I’m bored today, but thought I would tell you all something I did while preparing for L2 that I am convinced pushed me over the line and helped me pass this last June. Let me preface this by saying that this is what worked for ME, and that you may not learn this way, and it may seem like a colossal waste of time to a lot of folks, but here it goes. I did the normal prep using Schweser - took a few months, was in a study course, etc. About 5 weeks before the test, I was getting in the low 60s on all my practice exams, but I was noticing that there were horrible inconsistencies in my scores. Some tests, I would destroy FSA, and then on the next one, I would have similar vignettes as the first test and would get 1/6 right. I felt this about almost all the material and that I just had too many holes. So one Saturday, I started making my own Secret Sauce. Here is how I did it: 1. I started with the first Schweser book, and reread all of Schweser in the period of 10 days. It took a long time and was frustrating, but I did it 2. As I went, I would take very intricate notes on a legal pad, to the extent that I would almost rewrite the most important parts of Schweser in my own language. And I took notes on EVERYTHING. I didnt skip sections thinking I knew that cold, or that it would never show up, etc. I read every word and wrote something down about virtually everything. 3. As I finished a topic, the next night I would sit down at the computer and type up my notes. This took on average 1.5 hours. I would even type the formulas and put page nubers in if it was a particularly cumbersome section 4. By the end of 8 days, I had reread Schweser and had about 30 pages of typed notes. But wait, there is more. 5. I then went through and marked all the sections that there is a general consensus show up more often than not - things like Porter’s 5, Industry Analysis, etc. I then went to the CFAI books, read those sections, typed those notes, and inserted them into my others. 6. By the end, I had a 50 page word document that I printed off and took with me EVERYWHERE for the final 2-3 weeks before the exam. I could read this in about 45 minutes. By the test day, I had torn out pages that I was having still having trouble with and was only carrying around 15 pages or so. The rest I knew COLD. And by the end, I had made a more detailed version of Secret Sauce that was more helpful to me and could have saved me $100 if I hadn’t already bought it. It was a painful process, and I would have never had time to do it if I hadn’t been so regimented with my study schedule. It made for a lot of late nights, and I certainly wouldnt substitute this for time you could be doing practice questions if you are strapped for time. But at the end of this 2 week period, I had reread the Schweser notes, written out everything, AND typed everything and really solidified a lot of material in my mind. Worked for me. Hope it helps someone else. I got a lot out of this board so this is me trying to give back.
nice job, foxy. were you working full time?
thank you.
Hey budfox427! would u plz give m ur typed notes … Address is daze_naz@yahoo.com. Thnx in advance for ur amicable nature
daj224 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > nice job, foxy. were you working full time? yeah. and had a baby in Feb.
Happyfly Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hey budfox427! would u plz give m ur typed notes > … Address is daze_naz@yahoo.com. Thnx in advance > for ur amicable nature I would, but I trashed them
That is a great strategy budfox an one that I also used for Level I. For level II I have actually started the detailed note taking process early and am basing my notes completely off of the CFAI material. I will then use Schweser to supplement my notes in areas that I wasn’t very comfortable in and for the last couple of months, I will focus my studying around the notes that I have taken. As you have pointed out, this is very time consuming, but the way I look at it is that it is way less time consuming than spending an additional year to pass Level II! best, TheChad
budfox427 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > daj224 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > nice job, foxy. were you working full time? > > > yeah. and had a baby in Feb. well, i got to give props where they are due - NICE job.
I took notes for Level I. Spent a lot of time and never used them. Didn’t bother taking notes for Level II and used Secret Sauce. I am glad taking notes worked for you but it didn’t work for me.
the very fact that you take the time to write notes implies that somehow, an indelible mark is being made somewhere in the brain which you dont realize that its there, but it sure does show up sometimes under those stressful exam conditions when you least expect it to. I too made notes in L2 but didnt have much time to re-read and memorize them, but I am sure it helped out in the end. The brain works differently when you read something versus when you write something. my 2 cents.
Most people use a highlighter to mark important sections. Bud’s method is much more active. That’s why it worked. Making notes engages more of your attention that merely reading and marking. So, you get far better retention even if you don’t review them. I take an intermediate approach - I make tons of margin notes on the curriculum. If I have time, I’ll then put them on a legal pad. But there’s a lot of empirical evidence (I can;t site it, but I have read it) that the mere act of making some type of notes (and maybe rewriting/organizing them a day or so later significantly improves retention).
FWIW, I just tore out & stapled together the chapter summaries (Schweser), which provides slightly better coverage than the Secret Sauce book.
you didn’t save the word document?? puhhlease… Why don’t you just say you aren’t interested in sharing the work… because if you were interested… I definitely would want you to send me a copy
JasonU Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > you didn’t save the word document?? puhhlease… > > Why don’t you just say you aren’t interested in > sharing the work… because if you were > interested… I definitely would want you to send > me a copy I didn’t feel like typing the whole thing out, so I just said I trashed them. In reality, they were on my work computer and I forgot to save them to the network drive. IT had to reformat my hard drive and reinstall everything because somehow I got a pretty nasty computer virus at work. It was neat - it was the day results were released and I was frantically trying to get someone else to let me use their comp for a while. Sorry. If I had them, I would be more than happy to share. Sharing the work would kind of defeat the excercise anyway, no?