To all the party people out there who made it, here comes the generic how did you do it post.
Please share your passing strategies, prep providers, no. of mocks.
You know, all the usual stuff by now 
Congrats again, and to the ones who failed I am sorry and best of luck next year
Took Kaplan for Level 3. It helped me get by but the AM mocks aren’t worth it, IMO.
Rule 1 of Level III Exam: Past exams. Just do this over and over. I did mocks dating 2011 — do, check, and redo them.
If I were to retake the exam, I would’ve done the same for AM, and added CFAI topic tests and the PM mocks of Schweser. I only did one PM mock, and a couple of topic tests… Thank God I scraped by!
I did ~5 AM mocks and did ~3-4 AM mocks where I just made sure i recognized how to do the questions. After reading the material + doing the topic tests +mock PMs was all I needed for the PM.
For the AM: my key piece of advice is to understand how repetitive the questions are for the AM. For example for level 2, you know that there will most likely be a question on pension accounting, translation methods for subsidiaries, and FCFE/FCFF etc. For level 3 there is similarly a narrow pool of likely questions. Figure out how to answer the easy questions you know will be asked like IPS or behavioral biases.
BPP Course and read most of CFAI text books (except ethics/GIPS/Dry material)
circa 4 mock/BPP PM papers 2x
circa 7 previous AM papers 2x
Topic tests 2x
EOC Questions 2x
Do lots of past AM exam papers but don’t go back too far as some of the questions are probably irrelevant to the current curriculum and READ the materials thoroughly!
I just used schweser this year, I didn’t bother with the CFA EOC questions they seemed too long winded.
I did a teaching and revision course with Kaplan in London as well which helped.
AM mocks since 2010 and six Kaplan mocks (which were a bit rubbish but they helped lodge a few concepts in my head)
Agree. Arif Irfanullah summarizes this in his website. He highlights which items, even subsections, are irrelevant for the current year. Really helpful.
I only used CFA curriculum ebooks for my study. Did plenty of mock exams on essays and multiple questions.
Just one single suggestion: study directly from CFAI curriculum and do EOC problems multiple times.
I will share but by football jargon I passed in the referee time in additional qualification match so maybe I’m not so adequate for giving advices.
Start early. Take tons of handwritten notes. Start mocks with at least a month and a half before the exam. CFAI mocks. I used Schweser for reading but I honestly would say use CFAI for reading.
Do Blue Box and EOC questions.
During your Mock prep do EOC questions again. Can’t stress that enough. Mocks get really lumpy so you may find you are missing key parts of the course. Doing EOC questions will fix that problem as it will keep everything fresh.
Really comes down to time and practice. Tons of mocks and revisions and you can do it.
I started with practicing in March. Did past 10 Y AMs several times each, did 10 Mocks, did 3 times all EOCs and Portal TTs. My weakest link was relying mostly on Schweser notes.
Real talk: I studied a lot less than L2 (and l1 although L1 was more about getting back into a groove of studying in general as i was out of school for 5 years)
Curriculum was finished by mid/late april and did mocks from then til exam day. used topic tests a bit less than L2 and wish i did more/earlier as I would have been better prepared for PM. Did about 6-8 AM mocks and felt it was enough, the key to mocks isnt what you score but your REVIEW of the mocks. Review them heavily and hard, hit any topic you were unsure of and drill it.
Full disclosure: I was unsure how i would do, and had my worst breakdown by far. Still passed tho
Main resource - Kaplan. Don’t let anyone tell you its not enough, I used it for all 3 tests, and passed all on the first attempt.
Take your own notes, make flashcards and _ TRACK which flashcards you struggle on _ with an Excel spreadsheet, MAKE A FORMULA SHEET - review and _ rewrite all formulas DAILY _
Secondary resource - CFAI Curriculum. For clarity, and examples
Find videos for free on Youtube - especially helpful with GIPS
Do all EOC’s, Blue Boxes, etc. - This is a must
Do all Topic Tests
Forget Qbank for L III
Do all past CFAI exams/mocks that you can find. As was mentioned by others, some past AM questions are irrelevant, but IFT has a document out there that highlights these changes in past exams.
Start early, stay consistent with 1-2 hours a day during the week, all day on weekends. Sleep! Allow yourself time to relax, go out, watch movies, spend time with significant other etc. to _ avoid getting burned out _. An understanding and supportive spouse was crucial to this process, for me.
The above should cost you around 600 hours of your life, but follow this and you will only have to do it once.
In my experience, Schweser is good for PM, but not so good for AM.
I made note/flash cards for every LOS, and discarded the ones I knew as I studied and did bluebox / mocks / topic tests.
Making the cards themselves was a tedious exercise but paid off. It’s how I got through level 2 as well.
Speaking on behalf of joe35y, who was consistently scoring better than 80% on mocks… don’t have Grandma grade your practice exams.
#congrats
Hahaha, You actually have a good memory. I mean you’re keeping notes about each AF. Lol!
L3 secret sauce:
Honestly, if you really do the above, your chances of failing are very low.