Folks, I’m starting my review and was wondering what people thought are the trickiest or toughest parts to review. I have my own thinking, but I also wonder if I’m remembering things right. For me: 1) Remembering the behavioral biases… they make sense to me, but I can’t always remember the names - That’s one that I plan to review in depth a few days before the exam. If I do it sooner, I’ll just forget again. 2) Performance Evaluation - not intrinsically hard, but easy to get things mixed up. 3) Immunization and FI stuff - this seemed to be the most mathematically intricate part of the curriculum. Again, it doesn’t look intrinsically hard, but it looks easy to mess up intermediate steps. What about you guys (gender inclusive here)?
It’s not close and you might have to check out last year’s scores. While above might be the hardest on the exam, it’s the IPS that causes people to fail the exam. They look really easy and then you get a 35% on them. Those things are stealth monsters that are not to be underestimated.
I’m with Joey, the IPS stuff is by far the toughest. I think the Personal stuff is tougher than the institutional stuff overall though, I would spend enough time on it to know what it’s all about. The content of the material is straight forward, but you have to apply it and that’s when it gets hard when the cases get tough.
I agree bchadwick and add derivatives to your list .
Really - check out last year’s scores. I am not kidding. Those pathetic looking “Mrs. Jones is going to retire in 5 years” questions were the cause of all that low pass rate.
I agree with James, i am leaving IPS stuff for the last.
Ok, I see the point. I’ll practice more on them. I guess the tax stuff is also a pretty tricky part of the IPS, yes?
yep…IPS will be key… On silly thing I keep forgetting is to calculate required returns for individuals “AFTER TAX”…always mess it up with institutions which are tax exempt.
Originally I was a smidge off (on my first review) for risk, but now I am concentrating on RR, the constraints for the questions or the risk aren’t a problem, but return takes a little thinking sometimes.
Yes, risk and return are the toughies. Probably the toughest things on the exam. Catching all the little tidbits that affect the return and weighing everything into the risk tolerance is not easy. The constraints aren’t too difficult.
Anyone have a specific process they use when outlining their response to an IPS quesstion. I think it might be helpful if we outline a few steps we should all take for each section and what factors to look for.
I’ve read through the CFAI and Schweser part on IPS’ twice, and have gone through the the video series portion on it once, and will likely do all of these again before the exam. It is the key to our success I think. I will work on other areas, but why spend hours on stuff that *MIGHT* get tested on one MC when you know these will be nailed big on essay questiosn for lots and lots of points.
CFA_Halifax good point, that is why i only read through it once and already forgot everything
PJStyles Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Anyone have a specific process they use when > outlining their response to an IPS quesstion. I > think it might be helpful if we outline a few > steps we should all take for each section and what > factors to look for. Advice from a couple of folks at my office, who passed L3 last year: 1. Write out the answers to the practice AM exams. Both of them felt rushed at the end of the AM session 2. Only write what is needed to answer the question. No need to show off how much you know.