pretty sure I messed up and would have to retake next year. Just wondering what you guys felt you would have done better so that I can better plan for next year. My biggest takeaways:
Start early. I only started in February.
Budget time to attend interviews. Was involved in an incredibly intense interview process that stretched over several weeks.
Get the exam date right. Keyed in the wrong exam date into my excel spreadsheet that spat out the number of chapters I had to cover each week.
The above 3 items basically set me so far back in my revisions I couldn’t finish studying.
Happy to hear what others have to say, while it is still fresh in your head.
Managing the time is the most important thing for me. Have to finish Mocks during the prescribed time and also start the Mock exam at some odd time (e.g. 9:37 AM) and practice to stay with time.
Without divulging anything, there were certain parts of the curriculum that I didnt focus on studying because they didnt show up on previous AMs that much and then on exam day I was taken completely by surprise by a lot of the AM questions. So I guess I would focus more on peripheral LOSs
Hey I faced the same issue but I guess it’s an issue of the breath of LOS you cover and depth that you cover. If anyone can shed light on how to best manage this, it would be useful. I went in-depth into many LOS during my studies but they didn’t show up.
Also, could someone some expert post a good study plan to follow? Based on my experience with L2 and L3, the issue is that I keep forgetting stuff, so budgeting 2 weeks before the exam clearly isn’t sufficient.
For example, study plans like these (https://cdn.prepsmarter.com/blog/cfa-level-3-june-2018.pdf) don’t make a whole lot of sense to me honestly. Where does this even factor in time to memorize the material? Basically, it assumes you memorize and retain the material the first time you touch the material.
I tried my best. I ran out of time in the AM exam at the end. If I add up the number of parts I didn’t do, it sums up to about 1 topic.
AM is a complete ball game from PM. It’s kind of like a second language. You can be fluent in reading and recognizing the answer from the multiple choices, but writing it down from memory is very difficult. Plus time pressure doesn’t help. There was one major part at the end that I left blank, but I knew how to answer it. I knew from reading the problem that it would take a lot time. I was behind time about half way through the test.
Hopefully I pass the exam. I cannot imagine going through this exam again.
My opinion is best to rely on the LOS exclusively. I had a look through them and they pretty much covered exactly what was on the test even some of the more seemingly obscure topics. I too was taken by surprise by the am as I used the last five years of mocks mainly a lot for my am revision and I felt the actual test was not so representative of these.
For everyone who says they have to start in Feb, or even october/ september the year before I feel that is completely unnecessary. My experience from taking the tests is that 60% of the question materials you always know 20% you have no clue and 20% is what I call critical reasoning. I think it is critical to know this last 20% well and no amount of reading through the books will help. Basically, I see it as being able to apply easy topics to a new situation quickly and I think this is what most people struggle with.
