Is anyone else starting to get excited? Crunch time is now and I notice my studying finally starting to pay off.
I’m excited about it being over 
But yeah, I know what you mean. Still not at the level I want it to be, obviously, but I finally feel like my brain is retaining some of the material…
Exactly, now I just need to a find a job that requires/ allows me to utilize all of this stuff so I can really understand it all in a real life setting… I’m going through FSA for a second time and it all seems to much clearer and easier to understand, it’s very gratifying. Now if I can get the same to happen with quant I will be very pleased.
FSA is becoming better now? Really? I need to go over it again, but I’m at a point where I’ve gone over 90% of the material, but it still feels like I have a weak understanding of everything… Do you guys know what I mean? I guess I will need to go over it…over everything…about 6 times!!
I felt that way at first but then I realized that I was just being really hard on myself because it’s so important to me to pass. Once I relaxed I started absorbing the material a lot more easily and now I find myself able to apply the concepts and understand them.
i am feeling pretty comfortable with most of FSA but REALLY uncomfortable with certain bits of it (eg taxes). i think the only way i will get through those parts is to cram them right up until exam day – i can get to a stage where i can get most of the questions right after reviewing the material, but i just can’t retain it very well…
As I’m sure you’ve heard many people say- the key is to learn it the material, not memorize it. I have found some really good study guides- including a 4 sheet print out of all the differences between GAAP and IFRS that helped me a lot. I also made flash cards of all the FSA ratios (liquidity, solvency, profitability, etc) and memorized those. Knowing those ratios has helped me be able to piece together a lot of pertinent questions. Let’s keep spit balling, it’s really helpful.
snap – i have FSA flashcards too - total lifesaver and i’m pretty confident i will be able to nail most of the questions involving ratios. if there’s a link online to your GAAP/IFRS differences, that would be awesome. agree with you on learning vs memorizing. however on tax bases, i’m going down the ‘memorizing’ route because i just don’t get it! but that’s one of the only topics in the whole curriculum that i feel that way about, so i figure that’s not a disaster…
I did Taxes from Elan and got about 60% CFAI EOC questions correct 
… Am quite unsure of a lot of things there… but will just go with 60% taxes… I figure if I work on others properly, it wouldn’t matter very much… What about Reading 40,41 and 42? they are highly theory oriented… Are you guys stressing on those?
I’m not sure which readings 40, 41, and 42 are… Specify and maybe we can discuss them and clarify for the both of us if I’m having trouble w/ them also… Do either of you feel you have a particular niche ( quant, econ., etc.)? We can use this thread as a study forum to help eachother with our weaknesses if are strengths are complimentary…
They are the Red Flags, Accounting Shenanigans, FSA - Applications readings… a lot of theory to read… not much logic to understand, most of it is just boring theory… I don’t know how much of it we are expected to ‘memorize’ I still haven’t looked at Ethics and Book 6, but I am fine with most of the other stuff if I have my book in hand (which I wont during the exam, I know but I can try to clear any doubts you may have… ) I do have some of my own doubts too, and if you are willing, we can look at them in this thread…
Oh yeah, compared to all the other pertinent material on FSA I think the red flags and shenangians sections are trivial. I think my weak area is economics. I can’t think of any specifics off the top of my head right now, but I know that’s the book I went through the slowest and had the most questions about. You’re totally right though about those sections you referenced- total memorization, don’t really need to understand it, just regurgitate it on the test