Hello,
I came up with a plan to finish my reading by end March, then do practice questions until exam day. I am currently working about 40-50 hours a week as well.
Just wondering if this is a good broad study outline, and specifically if that is enough time with practice questions.
I’d say so - I try to finish my readings by may and cram topic tests and exams the last month. Giving yourself two months is plenty to work out kinks and review material you’re less comfortable w/.
For what it’s worth, our study group is looking at a schedule that will get us through the reading by the beginning of February, with about six or seven weeks to review the toughest areas, reread anything we didn’t catch the first tiem and go through any third party material that is helpful. That will leavs us about eight weeks to go through practice tests.
The rub of course is that this commits us to about 10-20 pages of reading a night all the way through 2016, which is doable, but definitely a bit of a slog (especially if we get behind). I work about the same schedule as you and also have two young sons, so focus and drive are going to be important.
We’ll let you know how we are progressing if you are interested. I’d be interested in how your course of study goes.
I admire your paced marathon approach. I’m more of a sprinter. To each their own, good luck!
Its gud to start early and have sufficient time to solve questions.
I think 6 weeks prior to exam day is ideal. The people that start studying too early are goin to get sick of it. Start after christmas, be done by mid april, crush questions for 6 weeks and you’ll be more than fine
My goal is to finish all the readings (Except ETHICS) by 31st January 2017. I plan to study ETHICS in February when I will also start revising all the other readings. I am planning to take Topic Tests on CFA Institute website along with my studies now for each subject as I go. I am tracking my daily progress and doing practice with Vignette Style Questions along with my studies.
Having said that, if your plan is to finish all the readings by 28th FEB 2017, and then start your revision, practice tests, topic tests, mock exams etc. That will be awesome. Sounds like a plan.
Marathon approach or sprint approach, it’s the question of choice to put CFA curriculum in Short Term Memory (to become Information) or Long Term Memory (to become knowledge). And for me, we can pass CFA exams level 1 or 2 (I don’t know if possible for Level 3) by using Information only.
In short term, the sprinter runs faster. In long term, the marathoner run farther. It’s also true for career.
My plan is:
Finish the first reading (Kaplan notes and CFAI EOCs) by October 25th.
Finish all Topic Tests by November 26
Finish Kaplan Question bank by 27 December
Listen to video lectures up till 10 January
Kaplan Mocks 60 questions (3 editions) daily up till 15 February
Re-do the Curriculum EOCs up till 17 March
Attempt all CFAI bluebox examples and re-read key areas in Kaplan notes up till 6 April
Review my formular worksheet up till 11 April
Attempt all Topic Tests for the second time up till 26 April
Re-do the EOCs for the 3rd time up till 11 May
Attempt the CFAI Mocks up till 15 May
Take exam conditioned mocks up till 23 May
Study Kaplan’s secret sauce up till 28 May
Do a final re-assessment and topic by topic review up till 1 June.
As of today, I have 276 days to go, a full time job and I don’t want to ‘rush-read’ in periods leading to the exam.
Wow, Bukolafinancier, how many hours are in your study plan? That seems like way more than 300.
It’s funny to me how these two are #2 and #3 on your 14-point plan. I haven’t completed either of them for any level, CFA or FRM. Kudos to you if you can manage that!
Good luck with that…
What are these topic tests? Are they the end of chapter questions?
CFAI provides online tests for each topic through the Study Planner in your Candidate Resources. They’re very useful and definitely worth doing IMO
Are flash cards useful? Or should I create a sheet as a read (with formulas) and go over those each day?
Flash cards are very useful if you write them out yourself. I would hesitate to buy them or use ones that others have already created. I never did a formula sheet, but embedded formulas within my own flashcards and I thought that was more helpful than trying to analyze an entire page of equations.
/2 cents
Bought the flashcards for level 1 and never used them passed first time.
Made my own flashcards for level 2 and passed first time found it a great way of learning.
Made flashcards for level 3 but didn’t really use them, failed first time.
Everyone is different, I thought that it was the process of making the flashcards that helped me learn, but that didn’t seem to work for me for level 3 and this time I will be making them and using them to go over the topics. But I definitely wouldn’t recommend buying them, I do 100% think part of the using them to learn is making them.