Going through EOC problems now…
Can anyone provide insight as to the best way to attack an item set?
Read entire passage first then anwser questions?
Read questions first then read passage?
Combo of both?
I generally advise my candidates to read the questions first, then turn to the vignette, reading it with a focus toward gleaning the information needed for each question. For me, at least, that’s the best approach.
Others suggest reading the vignette (fully) first, still others, skimming the vignette. Reasonable people can disagree on the best approach.
Thank you, I will use your suggestion. Appreciate it Magician
My pleasure.
Read the first question (and maybe the second) and start reading the case. When you’re ready to answer the 1st question, stop and answer it, read the next question, then continue reading the case till you get the answer to the 2nd… rinse and repeat.
I skim the passage first, underlining any key/relevent info. Some may say, how can you do that if you haven’t read the questions? If you know the material well enough, you can tell. Then I look at questions. Sometimes it requires a reread but that’s okay. I think if you do questions first, you can become subject to anchoring. I’m less susceptible if I read essay first.
Generally (but not always) each section (usually a paragraph) relates to a specific question and then the next section will relate to the next question, and so on.
Personally I wouldn’t advise reading the whole vignette at once, since they’ve set up the questions and sections within the vignette for ease in jumping back and forth.
See?
Haha, try all the above-said approaces and see what works best for you.
Just curious Mr. Providence.
What was your L1 matrix?
All topics > 70
except econ and quant 50-70
ok.
i just admire the vigor and how early you have started prepping for L2 .
Thanks blinx
I think it’s important to circle the names and their titles/ relationships, especially in ethics, because it makes a difference.
For other questions, definitely circle US GAAP or IFRS, and the functional currency, etc.
Then i would probably go through the passage first before questions, because once you have read the questions you are only looking for the key words and you may be tempted to skip the first paragraph or some information which may or may not affect your answers.
Since L2 is not such a big time crunch i wouldn’t mind reading the vignette first, read the question and re-read the vignette for answer.
NANA
read qns first then do accordingly
for example 6 qns, read the first 2 qns…then read the vignette…normally the question n info provided is corresponding i.e.1st 2 questions can be answered with info from the first 2 para of the vignette or first section of the vignette…BUT may vary…
A lot of people suggest reading the questions first but it doesn’t really work for me, because when i read the questions without knowing the story and the characters, the questions don’t really make sense to me, i will end up reading the vignettes and re-read the questions anyway.
It’s up to the person i suppose, for me, i like to read the vigette first just to see what kind of question it is, and what are the likely topics they are going to ask, circle all the incorrect statements made by the characters and understand the relationships between the people.
Then when i read the questions i immediately know which section to look for and if they have mentioned the person in more than one places. i think it’s easier to answer questions this way… 
@NANA
i used to do it ur way. but gave up. why? sometimes the no. of people and the company name is too much to track. end up i have to keep referring back and forth to know who and what company is related to the question. figured that it will be easier to just read the qns and then the info
btw, can u give ur comments in this thread http://www.analystforum.com/forums/cfa-forums/cfa-level-iii-forum/91324741
thanks!
I found that maybe 2 questons out of the 6 you can get very quickly so I usually tackle those easy ones first. Find the easy questions and then read the related material in the problem. Then go through and read the whole item set and tackle the other 4 questions. But you should always skim the questions immediately so you can read with a focus and not waste time.
My personal experience on L2 item sets: always read the questions first and go back to the passage to find the answers EXCEPT ethics.
By using this strategy, I finished this year’s AM session within 2 hours and PM session within 2 hour and 20 minutes.
(First attempt on L2 and passed)