Sorry, I realize there’s probably been a million of these.
What seems to be consensus answer?
Do Elan do videos for L3? Can’t seem to find anything on their site but that site was always impossible to navigate so maybe I missed something. Their L2 videos were awesome.
Are the Schweser videos for L3 any good and how do they compare to the L2 Elan videos? I heard the Schweser L2 videos were kinda crap so makes me wonder if I should buy them for L3. At $400 extra on top of the notes, I need to see some clear value in buying these.
What other providers are out there and what’s the general feedback.
All I know is I’m staying away from Finquiz this year. Their L2 material was hopeless IMO.
How much shorter are the Schweser books relative to CFAI? When I stacked them up together, Schweser was not that much shorter.
Do you really want to rely on outlines and edited study guides to help you tackle the morning essay section? The guides help you get the right answer but they’re not so good with the deeper understanding that the actual exam requires. To succeed, you need to explain the “why” and this requires a deeper knowledge of the material.
CFAI curriculum is better. Why take a shortcut? It’s not that much longer.
I used Schweser exclusively for all three levels. (Plus CFAI’s EOC questions, of course.) I felt like it sufficiently prepared me for the exam (as evidenced by the passing score).
I emailed Elan last year and they told me this year they would expand their territory into Level 3.
If you really want to use video, I would highly highly recommend Schweser weekly online class if Marc or David is still teaching. They made my studying a lot easier and more interesting.
At the end of the day, just be consistent and do LOTS of practice. Reading alone will not help, rework EOC questions, Blue Boxes questions, old exams once, twice, three times will help.
-Guys, don’t waste time debating whether to choose this or that instead of CFAI book. Save that time to do questions.No shortcuts.
The more time you spent on analyzing it the less time you have on studying.
Even in the OP question, there are multiple challenges in determining which provider is better for which level and for what year.
There are very few people who used all providers on the same exam for the same year to give you a “definitive” conclusion.
Humour factor aside, each provider vary slightly on each level and every year they may change it up a bit so it is impossible to predict or know what is the best to use for 2014 level #.
Practiice exams are the best indicator of how much you know, that’s why i encourage people to use them early rather than last few weeks before exam.
CFAI is the way to go. I worked with Schweser - but I was not committed to their books as much as the CFAI. The CFAI is creating and administering the exam, so I concentrated on that beast. I did all the EOC’s - please don’t skip the lengthy IPS ones…you will see…you will remember going through them come practice-exam time. They are long, but you may find yourself regretting it when it’s May and you have all these IPS questions to get through with no recollection on how to tackle them.
Practice, practice, and more practice. I didn’t do any videos for any levels so cannot attest to their quality or lure. I studied by myself and was motivated by shoes…thoughts of them at least.
This is the home stretch - study like you mean it and you will pass. Some candidates get lazy at L3 as it has been a long haul in getting there and they just want the program to be DONE! Just giver’ all you got and you won’t have to do it again. You will even feel light and refreshed after the exam because you know deep down that you nailed it! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD LUCK!
I still dont see it in the elan site, so I am thinking of looking for a new provider. I kind of want videos with a powerpoint/pdf presentation. Also, I wish they had an online interactive version, where if I answer right or wrong, the real answer pops out or maybe juss link the answer to the section so I dont have to waste time looking around. Does anyone know a type like this? And i’d appreciate anyone who can break down most of the study material providers. Also thoughts on reading the actual cfa book? I tried it before for level I in the ethics section and gave up and decided that it was not worth the time or effort due to the length. I know Level III is more focused on specific sections so it may be different, so i would appreciate the thoughts of those who have taken or passed it. Many thanks.
I only knew elan. So here’s a review to help people in case they do a product for level 3. Elan was pretty good by the way, but I have nothing to compare to.
Videos: 2 lecturers, 1 of them is superb because he talks/writes fast, the other is good but slow. They also need a better rewind/fast forward button and have sub sections within a video. Literally, I remember 1 video was 4 hours. I had to click around to find where I was and never land on where I wanted. I used these heavily for the largest sections and it was extremely helpful on ethics.
Practice Tests: Practice tests were good too. They also have a ton of practice questions which I never touched so I have no clue. They give 3 practice tests weighted similarly to CFA guidelines for the level II exam. I averaged a 60%. On the real thing I scored around 60 with a tilt higher due to higher scores on the larger sections.
Overall though practice tests to me were more important than the videos for the final grind, but the videos made it easy for me to study at the very beginning.
Even though I passed, Schweser was a pretty big let-down for me. I used them because I know calculation-based questions were my weakness, and that the actual exam was about 30% calculation-based questions. They got me through the higher level math of level 2 very well.
For level 3 though, they treated the exam as if it was close to 100% calculation-based, so I found myself at the last minute scrambling through the CFAI material because there were so many qualitative concepts they only touched on so they could make room for very complex calcs which had a low likelihood of showing up on the exam.
Schweser worked well for me for all 3 levels complimented by CFAI EOC questions and mock exams. The only thing I hated about Schweser was Level III QBank and mocks were poorly written and in some instances I doubted their answers…
That’s pretty much what I did. Although I think I really lacked in the AM section, or maybe they just couldn’t read my writing. Doing it again I would look for a good resource for tackling the AM section.
I also took a couple days where I simulated exam conditions. Helped to narrow down my focus for the final 10 days before.
