Hi guys! i have a question for you: what is your study style? do you take notes? highlight? just read?..
At the moment i am taking notes ( that’s how i usually learn) but it seems it will take me forever to finish the readings and i am using schweser!
Thank you very much
Hi Ana,
Well, I write a lot on the books itself instead of taking separate notes. Then some very complex stuff, I stick the writing on my study table. Once a week I keep glancing them till the stuff is IN me completely. Then this keeps changing every 3-4 weeks 
Suggestion is to study the way you have studied from your childhood. Notes are good for you? Then keep taking them. Finding a very good study partner is also good. I had an email study partner and we used to share everything we studied, helped me very very much!
And the most important suggestion - Keep yourself off the net while studying. You tend to go to AF, Facebook, Gmail and what not… These are not studies, you are socializing. Study and then to practise what you studied come to AF answer questions or learn from the questions asked. This is very very important!!!
Starting very early on memorizing formulae is very good. Dont just write the formulae on notes and keep till last month to read. Research has shown that reading something you read three days back, strengthen your understanding and also increases chances of retention. So just dont finish a reading, have a study time table to reread the same portion within 3 days (ideally)!
All the very best!
As Sooraj has rightly said, I don’t believe in making any radical change in your study style unless you want to.
-I read the subject, trying to get it into my brain, and highlight impotant text in the book.
-I make quick notes (by this i mean something like a flow chart/a diagram/table/keywords etc) This helps me retain information visually. I usually read the section and then write the chart from my understanding.
-I then do a fair bit of practise problems, EOCs etc
-To follow up, I stick the notes I made on my wall and just glance through them or quiz through them before bed or as soon as I wake up… which helps me retain.
Good Luck with studying…
This is where I learned most of my study paradigms from in College: http://calnewport.com/blog/category/tips-studying/ I’m not sure if the CFA is the best place to practice changing things up, but that guy is very good because it used to be based on research as well as experience (stopped reading, can’t vouch for most recent posts). In college I was notorious for studying smart, not hard ha ha
First of all, I write down the LOS on top of the page, then I go through the reading and take notes to the topics that fit the LOS. I hate writing into books, so I use a sperate sheet for each set of LOS.
Immediately after finishing a reading I do the questions and add stuff to my notes if necessary. Borrowed some older Schweser books from a friend, so I browse through them whenever I have time.
If possible, I will condense my notes even further, leave out the stuff I know/learned and write some short-notes. So by writing and rewriting my notes I have to deal with the stuff over and over again. That’s the way I learnt at university. 
I have seen many strategies used to study for the CFA exams. It seems as if the most effective are - focusing on understanding key concepts and relationships rather than memorizing material, discussing challenging topics on the Analyst Forum and spending the last 3-6 weeks reviewing materials and doing practice exams.
Hey Ana
Honestly, I’m just reading the material through once and making a few side notes on the textbooks. I can’t be bothered to highlight even. Besides that, the only actual form of ‘writing’ I’m doing is when I do all of the EOC questions (in separate notebook).
Now, what I’m doing may not necessarily work for you. I sorta have a good memory, so I take advantage of that. Do whatever that has worked best for you in the past. If it still seems like you’re going at a slow rate, I suggest skipping any sorts of hardcore-note-making and spending more time solving questions.
Good luck!
My way of studying was simply reading through and if there are example problems, I try and solve them through. I also perform all the EOC questions and highlight any key things in the readings. Making notes is not my style and I can 100% say the best way to study for this test is practice problems so sooner you get through material and onto the practice problems the better. Schweser is already a condensed version of the curriculum, unless the process of writing something out stimulates your memory I don’t see as much point in doing this.
I used to read whenever and wherever. Train journey, spare office hours, weekends etc. My first time reading was quite ‘light’. And mostly using PDF’s online. The problem with rigorous methods like - underlining, making sticky-notes, marking on the book etc - it sounds interesting at first, but it slows down reading drastically. It only works for the first few pages or chapters at best. You cant cover the huge huge quantity of material that is out there. So relax. Read through entire material at a decent pace. You don’t need to highligh important (what you perceive is important) nor you need to make cross-references.
You second round of reading can be more serious. This again, you can do sovling problems/concept checkers etc. I didn’t do anything more than this. Listen, study friend is ok, but don’t rely on them too much. I had 5 roomies when I did Level 1. But my Level 3 i was all alone. Many level 1ers are not serious about CFA program. Personally I am not a big fan of study groups. AF is good enough for me. 1 to 1 tagging is a hassle to me.
i am doing it the hard way, i failed in june for being reckless, now i am taking notes anwering each loss. i have word docs with every LOS anwered on it. I am half way through now, remaining: econ, quant, ethics and derivatives.
Hope to finish my notes end september and start doing mock exams.
Thats how am learning, the hard way for sure, coz there is no way am failing this again!
I learn by doing, so for readings the only writing I do of any sort is to work through the blue boxes, and then I usually fill out a 4x6 sticky note with any formula’s/key facts for that LOS. Then its alllllll practice problems!