For most out there my assumption is that you read through the readings from CFAi and/or a third party provider, do some review of major concepts, and then tackle practice exams. In addition to those steps I have historically taken notes as I read which I felt kept me more engaged in the material but in the end resulted in a lot of legal pads and folders filled with notes that I rarely if ever referred to in my review except out of regret for having spent the time taking notes at all. Also, having failed level three band 8 last year due mainly to poor performance on the essays my question is two fold: 1) Do you take notes in a separate notebook? Do you use them in your review? I’m considering taking notes on the schweser flashcards and in the margin of the books, has that worked for anyone? 2) If your a re-taker who did well on the essays: What if anything did you do differently to prepare? If your a first timer: What do you think you’ll try and do to address the essay portion of the exam? What say ye?
To begin with, I am following the same process that I used with Level 1 and 2, concentrating on understanding the subject matter with repetitive reviews on areas I feel less confident. Additionally, I am planning to spend some time to review closely, the EOC essay answers related to IPS, Behavioral Finance, Alternatives, Portfolio Management, etc… for essay sections. I plan to review the key terms multiple times to keep them on the top of my mind for essay answers. I like to know other ideas that can help L3 prep.
I am a retaker as well and have historically taken notes while I read - same as you. While I don’t go back and read my notes, I do believe they help me to stay engaged in the material and help me to bew able to recall it later. I also create “cheat sheets” in excel for main topics in each study session. These I will actually use to refresh concepts as opposed to having to look them up in the texts. I think what did me in on last years test was that I thought I was good in a particular area, and so I didn’t study similar areas very hard. For example - I knew the individual IPS section really well, but then I didn’t study enough for the institutional IPS’s. I thought they would be similar, but it turns out creating an IPS for an institutional investor is very different from an individual IPS. This year I am creating IPS “cheat sheets” to help me study the nuances between all different types of investors. also I plan to answer question after question after question to prep. everything from the blue boxes to EOC’s to practice exams - I plan to do them all, multiple times. I’m going to answer questions until I puke! and then do them all over again. I plan to memorize the type, and format of questions so that they are easily identifyable on the test and eliminate time wasted on deciphering meaning of questions on test day. That’s my plan, I’ll let you know how it works later.