I wish I knew how to do the economics questions this year. I got 65% with the 40/60/80 rule and failed I have failed L3 Seven (2003-2009) times now and every time, I do poorly on econ. The stuff in the CFAI readings and Schweser notes did not prepare me for the Econ questions on the exam. I wish Economics is off the L3 curriculm , not hidden inside PortManagement. I wonder how many of you get >70 on econ? That D1/(k-g) formula is still a mystery in terms of how to use it on the exam. It is never a plug and chug and I always get it wrong. Any help on Econ will be extremely appreciated. Sh34
I always tend to get good marks on economics, last year’s largely involved Taylor Rule…there wasn’t a great deal outside of that. Your 7 attempts are an inspiration…I do hope you are doing it next year too.
Yeah. Economics gives you good marks. Its mostly the rules that get tested and Taylor rule is one of the easiest.
Sh34, I failed it 4 times, and I think I did ok, but obviously not ok enough to earn a PASS. I got a Band 8. What about you? Do you mind sharing your strategy in the past years and how you think you will do differently next year if you decide to sit for this animal again… http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?13,1046393
First off, I’m very sorry to hear that you have to do this thing again. I’m also sorry about the late response—I managed to pass last year, so the details aren’t so fresh in my mind but I think I can remember enough of how I prepared for the section. The good news is that if you are having trouble with economics, I think it is one area that you can get control of. Conceptually, it is not one of the hardest. I think that the biggest problem with that section is that it is massive—it is one of the largest in terms of the number of pages with the fewest number of points that you can gain. So the real trick is to boil that material down into the key points. So you have to guess what is testable in that twisting mass of material. First, I would pull out any formula in the chapter—they’re all fair game no matter how small or insignificant one seems. I remember I made a list of formulas from that chapter that was one of the largest in the whole curriculum. But it’s obviously a lot more than just formulas. For example, in the 2007 test there was a question that was essentially asking nothing more than how to calculate the EBIT margin for an index. That question was actually a fraction of a large chapter on projecting the value of an index. The meaning of the chapter in its entirety was not tested—just that one point concerning the EBIT margin, so that’s what I mean about trying to boil things down to filter out what are the quantitative things that they can test. There is also a lot of qualitative material there that is very difficult to test and that isn’t where your focus should be. I think you also have to have the details down of the indicators section, even though it’s tedious and unlikely to be tested. I seem to remember that the 2008 test did ask a very specific question about how certain indicators functioned. The section about analysts’ biases is also fair game. That can be tricky because some of the terminology repeats the behavioral section and sometimes the terminology seems to diverge, so I think it is good to try to separate them if possible—that is, don’t answer a question on the economics section with something from the behavioral material. In summary, the readings in Level 3 economics are essentially about strategic allocation (long-term capital market expectations), but that big picture is not what is tested. They will pull out fragments from that big picture, so keep breaking the sprawling material down into smaller, testable units with the formulas as the most basic of those units.
Sh34, i failed level III for third time this year. Rather than feeling like shooting myself like last year for sevond fail, i felt much more calm and reasonable this year. i scored below 50 on Econ and Asset Allocation in AM session, which got me failed, by comparing with another person who had exactly the same mark but scored 50-70 in Econ, and above 70 on AA. although i dont know what happened to the seemingly simple AA qs, for Econ I did remember it was from the EOC in CFA textbooks. I did EOC q only once, relied on Sch Q bank, not very well. This year i will start absolutely early, focusing more on the CFA texts and real passed exams. band 8 got a mark of 62%, 5% away from the general passing mark 67%, it is close, why not try it again?