The Qbank % tells me that I’m doing fine in FSA- I have an aggregate of around 82% (all types of questions), but my confidence is fading day by day. I seem to have forgotten quite a bit and I just got done reading everything for the second time around 7-8 days back.What do I do? Should I read FSA every single day till the exam day? I feel sick to my stomach thinking about translation, temporal, equity, cost method etc. I’m fine with Pensions though. Oh, and I don’t like that reading on Stock Options Compensation too.
I feel your pain. i’m in the high 70’s in qbank fsa questions, but still don’t feel that great about it. i haven’t gone through all of the memorization though, so maybe that will make me feel better…
this is where note cards come in the picture, ruhi.
Rooster I’m in the same boat with FSA… and Derivatives… and stats. I’m going to spend the next 2-3 weeks memorizing and writing out the main ideas every day to try and get this stuff to stick. I’m thinking that at this point in the ballgame, after two thorough passes through the material, you’ll be better served memorizing and q-banking to keep fresh than spending another few days re-reading the text.
cfasf1, i have never been able to “memorize” anything, apart from the formulas. I’m thinking of spending an hour or so everyday on FSA- either re-reading some parts or banging out questions from the Qbank. I don’t have it in me to re-read every single line. It’s way too time consuming. cfaboston, yes, you’re right. I need to probably make some. Most of the times, I revise LOSs using the Qbank “browse LOS” function and I add notes there in case I need to add some stuff that’s not there. ilvino, I’m going to start revising derivatives today, but it comes easier to me because i had studied derivatives (almost everything) in my MBA. Stats- Just got done yest. and I made some 10 pages of notes. And it really helped. I would advise you to do the same, if you have some tim. And you’re right regarding FSA. I’m also thinking of following your tactic- just memorizing some stuff here and there and doing Qbank stuff because the Qbank picks up stuff from anywhere and this way, I have a higher chance of learning stuff that I already don’t know and at the same time, revising concepts that I might have forgotten. The only thing is that if I don’t remember ANYTHING, then doing these questions results in a very low score and I feel extremely discouraged. :-\ Probably spend an hour reading old stuff and another hour working out problems? Would that do?
I think you’ve got a winning plan for FSA, Ruhi. I agree that it’s not worthwhile to plow blindly through the Q-bank if every question seems like new material. I’ve been using an “open-book” style of testing through Stalla’s passmaster, and that seems to have helped with retention of some of the material I covered a while ago. How did you master the derivatives formulas? All the messy calcs for various futures/forward prices and values?
I might have to adopt your open book style. I feel so discouraged right now, even after spending a week on FSA and Corp. Finance. Derivatives- Actually, there is not much memorization. It’s more to do with understanding the concept- discounting, compounding etc. If you understanding the base logic, then all the formulas will come naturally to you. So, I would suggest that you read some stuff in detail if you are having trouble learning the formulas. Otherwise, just make some notecards and read them while eating dinner, in your sleep, sh*tting…haha.
You’re not the only one discouraged. The month of April has pretty much been hell for studying, but I think this is what separates the “masters” of the curriculum from the “posers” on exam day. It’s so weird but I did a search the other day to see when I first started posting on AF before LI last year - my first post was like May 15th, barely two weeks before the exam. It’s hard to have perspective, but I think we’re way ahead of where we were last year and just have to keep plugging along.
I remember clearly that you’d started posting only a couple of weeks before the exam 
I was here since quite some time. And yes, we do need to be ahead in the game this time- around 38-40% of the people who cleared Level I will clear level 2. We need to beat the crap out of this exam.
