4th and final attempt - 2020 strategy

CFA Level III
#1

2019 was disappointing. Great marks in morning only to tank the evening. Final attempt, trying something different with plan this year.

https://youtu.be/Deg8J0u6Dpw

  1. Start in November instead of Jan

  2. Allocate hours instead of schedule for each reading. 200 study hours.

  3. 60 hours of practice instead of averaging about 25 in previous attempts

.

#2

Best of luck with your preparation, admire your persistence! I’ll be kicking off the study on my first attempt today… Motivation is very low unfortunately haha

#3

Four attempts and you still haven’t hired www.chalkandboard.org ? Bro, I am dissappoint.

#4

3 things wrong with your plan:

  1. You spent an hour making the video when you should have allocated it to the studying
  2. Your shoulders are way too slumped in the video showing lack of confidence and aloofness. You cannot pass if shoulders are slumped
  3. Still not enough hours planned
#5

Ya I missed the fact that there was a video until now. Who’s that directed to? Do you have a large fan base??

#6

I like the comment on slumped shoulders. Very relevant to studying thanks.

#7

Which prep providers have you been using for the past 3 attempts?

#8

what did you score in the AM and PM this year

#9

I liked the video, well beyond my skill level there. I would have likely gone with stick men on a PowerPoint slide.

For the exam: you gotta do practice questions. And I mean thousands of them. Whenever I would finish a reading I would do hours of practice questions, and when I’ve moved on to a new topic I would still do practice questions on the previous readings in my downtime to keep it fresh. The last month and a half has to be mock exams non stop.

150 hours is definitely not enough. I started in January and didn’t keep track of my hours but I have to believe it was north of 300. Probably much higher.

This is your year brother. And if it doesn’t work out, stick with the graphic design :slight_smile: cheers

#10

Obviously it depends on your background and experience in finance but the # of hours seems to be very low. There are a bunch of new readings this year which you haven’t seen during your previous attempts.

I think I clocked in close to 600h for LVL3.

#11

I cried so hard on 125’s nr. 1

I would go with 125mph’s opinion anytime, he seems to be one of the rare people who preach the one and only truth: Go hard or go home…

#12

I’ve never understood how people make these kinds of plans: “Finish reading 17 by Sunday January 11th… etc” How do you know which readings are going to fly by and in which will you be stuck on? Just start early, study like your life depended on it, and try to have all readings done a month before the exam. This way, you’ll have enormous flexibility, time to go in-depth in many topics and you will not get too stressed about running out of time.

#13

at first did a plan like that (i.e. Chapter scheduling) and had to basically throw it out the window because I can’t keep re-adjusting it anymore

#14

To me, you didn’t attempt the exam 3 times, but you did fail 3 times! Look at the hours you have put in, 150, 80 and 130? The total study time you spent for your 3 “attempts” is less than majority of the ppl’s single attempt. If you had spent that 300 hours in the first attempt, you would have passed the exam long time ago. And yet you’re still trying to undercut it again this time. I mean good luck man, but in the end you wasted 3 years you didn’t have to.

#15

This is total bullshit. I went very “laxidazical” in my studies - I even routinely would drink beers in the library on Friday nights the last few hours they were open - and still passed.

You don’t have to kill yourself to become a CFA charterholder. . . Fact.

#16

Don’t be jealous !!!

I speak only truths.

#17

You gotta ask yourself how bad do you want it? You created this post so I hope you read the replies, people are putting in 300+ hours, they are finishing everything one month before the exam, they are doing mock exams out the wazoo…that’s your competition, so are you willing to pay the price? For me, I don’t know how many hours I put in, but I start around Xmas and study at least 30 min every day, and I do all the mock exams, and the CFAI online Qbank twice and maybe more for topics I found hard.

#18

I totally appreciate you bullshitting me on suggesting a person, who fell 3 times (with total of 360 h invested in all the 3 attempts), to stop doing pretentious pity party videos and start digging through that materials and finally get this over with. I never said that you have to kill yourself to become a CFA charterholder, but one has to do the work to pass them… Hell, for the CFA level 1 exam I even got drunk as a mofo 2 days before during the World Cup, but that doesn’t mean i didn’t put the hours in.

And as for you, it’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback , but if I correctly recall, it’s not that you had a walk in the park with the exams…Fact.

#19

Not necessarily, just for putting the hours in…

#20

Go see Marc Lefevre & make it, “one & done” in 2020…