The order for Preparing for Level III

Congratulations to all that passed the Level III exams. Wish you guys the very best the future holds. Can you kindly advise on how to study CFAI curriculum for those that will be doing self-study. Which of the text should I start with, and how should I progress? Your advice will be highly appreciated. Thanks.

I’m gonna give it to you straight, read Kaplan books, watch Mark Meldrum Videos (review videos are gold and he goes over almost all the curriculum EOC problems), and lastly buy 3-4 AM practices with Bill Campbell @ FinancialExamHelp123.com Total Mock Exams with Kaplan and MM should be 8, in addition to doing all relevant problems in the AM section for CFAI mock exams 2010-2019. USE IFT test cheat sheet to see which are still relevant. This will get you the 90% and superior returns you’re looking for. Total Cost: A little more than what you pay for just Level Up Videos.

1.) Read any prep you want as a starting foundation. I used Kaplan Notes, which is very bref and missing lots of details

2.) After getting the foundation, then read CFAI text, which will help reinforce the foundation with solid details. You end up with a lot of ‘aha’ moments. If you skip #1, you may be very confused while doing this step

3.) blue box, eoc, and qbanks

4.) mocks mocks mocks

Thank you both for your advice. Also, am I to start with Behavioral Finance or Fixed Income and Equity? I want to know which order will aid my understanding faster.

I just wanna say that the CFAi text presented during MM video’s is sufficient. More Mocks> Reading the CFAi text

Start with Fixed Income and Equity. Topics appear in everything else and allow you to connect dots. Its funny since they were my lowest scoring topics (surprisingly) however i’ll take >70% in everything else, which is what you need to crush level 3.

+1

Very good advice. Understanding the small stuff is much easier when you understand the big picture.

Reading both Schweser notes and the CFAI texts in full seems excessive. But I guess if you start now and work full time till next years exam you might as well do this

my order of study:

Equities, Fixed Income, Befin, Econs, Asset Allocation, Individ and Insti PM, Rm, Derivatives

Trading, Rebal, Perf eval, alts, GIPS, Ethics

My logic for the order: start with your strongest subject. Assuming the last time you studied was some time ago and you had absolutely lost your “study momentum”, by going in with your strongest subject help set the “study momentum” on track - at least it had worked very well for me.

hence i would choose equity, but it might be different for you. best of luck :slight_smile:

When you say CFAI mocks 2010-2019, you mean actual past papers, right? and they are only AM session. You are not talking about the official mocks that CFAI release. Where can I get these 2010-2019 past papers?

Here is what MM recommends as to the order of the readings.

Best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJqBikzyRTs

Hi

It seems many people used multiple resources and mocks too -

I used only Kaplan Schweser materials and 4 mocks which come with it. Also bought a invigilator mock -also Kaplan Schweser- where u do it under supervision.

Read the material from first page to last starting from book 1 to book 5

and did 2 mocks from CFA Institute on their website (no Previous papers )

I revised them books like 5 times such that in the end I kind of partially memorized the books

I scored 90% in AM and 70% in PM

I don’t think we need this much preparation which people like 125 mph did !

yes. You can find them on reddit

  • Watch Mark Meldrum videos
  • Take notes on things you are unclear on
  • Take the EOC
  • Take the topic tests
  • Take the last 10 year AM mocks
  • Take the CFAI PM mocks
  • Buy 5-6 3rd party mocks

+1 here.

Used Meldrum from the get go and followed his sequence of learning. I would read the textbook, then watch his video, then hit practice problems.

After ive moved on to a new section I’d keep doing practice problems on the topic I finished previously, helps to keep things fresh. Keep doing that until April or early May and then hit the mock exams HARD. Can’t stress that enough. You have to pin the AM down. Also don’t neglect the PM. Track down as many PM mocks as you get and keep plowing through them.

Are the ones on reddit adjusted to reflect any changes to the curriculum ?

My preparation this time was quite straightforward; just kept redoing the online practice questions ~400 on cfa institute website. I kept resetting them until I was 97th percentile, lol. IMO the EOCs are to odious.

Otherwise, I did about 8 years of morning mocks