Reading these posts are making me nervous. I haven’t even covered half of the material yet and I am sitting here reading how you guys don’t feel prepared going through the material for the nth time! Some days I feel like I have a shot at this years exam, but in the back of my mind I know it is more realistic for 2009. I have never failed an exam, but I just know what my stomach is going to feel like when I press that button and see FAIL. Sigh…
mwvt, if you have schweser, it’s easy to get thru the material pretty fast. like in a week oro two if you devoted full-time… the CFA reading are alot harder to get thru…i would think of going thru the summaries at the back of each reading over a few hours, just to give an idea of what might give alot of trouble.
m-dubbs, you’ve been a force here on AF and you’ll be fine come the end of June. I know it’s hard to remember, but try to think back to just how much material we all learned last year in just the last few weeks before the exam through frantic cramming/cfai practice exams/AF posting. I can safely bet that most of us did MUCH less reading of the actual texts for LI, but since we started earlier this year, have had the luxury to do so. The real ramp-up in retention comes from working the Q’s, which most of us are just starting to do. So we all need to just keep our heads up and keep rolling - it’s only early April!
I’m new to this forum but I have been following the threads for sometime now.My average for the QBANK FSA is around 82% but I keep missing the same questions over and over again.I want to gain the understanding versus just memorising stuff. I do very well when I read the material fresh so as part of my strategy I will read it again during the last three weeks to the exams.
mwvt, I think it’s commendable that you’ve jumped back into the game and are being so sportive about the whole deal. Since you have decided to sit for it, then you might as well give it your best. And what works for one person doesn’t work for someone else. Unfortunately, I need a long time to get my brains oiled. But there are many others on this board who are fine if they get through everything just once. So, don’t feel discouraged when we say that we dont remember anything even after reading it for the nth time. And just for the records, I havn’t read it n number of time. Just once (completely) and am revising everything for the second time now and I won’t be done till the end of April at least. It doesn’t matter who knows how much now. What matters is the performance on the exam day. So keep your head high and you will do just fine. Your contributions here are gold and it’s wonderful to have you back! aaddotwumk, I think we are in the same boat. I feel the same way too. I do very well when everything is fresh and my performance decreases after a couple of days. Revision is the key. I need to keep going over the old stuff, I guess.
westbruin Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > mwvt, if you have schweser, it’s easy to get thru > the material pretty fast. like in a week oro two > if you devoted full-time… the CFA reading are > alot harder to get thru…i would think of > going thru the summaries at the back of each > reading over a few hours, just to give an idea of > what might give alot of trouble. I don’t think I could get through the material that fast and remember anything. I started with 80 days to the exam so I am trying to get through each SS in 3.5 days (including some q-bank). That will give me some time at the end for revision and practice/mock exams. That schedule is really pushing it for me. Thanks for the ideas.
Ilvino and ruhi, Thanks for the encouragement. I am going to give it my best shot. I think I am down right nowbecause I am stuck on ICAPM. I have always sucked at Forex. You know how you get stuck sometimes and think you can never learn the material, but then something clicks and you can’t remember why you found it so difficult in the first place? I am waiting for the click right now.
i need the click bigtime. i’m wayyyyyy further behind this time around vs L1 last year and i haven’t stepped it up to the next level. going to try to put in an entirely dorky weekend of qbank and see where it takes me. FSA is just one of those things I think you have to practice often. equity i’m finding not horrible but there’s a lot of stuff (reviewing all week). i’ve gone open book on formulas so far and probably will for all of april. agree with ilvino- if i see them, use them, i start to remember how to use them and then instead of memorizing them, i just learn them. my FSA scores have been pretty decent also compared to other stuff but i feel like i have a ton more to study there. have reviewed equity a little, PM a little, derivs a bit, need to do quant and FI over b/c i honestly haven’t looked at them in months. i’m up to about 675 q’s done in qbank- let’s see if i can’t hammer out a few hundred more this weekend. good times. mwvt- you are a lock to pass. i say this with confidence already. keep pushing. you’ll be fine.
mwvt9, I am glad to hear that others feel the same way. I have been stuck on FSA synthesis and seem to get every adjustment and every answer wrong. I can’t be that bad! You just have to clear your head (take your pick - get wasted or go to the gym) and come back to it. Hopefully FSA synthesis will seem clear in a couple of days.