How many hours are you planning to put in? How are you managing both work & prep at this juncture? What is your strategy?
- Take a full mock exam (under exam conditions) each Saturday until game day
- Pick 1-2 worst subjects from Saturday’s mock and review Sunday-Thursday by using CFAI BBs, CFAI EOC, and my personal notes. Might even use Q-Bank if I really need to drill a concept.
- Create flashcards for any qualitative questions I missed from Saturday’s mock and review daily on bus ride to & from work (30 minutes total)
- Spend Friday evening cranking out a few Topic Tests of the subjects I reviewed all week
I just finished Volume 1 of Kaplan mock exams and have seen my scores improve significantly over the last 3 weeks, which could be from a combination of the strategy above and just getting more used to vignettes.
Planning on completing the CFAI 2016 mock this Saturday, then using Kaplan Volume 2 mocks until test day.
Aiming for 10hrs/day on weekends and 3hrs/day on weeknights.
I’m redoing all the topic tests that I got really low.
Doing the official CFAI Mock this Saturday.
Probably will redo the official CFAI Mock again before the exam.
Reread all the questions I got wrong.
Squeezing out every minute I have to studying, i.e. study while commuting, walking, pooping…
- Weekdays I am now pushing 5 hours and going forward weekends will be 12-15 hours. 2) Just cutting on sleep tbh… thats how I am trying to manage both. When my body is really giving up on a particular day, then I will get a goodnight sleep. 3) Finished second review through EOCs for Corp+Alt+Ethics+Port. Now working on 3rd review for Equity,FRA, FI, Derivatives…etc which is this week and next week.
- I do have one full week off right before the exam. I have not done any mock exams yet, neither am I stressing over not having any done y I will be hammering mocks from 22nd. Ethics I am just practising during lunch breaks even if I feel I am prepared, I am going to continue hammering ethics as this I feel is very tricky.
Plan for me is:
- Quant and Intercorporate – go back to text and rebuild knowledge. Not quite over the line on those, and can’t close the deal from the vignettes in vignettes
- Ethics – read all topic tests again and again. Review ROS notes often. All you can do is burn in enough scenarios and rules that they have cross-threads on June 4.
- All other topics: drill baby drill. Finish topic tests; do 2nd, 3rd, 4th pass through topic tests. Add other mocks into the mix, if time.
Two weeks off before. Over-focus on running, eating well, sleeping well, studying 11 hours/day. June 1 is last day for me. Taper and carbo load … err, something.
My Plan:
-Burn through Wiley 11th Hour Videos this week (~4 hrs a day) for review
-Do 2-3 more mocks
-Re-do all Topic Tests the final 2 weeks
-Review mocks (specifically questions I got wrong)
I bought a whiteboard to write and rewrite tricky formulas.
That should be it. Can’t wait for this to be over, but until then it is time to downshift a gear and floor it. Cram in another 80-90 hours before the exam.
My Plan
This week I will be finish with 4th cylce of quick re-reading Schweser notes, also solving CFAI curriculum vignette only EOCs (some of those for 3rd or even 4th time).
Then, I will start solving again (for 2nd 3rd and some of those 4th time) all portal vignettes and reviewing incorrect answers. I think this is the crucial step.
Saturdays are reserved for Mocks (AM & PM) but only Schweser Mocks remain as solution since I always solved official 2 times and I am pretty sure next time I would be able to solve with 90 % treshold but this isn’t real.
I also don’t consider Schweser mocks as a good proxy for real exam because from some reason Schweser has different style questionary.
So do you think CFAI Mocks are harder/easier/same as CFAI topic tests?
I have already answered on this question and I did so two times if I am not wrong:)
Yes, topic tests are much more challenging than Mock questions but this is only my opinion.
My plan is to finish my second review, topic tests and all mocks by 25th. After that I’ll do a quick review with extra focus on weak areas and redo some topic tests.
I plan to finish Ethics CFAI questions and hit the topic tests and redo some of the end of chapter CFAI questions.
I’ll save CFAI mocks towards the end and avoiding Schweser mocks, although they may be good for conceptual understanding, I want to be completely tuned to the style and flow of CFAI questions.
My plan is to do all the topic tests, all the EOC question, official CFAI mock exam and live Schweser exam on 21st of May. If I have some time then I will hit older CFAI mocks. I hope this works out fine 
Morning or afternoon mock every other day during the week. Review every single question the next day and determine where my weakpoints are. Re-read or answer more questions relating to that section if needed.
Weekends, a full or half mock on saturday or more indepth questions using the topic tests to get more challenging problems. Finish my hand written notes and start drafting my formula sheet in the next week or so. Review those every other day or so.
Hope it is enough.
Based on the plan I’ve mapped out I’ll manage another 120 hours of study between now and exam day. The vast majority will be spent on taking and revising mocks, with the CFA mock saved for last. My plan is 6 practice exams (3 Schweser, 2 Wiley and 1 CFAI) starting in a couple days at 15 hours each (6 hours taking and 9 hours revising) which will take approx 90 hours, and leave 30 for some cushion and to review FRA, Equity and Fixed Income again and cement some concepts/formulas. Hopefully it’s enough to clear the hurdle this year. I got relatively close last year (band 9) but I’m not taking any chances.