As I write this, 10 weeks until exam day, I’ve read through approx. 1/3 of the official curriculum (in terms of pages covered) ((in the order presented)), whilst attempting all blue-box examples in the readings, and all end of chapter questions, with occasional forays into the online topic tests provided by the CFA Institute. Just yesterday I attempted the 2015 Level III AM paper.
I’m writing this to just document my progress so far, maybe give myself a kick up the ass to take study a bit more seriously and devote more time to it, and show lurkers on here that not everyone has completed the material already (although well done to those few who have!).
It won’t be easy but I still believe there’s a chance that I can pass this, otherwise I’d have thrown in the towel by now in order to rediscover the joys of going out, seeing friends and family, and dating
Besides, if I manage to pass this Summer, I’ll never again have to sit another sodding exam - that, not the Charter, might turn out to be the biggest motivator of all
I do feel apprehensive about the fixed-income readings, given that people online rank those the hardest; and derivatives, given those were by far the most unintelligible material to me in Level II. Some say economics is their hardest topic area, so maybe I have to worry about that too! As an aside, I feel like I see less CFA-related memes these days, but I was thinking of generating one myself based on the film Oldboy, with a still of the main character trapped in his prison cell muttering that he’d be out in a month over and over again.
Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and there’s no telling whether you’ll have a chance to showcase your strengths or actually divulge your weaknesses on exam day, unfortunately. As someone who’s taken a year off and failed Level 1 and 2 twice and Level 3 once, I can definitely echo the ‘monkey on the back’ concept and just wanting it to be over with. At the same time, depending on what kind of work you’re in or what you hope to do, maybe the CFA and what the charter actually means might not really matter at the end of the day… Fail Level 1? Quit? No big deal! Fail Level 2? Quit? No big deal! Pass both and you only have one left…finish it (mortal kombat voice).
My take: You’ve come this far and in the grand scheme of life, what’s 2 months? Print out a schedule of the next 67 days and commit to getting it all done and cramming in at least 4-5 mocks if you can. That way, you at least stand a chance at winning the fight.
Just a tip if you haven’t done this already. Go look up a prep provider called IFT he posts a pdf listing what questions are still relevant for the 2019 exam. A lot of the equity, fixed income has changed a lot since 2015.
Cheers for posting the tip, I was aware courtesy of the big stickied CFA Resources thread on the r/cfa Reddit page but would be useful for others to know.
