking at a book for 5 hours straight and still don’t get anything. If I logged those 5 hours, it would have given me a false sense of security.
However, I don’t think it’s pointless for everybody. If you are well disciplined and the quality of hours don’t suffer, then it is not a bad idea.
Never logged my study hours because of the tendency that people justify that they have studied enough based on the hours studied. If you think you studied enough based on hours, it makes you complacent, and increases the risk of failing , so it is better to just study as hard as you can and think it is never enough (my philiosphy).
Never logged my study hours either as it is never the same environment in which we study. sometimes our minds are sharp, sometimes dull (after heavy office hours), so it doesnt matter at all. My strategy has been simple. first pass of all the material (giving ~ a month per book from scheweser) by mid April and then all EOC questions and mocks and revise 2nd time making notes of formulae to revise in the last 2 days.
Worked well in Level I, fingers crossed for Level II.
Good luck to all !!!
never logged hours either, never understood why people do it, either you finish the material and get enough mocks in or you don’t, simple…
I never logged my total hours studied, but I understand why people do it. The CFA exams are extremely difficult and people need something relative to base their progress off of. Does it mean that passing 300 hours in study time will help you pass…NO…but I would be willing to bet that someone who studied more than 300 hours has better odds to pass than someone who only studied 100 hours…relatively speaking of course.
I never logged my time.
I went through the Kaplan notes once (but skipping the EOC) and the official EOC once.
Then, I did four official mocks. Having a background in accounting, I was able to go through the FSA and CF part fairly quickly. I was averaging about 70% for the mocks.
I don’t know how many hourse I put in, but I was always scrambling for time. I did this during three and a half months when I was working full time and doing my part-time MBA.
I feel that you will pass as long as you put in a reasonable effort.
For your above 2 statements to hold true, we need to make some assumptions such as the the intelligence, work experience, quality of the hours studied etc. are same for every candidate.
We can’t just say that a candidate who has put in more hours than the other has higher chances of passing. The other candidate might be more intelligent or has work experience in a topic area which allows him to put in fewer hours and still have higher odds of passing than the candidate who puts in more hours.
I would say that in general my above statement does hold true and here is my rationale:
The majority of CFA level II candidates, if not all of them, are already pretty intelligent people to begin with. They obviously know how to study, are dedicated to the task at hand, and have a decent understanding of the commitment involved at this stage of the game as well as a basic familiarity of the curriculum.
You take 2 candidates with the same intelligence, work experience, quality of study and put them side by side. One candidate started studying in August and the other started in late January. If i am a betting man, and I am, I would be willing to give odds that the one who started prep in August would have a better chance at passing…just due to the fact that he had more time to prepare.
Of course there is always going to be the exception every now and then but I digress…
Logged my hours, only counting quality hours spent. Purely out of neurosis, not complacency. EOD, it’s all about how well you know the material. A candidate could put in a thousand hours, but without the ability to retain and synthesize the curriculum they’re up $h!t creek without a paddle.
I understand your point.
Due to the focus brought about by the pressure in the last days, those last hours are worth triple what an hour in the early stages is worth. Or comparing an hour spent on a mock vs. an hour reading. It just isn’t the same.
As they say, “All hours are equal, but some hours are more equal than others”.
But still, I like to log, it keeps me on track and I can see if I am falling behind or if I’ve had a slack week for example.
I like to log too. But since I am not very consistent, it just gives me a rough idea. It helps me to better manage my time and find the weak spots in my strategy. 2 key learnings from this years’ exam (I believe I will have to retage this one next year): learn how to read faster, at the same retention level; take out at the minimum 2 full weeks prior to the exam (only had 1 week off this year).
I just like to be a bit more structured and organized in this respect which is purely personal preference.
The only log I kept on the hours studied read this:
“Too damn much…and hopefully just enough.”
You are saying what I said.
To me personally, logging the hours helped because it’s a great pyschological tool to convince myself that I can finish the curriculum in time. There had been a lof of “WTF, I dont remember this at all?!” moments through out the study; however, I would trust the hours and convince myself that I do not need to panick as I have put in the efforts. Some ppl said passing level II requires 250~500 hours, so when I pass that 300 hours mark, I knew I had a pretty good shot at passing. I didnt clock myself everyday tho, I only did estimates on Sunday for the previous week.
Yeah i threw that in there especially for you.
I logged my hours for the sake of knowing I was putting in enough time to theoretically pass. Mentally I felt more confident on exam day knowing I had put in 350 hours.
I’m quite certain that I studied at least 10 hours for Level I, at least 20 hours for Level II, and at least 30 hours for Level III.
I didn’t log my hours, so there’s a chance that I’m mistaken. But I doubt it.
So this implies that we have to put in 1.5x the effort as l2 for l3. Damn.
And people said l3 is going to be easier than l2.