To all who took level II in June 2012, what worked better for you in the exam?
Read the vignette first, then the questions; and come back to vignette as needed
Read the questions first, then read the vignette
Something else?
I followed method 1. Found method 2 too jerky. To me, reading questions first made no sense because I had no context. Even counting the time spent reading the vignette, I never felt under time pressure. I had mentally allocated 18 minutes per 6-question set, with 5 to read vignette and 2 per question on average, with 3 extra minutes as buffer. On the whole that worked OK (for me.) I finished both parts without using any buffer, in 15*10 = 150 minutes or 2.5 hours, leaving the rest of the time for rechecking my answers.
Only because as you read through the story, you kind of get a sense of what the questions will be and what’s important anyways… so focus on reading and underlining what you think are important first.
e.g. many questions are for example which statement is wrong out of the three stated… so when i came across bullet points, I tried to figure out first which ones are off etc…
and then go to the questions to see if i can answer most of them, and any that require me to go back, i would and get answers that way.
the readings are not short, but not THAT long… especially compared to the quesions on mocks, i felt that the actual exam’s readings were half the length… so you won’t waste TOO much time reading.
I would read the first paragraph of the Vignette to get the context of the question. Next I would read the first question (luckily questions are asked in the order that the information is given on the vignette). Then I would read the vignette until I had enough info to answer question one. After that I would just repeat… moving on to reading question two and then back to the vignette, etc. Worked well for me.
You read the first question then look at the first 2 paragraphs of the vignette for the answer. I usually skip the first introductory paragraph because it just introduces the people involved. Once you find the answer, then you go to the second question and look back at the vignette were you left off until you find the answer. Repeat the process for questions 3 & 4.
The questions are in order of how they appear in the vignette. Sometimes questions 5&6 may require you to look back but by then you have already read the neccessary facts from the previous questions 1-4 you researched in the process above.
Depending on vignette I do A (qualitative topic) or B (quantitative topics):
A) Skim questions/answers for “keywords”, then read vignette to where I can answer a question
B) Skim questions to get an idea which numbers/data in vignette are key (What I’m calculating/adjusting), then read
I have never just plowed through the vignette and then starting looking at questions. Some people are able to do this just fine. However, it is the initial scan of Qs & As that “PRIMES” your attention to relevant details in the vignette.
i would read the 1st question (i dont read the answer at this point), and then read vignette until you get all info for first question. After completing 1st question, then go back read 2nd question, and continue reading on vignette … they usually put the info in order. Differnt people has differnt style, i guess you experiement with it, and see what works best for you.
+1. I always read the keywords in the first question and go back & give the vignette a good read. And I repeat till the questions are complete. Underlining important points helps.
For example, something like “residing in UK” (in case of economics currency translation questions) or “IFRS” or “GAAP” etc helps. Because these are key to answer the question, you need this for each of the 5 questions.
And you know friend, you would device your own method by end of two months of your preparation. As somebody rightly said, everybody is different and it works differently for us. But make a conscious effort and you would be fine!
I agree with 8EEZBaby. After a while you can look at the first question and go back to the vignette and find where it relates. It comes with practise tho but you’ll probs notice a similar thing when doing the EOCs.
I also agree with 8EEZBaby. I never read the whole vignette. It’s not worth the time and you’ll have to go back for the details of each question any way.
I started reading the entire vignette, but then once I realized I was 1/2 into the exam, but only like 1/3rd of the MC’s answered, I started spot reading and going to the questions first…
I just go straight to the questions and then look back to the vignette to answer each question… this is pretty easy since the information is always in the correct order. This almost seems obvious to me in order to not waste time, but I know this isn’t what Schweser teaches and everyone has their own way.