Do you people prepare hand written notes ? or at least a list of formulae ?
Just some kind of “the most important” facts, in my case. No time for writing long notes. Milos
hand written flash cards, if you consider those notes
I do summarize the important points in the form of handwritten notes.That way i do not have to read the entire sudy session when i need to revise.I think it all depends on what works best for you.
Mind map rocks, add some colour if you have the time.
Here is how to think about the benefit of taking notes: 1. A summary of the entire body of knowledge in economics and finance (plus other related fields) is made available by the CFAI. 2. A summary of the CFAI material is made available by the test prep folks. 3. A summary of the what you read from the CFAI stuff and from what you read from the test preparation texts (if any) should be prepared by you as straight notes and/or flash cards. That makes sense to me at least.
Different people learn and absorb material differently. Say you had a photographic memory and were able to memorize every page of what you read while you were reading - you do not need notes - you need an indexing mechanism to be able to regurgitate the notes quickly to get you to what you need to answer the question. The way I see preparing notes is: 1. Writing down what you need to know in your own paraphrased style – so you can make best sense of it. 2. Able to link together various portions of different things learnt (what others above have called MAPS) so all material gets coordinated and can coexist. 3. Ability to pull the relevant pieces of material when you need it. 4. As a review tool – you are not going to be able to read and remember 2000 pages of CFAI material + another 1200 pages of Schweser material at any time. 5. Search mechanism… When you solve a question wrong – are you going to then try to determine which book, which volume of the material was the original material on? which other piece of relevant material did it all link to? Those are the areas I found my notes helpful. Yes I made them (notes), also made flash cards for topics which I often forgot. I find the Stalla class notes (which comes with their full package along with the lecture CDs ) has the slides for about 70% of the relevant material on the exam – to which you can add on your extra notes (there’s also space to do that at the bottom of each slide) – also verbiage you need to understand the material (both from the lectures and the text) and that does become a very useful review mechanism towards the end, in addition to of course solving lots of questions. CP
…makes sense, cpk. What do you use for flash cards? Real index cards, like those at the library, or some other types?
bought the blank cards from Staples / office Depot and wrote on them by hand CP
cpk123 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > bought the blank cards from Staples / office Depot > and wrote on them by hand > > > CP Do you think the Schweser LOS cards can be used for this purpose??
I did not make one for every LOS. It was for things I found I needed constant “memorization” kind of retention requirement. Theory kind of stuff, which I am weak at. Also things not related to one particular LOS – but which spanned boundaries, and which were things I felt were critical. I would have written maybe about 40 overall like these. CP
A poster from Jun07 (I think) mentioned using posterboard to remember key ideas. I used that method and it worked. I tacked dry erase poserboards to the walls of my home office and wrote notes, formulas, charts, arrows and anything else that helped me organize and remember things. I started with basic stuff, but once I had that down, I’d erase it and add the more advanced stuff. I reviewed these over and over again. - When I woke up and when I went to bed, especially. It looked ridiculous and may seem ridiculous, but I was passing no matter what it took. I can still visualize everything that was on my walls. I also wrote out notes and flash cards, but they didn’t have the same effect for me. I kept the flashcards in my shirt pocket and looked at those while at work every chance I could. That seems to help a bit.
I read a while back on AF about writing your notes and key points on bristol boards and just hanging them on your wall so whenever your just sitting in your room you always have something to read. I took the advice and it has worked wonders in terms of retention especially before i go to bed or when i wake up (around 30 minutes). Everyone has their own way of studying or retaining info and this is what worked for me. Just my 2 cents.