I am trying to de-construct everything I have learnt at L2/L1 to start on a fresh basis, as the material and exam structure are substantially different. I am therefore wondering about the best way to practice for L3: I am currently finishing up my first reading, but when mocks-time comes, what is the best approach? Is it best to do all the schweser mocks + old morning AM official papers? Or 3 schweser mocks are sufficient and it’s best to stick to old CFA mocks and re-do AM questions over and over? How many mocks did you all do to pass this exam? How far back should I go regarding official AM questions?
IMHO I think the best way to look at this is to try to solve the past questions (& schweser mocks) and understand why you got the answers right or why you didn’t get them.
Some people did 5 or 6 mock exams and various schwesser tests - that probably worked for them. I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked and I did only 3 schweser practice tests and 3 CFA mocks in total.
However I must say I did the following:
Made sure I tried the questions in the blue boxes in the CFA text - all of them
Made sure that I tried out all the exercises (practice problems or EOCs) from CFA books
Made sure that I tried the practice questions and EOCs in Schweser notes
Tried out 3 Schweser practice tests; scored and reviewed (although I had 6 tests)
Tried out 3 CFAI Past exams (the essay); scored and reviewed (Last 3 years only)
Repeated steps 3 and 4 with the same questions (no changes).
Tried not to panic - this was the most important in my opinion.
Well I don’t think you want to de-construct everything from L2. There are still item sets, so whatever strategy you used to answer those you’ll probably want to employ again, considering it worked!
Well I can say what worked for me - my brother (who by the way has no financial knowledge) graded my tests.
My thinking is that since he had no finance knowledge, he would stick to the marking scripts (or guideline answers) and I can tell you that when I graded myself 65 or 70, he graded me 50-60 or even worse (I think twice). Of course due to my knowledge and bias.
This helped me because I felt that I needed to do more so it pushed me amd it paid off.
However, if you think that you can be impartial and not make an assumption as to what you wrote (quite difficult but doable) then it doesn’t matter else just ask someone else to help grade your test. This may entail favours though.
Then it makes sense to get your answers graded by someone else. I have a q about one thing though. What do you mean by ‘I needed to do more so it pushed me and it paid off’ ?? Elaborate on that please. What exactly did you do ?
I found the grading helpful if someone else is doing it…I have recently started using analystninja.comfor marking and feedback services. I think its fab.
