Congratulations! You passed Level 3 2012! Now what did you use to study...

CFA Level III
#21

Schweser Notes + previous exams. First attempt pass. Did not do well on the AM session though

Thank God!

#22

retake and passed in 2012

  • Did you use only CFAI books? NO, used CFAI in 2011 but failed
  • Schweser or another prep course? Schweser only
  • Mixture of CFAI books and a prep course? no
  • What prep material did you find _useless? no comment _
  • Did you use past mock exams? yes, and all past papers in CFAI website, finished all on the day before the exam (coz i just know they have past exam papers on Friday, and did all on Sat and Sun was the exam)
  • Did you study the books in the order the material was presented? no
  • Was this your first time passing Level 3? no, this is my 2nd take
  • Even though you passed if you could do it again, _ what would you have changed? nothing _
#23

All CFAI materials here and passed on my first try. Read through all 6 official books word for word, did all the EOC questions, and got my hands on all the sample/mock/essay questions from several years past. Only thing I did not do was every single “blue box” and sample question in the middle of the chapters.

I actually failed L2 on my 1st try when I used Stalla, but passed L2 on the 2nd try and L3 on the 1st try when I switched to this brute force studying tactic. I don’t have the highest scores out there, but had a reasonably solid pass each time.

#24

I agree–there were a couple of questions on the exam that Schweser didn’t cover well, but they didn’t add up to a signficiant number of points overall. Schweser is enough if you understand and go through it all. Of course it’ll miss a few things, but if you’[re short on time/busy, I suggest Schweser instead of CFAI.

#25

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#26

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#27

I know many people are against it but for me, solving up to ~95% of qbank really helped. I tried to do 120 questions in random order a day. This will not take too much time as qbank questions are mostly conceptual & straight forward.

Eventhough the curriculum book is divided into 6 volumes, you will realize as you study that everything is interrelated. I had trouble consolidating the disperesed concepts all around the curriculum.

For example, there are numerous parts and equations in the curriculum that deals with foreign currency. In order to consolidate all that different parts and to be able to juggle around the concepts in different volumes in CFAI texts, solving random questions, making notes really helped.

Just a thought

#28

Passed in first attempt - Followed Schweser Notes, if something unclear go to CFAI notes or just google it up. I consider Schweser notes just to give you a brief knowledge on the each topic, however, if you are not sure of anything you have to either apply your mind, refer another book or search it online.

I also consider schweser notes to be lacking some of the explanantions but then its our job to master everything mentioned in it whatever way we can. In the end do lots of mock/sample exams. Infact I learnt 50% of the concepts from the questions themselves, that too after two rounds of curriculum review.

#29

Passed with a decent margin.

Used Schweser readings alomst exclusively, did all concept checkers and CFA EOCs twice, did mocks, did all schweser mocks…

Ended up doing something like 9 full practice exams. After a while you just know it all, and how to answer the questions. Have to be so, so careful to read carefully though!

Reading the CFAI stuff is a brutal waste of time because it’s just too much info to wade through to glean the information you actually NEED. IF you have a ton of time then sure, read it all over; otherwise forget it and do something more efficient.

#30

I used mainly Kaplan notes supplemented by FinQuiz. FinQuiz’s curriculum notes summarize and cover textbooks materials which are not mentioned by Kaplan notes. Textbooks EOC have been gone through. Kaplan’s mindmap book was used also.

#31

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