Effective methods throughout study period?

Hey all,

So I think we can agree that a large part of the difficulty in the CFA exams is retention of material throughout the study periods. The Level 1 exam is in June and I’m probably 15-20% of the way through the reading material. I find myself thinking back to some of the concepts I studied a few weeks ago and fall upon the occasional areas where I feel I forgot something important.

I need your guys’s help, what are some ways you found effective in retaining everything you had studied (formulas and all) throughout the months of studying all the material?

What I’ve come up with: skim over past notes at the end of each week & do a handful of Qbank questions at the end of each week from past material to jog my memory. What do you guys think? What worked for you?

Thanks so much everyone!

practice

I think that much is obvious cheeky Techniques would be nice!

in the qbank… “browse” every question/answer in a SS and then do them all (300-500) in the following days… you will remember the answer to some but the ones you get wrong>> are the hards ones.

towards June you can create exams on qbank with just the ones you got wrong.

My process is slow and tedious, but it has worked flawlessly through levels I and II. First, I haven’t tried any provider struff, just CFAI text. I read a section, look back at the LOS for that section and scribble down a couple sentences that will refresh my memory or give me a necessary formula for that particular LOS. It adds a good 30 minutes to each section, but when the month before the exam arrives I read my entire set of notes and it all comes flooding back to me b/c it’s in my own “code”. Of course it’s been beaten to death, but blue box examples and EOC questions are a must-do.

You can’t retain everything. Don’t even try. If you try to remember every single formula, you will drown in letters, numbers, and sigma signs.

Instead, try to focus on the big picture. Try to conceptually understand what the test is asking you. E.G., CFAI will not ask, “List the nine problems encountered in producing economic forecasts.” (A level 3 LOS). This would not be in keeping with the conceptual nature of the CFA exam.

A more likely question would be to give an illustration of how an analyst might have performed a forecast, then ask how he goofed up. If you focus on the actual list, and don’t focus on the practical application or conceptual understanding, then you are probably doomed. If, however, you generally understand how economic data is gathered, analyzed, and used, then you can probably spot the analyst’s error.

Also, you will find that most formulas are derivatives of other formulas. For example, the basic Gordon Growth Model has four variables–price, dividends, growth of dividends, and expected return. If you know the formula and can do basic algebra, you can solve for any of them. (You don’t need to memorize all four formulas.)

An even easier tactic, since it’s a multiple choice exam, is simply plug answer A into the formula. If it doesn’t work, try B. If it doesn’t work, try C. If it doesn’t work, then you don’t know your formula. Nonetheless, learning only one formula sure beats having to memorize all four formulas.

Aaannd this is why I post questions on this forum. Such a simple technique, but this corresponds well to my study habits and note taking. The only regret I have no is not doing this for the past sections I have already completed. Instead I took notes on everything by Reading. Your method is much more organized and essentially gets straight to the point (the CFAI is trying to make, anyway). I like this. Thank you!

Any more techniques that have proven well to others would be highly appreciated. And yes, I guess now I do acknowledge it’s impossible to retain everything!

I have been reading CFAI text and doing EOC/blue boxes, and then i’ll watch the video from Schweser. I also have my flashcards from last year (one good thing about being a re-taker). I plan on dedicating Sundays to “review days”. Also, I’m working on 2 subjects at a time to get use to juggling loads of material.

  1. I use Evernote and make a separate note/flashcard for every single LOS. Then as I read CFAI text or Schweser, I take notes in the appropriate flashcard.

  2. Figure out which LOS’s are “fundamental” which others build on. Know these LOS’s in your sleep!

  3. To discipline myself to concentrate and study effectively, I use the Pomodoro technique. I’m too lazy to spell out everything so just look at their website for their free ebook: http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/

For problem sets (Level 2), I assign a single 25 minute “Pomodoro” per problem set… 18 minutes MAX to do the questions and the remaining time to review my answers and brush up on any deficiencies I’ve found by doing the problems.

Additional tips:

  • Try not to go a long time without studying. It’s not ideal but if you’re extremely busy, try to budget at least 30 minutes a day MINIMUM for studying. This is for extreme circumstances like if you’re in the hospital (I’m serious.)

  • Start with a subject you find easy/interesting. The exception is Ethics. You don’t have to start with Ethics but try to read that in the beginning along with your interesting subjects AND review it again near the end.

  • Try to distribute your studying fairly evenly between now and end of April. Study 1.5x the weekly amount in May. If you haven’t started yet, solve for X such that the total # of hours you study is between 250 and 300 and your weekly hours between now and April 30 is X, and your weekly hours in May is 1.5X.

I tried looking into the Pomodoro method… holy crap, I am way too unorganized and get way too distracted for this to work. I usually have difficulties coming back after a break to studying again anyway. If I’m not taking advantage of the full time length that my brain is freshest, it’s really hard to keep going say in the evening or so.

I have planned for the amount of hours I need to study each week and a weekly page goal in the CFA curriculum books, but because I’m so caught up in progressing and not falling behind, I feel like I’m neglecting the old material.

I need a way to kind of revisit and not lose the past material I have covered - that’s what’s haunting me the most… that I’m losing a lot of the material I had studied in the past. I mean come May, the material I studied in January?.. yea I don’t think it will be so pretty as far as recall goes. Yikes, that scares me.

I need help with that problem, mostly.

do an entire study session at once in the Qbank… 300-500 questions is a lot, but its great practice.

The author of the Pomodoro technique recommended 25-minute study sessions followed by 5 minute breaks but you are perfectly free to pick whatever length (say between 15 and 60 minutes)…

As for retaining your learning, this is a method that’s been serving me well for my Level 2 studies:

http://paulskirbe.com/blog/2012/11/#.UP9GiGcsKSo

Basically, you want to create your own notes AND summaries. Strive to “compress” everything into these 1-page summaries as much as possible.

I know it’s probably not possible to compress all of the Level 1 curriculum or even a particular topic (esp. FSA) into a 1 page summary but make these using your own words and refer back to them to refresh your memory on any topic you haven’t touched for a while.

(Of course, if you’re pressed for time, then just refer to the CFAI summaries.)