How do I go about tackling the Morning Session?

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Get your hands on as many AM exams as you can, and only write in bullet points.

#PRACTICE

Thanks Hashtag. And what about the calculations aspect? Passing the AM has been my biggest headache so far.

Well, then practice the calculations. Also, consider a course that reviews past exams on video like IFT’s crash course. The AM paper is all about practice and time management.

Bring a watch and actually use it. Seriously that’s big. With return calculations,etc, you just need to practice old AM papers to get a hang for it. Those don’t really end up being difficult, but you have to get acquainted with what to do in the different scenarios they give… after/pretax/nominal/real/etc.

As hashtag said it’s literally all practice. Do the AMs and you’ll get the hang of it.

I’d add to specifically bring a digital watch, and start using it from day one of mocks. You have to get great at managing (and indirectly keeping track of) your time during the exam going through the essay session.

The best advice I can give is to flat out skip subparts that you don’t know. When you realize you flat out do not know the answer, do not waste precious time trying to come up with something to get partial credit. There simply is not enough time and partial credit is awarded so strictly that you may actually get zero credit if you’re off on a tangent. The second you’re unsure of a problem, skip it and then come back to it if time permits. Spend your time where you know the material best.

I’m not saying to leave half the questions blank, but do not get hung up and spend 15 or 20 minutes on a 4 point problem. It happens and it’ll be why you either run out of time or race the rest of the way.

Practice under timed settings. Don’t write essays. Bullet points or concise short answers. Schweser does a great job of how concise u should be. Don’t waste time on questions you don’t know move on. 10marks isn’t worth 20 wasted mins. Circle back later. Practice as many papers so u have the timing locked.

good advice everyone. Mock till you drop. The AM is the beast part of L3. Do 15-20 mocks then do them a 2nd and 3rd time.

I believe that one key to the morning session is to have someone else grade your practice/mock exams.

If you grade your own, you run the risk of saying, in essence, “I know what I meant by that, and it’s OK”, when it would be far from clear to an independent grader.

Full disclosure: I grade Level III mock exams, both independently and in conjunction with Mark Meldrum. I’m not trying to promote myself or Mark as a grader. I’m simply saying that you need an objective assessment of your answers.

i agree that’s probably the best approach as i’ve Said in other posts. If you are able to be honest with yourself, getting a sample scoring sheet can be almost as effective. That’s what the prep provider I used provided and my absolute score on the am was the same as pm ( at least as far as can be discerned from the CFAI provided graph; given the average score on am is much lower than pm that means I likely wasn’t hurt be the essay grading process like most people are)

what CFAI provides is not very helpful because they provide perfect answers that are beyond what complete and give you no sense of how partial credit is awarded. I guess they feel the opaqueness of the process is too important but it does give the prep providers another ‘angle’.

I am not a prep provider nor do I have any loyalty to any other than having used one for materials for studying for the exams.