Ok, so basically, because of working hellishly long days, I have had to leave it down to the wire for the december exam, and i mean DOWN to the WIRE baby!!! I’ve just starting studying a few weeks ago. I am hoping to have most of this week and next (and I mean 12-15 hrs/day) to devote to the exam. I really REALLY want to pass! So far I’ve gone over SS7 and SS8 in Schweser, and I feel pretty confident about them. I would really appreciate anyone’s advice about how to best allocate my time for the next 9-10 days so that I will have a fighting chance to pass this thing!
focus on ethics, FSA and corp. finance from http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?11,583221,627159#msg-627159 Ok, it took me some 15 minutes to get all data in the spreadsheet and another 5 to make the calculation but here we go: an analysis from the ‘PASSED’-thread on this forum. How many people score >70% on what subjects??? And, more importantly, how many don’t? 1. Alternative / 85% passes 2. Ethics / 76% passes 3. Equity / 84% passes 4. Quant / 71% passes 5. FSA / 61% passes 6. Fixed Income / 63% passes 7. Portf. Management / 57% passes 8. Derivatives / 52% passes 9. Economics / 36% So I think our first idea after the test about economics was right: it was brutal. Looking at the above, of course it’s nice to see what % failed a subject by scoring less than 50% but STILL passed the exam: 1. Ethics: 0% 2. FSA: 0% 3. Equity: 2% 4. Alternative: 3% 5. Quant: 4% 6. Fixed Income: 8% 7. Derivatives: 12% 8. Port. Man: 13% 9. Economics: 20% So… DON’T YOU DARE FAILING ETHICS OR FSA… you’ll be sorry. Hopefully this is useful to some of the L1-ers… I’m promoting to the L2 forum!
- Ethics 2. FSA 3. Security valuation (equity & fico) 4. Browse the rest for what you may not know 5. Ethics & FSA 6. Review and take a few CFAI online tests…the questions are exactly the same as the real test, with respect to how they are structured and asked…they help alot. Ethics, FSA, Equity & Fico are the biggest sections, and ethics should be free points. Hit these topics hard, and then go over the others to add to what you may already know in the other topics…many of them are re-hashes of college courses. Good luck.
Fico?
malnoll and barthezz thank you very much; extremely useful advice to mull over. so i assume i am doing well by focusing on finishing fsa 9 and 10 and ethics 1 tomorrow. btw is it important to read the cfai ethics and gips materials or does schweser cover that well enough?
go with the CFAI materials on ethics and GIPS in particular, focus on the examples they give. Schweser will suffice for the rest. I’d also take a practice exam ASAP to figure out weak areas, etc. good luck.
do only practice questions, and make flash cards on wrong answers. Carry the flash cards EVERYWHERE with you. Buy EACH of the CFA exams, and do them, again f;ash carding the wrong answers. Finally, make a cheat sheet of ratios and memorize them, there’s a lot of free points in the supont, margin equations, and leverage stuff. (DOL, DFL). That’s my advice. Also, book some time for doing level I in June. Your chances unless you are quite familiar with the material already are slim. This is a minimum 200 hrs of study exam. 11* 10 a day is still only 110 hours.
lola that’s good - i will focus on the CFAI stuff for ethics. i will also try to finish FSA and half of quant tomorrow. gooman26, yes, i’ve stuff all the ratios into my brain, they are easy if you’ve got them down, esp dupont is just simple algebra and ratio memorization. but there is no way i am ready to do practice q’s yet…i am hoping to process the stuff via schweser by monday/tuesday and then just do practice exams nonstop…uggghhh anyone else have any tips?
i think u should take 1 to see where u stand…
macro and micro eco is worth about 5%. do not spend a minute reviewing it. it’s not worth it based on the number of pages needed. foreign currency alone is worth 5% so make this topic the one you will concentrate on for eco. option pricing is worth very little compared to the amount of reading FSA (ratios!), valuations (equity and fixed income), and ethics are the topics you must master above all else.
i took 1 practice exam and i found out that the only subject that i dont suck is Econ and some easy book4 material and bonds. i failed miserably at others :’ (
dont give up ancientmtk, just review all your mistakes and take the next exam…
hmmm, i’ve got a tip with the ratios… (courtesy of my accountant girlfriend) ok, so with turnover ratios, how do you know whether you should use SALES, or COGS in the numerator? receivables turnover: receivables relates to money received from customers, which comes from SALES payables turnover: payables relates to paying your suppliers, so its the COST of your goods sold (COGS) inventory payables: inventory is the GOODS you sell, so use COGS
thats how i remembered it too haha. but remember, those receivables and payables/inv are AVEraGE. I always forget that .
yeh i actually just figured that out just then heheeh… funny though, cos i’ve never used the average figure before in any prac questions, but i still get the answer right… i wonder if they will pick on that in the exam?
i’m on the same boat as relentless…any topics that i can drop? is debt ok to drop? it’s driving me nuts trying to understand them at this point…haha
mystically, well, you’re ahead of me…i haven’t even touched debt or derivatives which i expect will be the most challenging sections stalla has a great review section on ratios, i just keep going over their materials. anyone got a trick for the long dupont?
I looked at the damn thing for a week (on my 1.5 hr long commute to/from work haha), and now I can never forget it 
Here goes for Long Dupont ROE = NI / CE = [(EBIT - Int) *(1-T)] / CE = [(EBIT - Int)] / CE * (1-T) = [(EBIT/TA - Int /TA) * TA/CE * (1-T) = [(EBIT / NS * NS / TA - Int / TA ) * TA / CE * (1-T) = ( Op. Profit Margin * TAT - Int Expense Ratio ) * Financial Lev * Tax Retention