I haven’t completed corporate finance and derivatives section yet. Currently i am revising the whole topics and FRA would be completed tomorrow along with EOCs of FRA. I haven’t attempted a single Mock exam yet and also not attempted a single question from Schweser Qbank.
I know you would be thinking what was I doing this whole time as i haven’t completed anything , I started studying in the beginning of September but 5-10 days wasted due to passport registration and other issues.
Right now i am crying from inside and outside as i have paid the late fee for December 2015 attempt (which equals 1660 USD), plus huge expectaions of my family and friends. My whole family thinks i would pass seeing me doing hardwork but deep inside i know i would fail as i haven’t prepared well. I don 't want to fail this attempt there is too much pressure and expectations on me, i am willing to do anything for the next 20 days until exam, be it studying 20 hours. Seeing other guys having completed Mocks and a lot of practice under their belt i feel even more dejected.
This is fact that your preparation is not up to the mark, as per the study plan discussed by you, but still i recommend not to loose hopes. Needless to mention CFA exam is 3rd thoughest exams around the world, as per financial times survey 2015, you need to put your all out efforts in order to compete more than 100 thousands candidates will appear in the exam. I still believe you can get bang for the buck, if you plan accurately so far.
I think you should utilize your maximum time whic is still remaining try to Just glimpse over the remaining topics or readings because you have’nt enough time to read them in detail. Subsequently, try to opt mock exam of CFA institute and Scheweser Qbank. These are the only weapons left with you.
I DEFINITLY know how you feel. With 3 weeks to go when I took the June exam, I knew my chances were slim when I started actually testing my knowledge with the mocks. It was the worst feeling… probably one of the hardest things I ever had to deal with. (LOTS of tears!) I had worked incredibly hard …so to see I would most likely not get the reward of passing was so devastating! I am not trying to discourage you. It was a diffucult situation for me becasue I had not ever taken accounting, economics, or ANYTHING. I was learning it all from scratch and trying to make it stick. I bet you have an advantage right there. Also, I wanted to say… I made a ton of progress in those last 3 weeks. You will too. I ended up getting “band 8” (when you don’t pass, they rank you agaist all the others that didn’t… yea, they know we are that anal!). So really, considering my situation, I probably did even better than I should have. (with 3 weeks to the test, I still didn’t know how to do cash flows on my calculator!) … every day, study as hard as you can! Anyway, you too will make a lot of progress in the next 3 weeks. You too will do better than you think. My problem was the fact that all of that infromation was stuff I had learned for the first time in the last 6 months. I bet for you, some of it is review of sorts. Pieces will start to fall together.
really hit the ethics and accounting hard because those sections are so big. you can probably get a couple <50% on the smaller sections and still pass.
I scored a 40% on the CFAI mock the weekend before the actual exam and I passed. I panicked after I saw my score and spent the week just drilling questions from the Schweser Mocks. I would do all the Econ questions from an exam, review, do Econ questions from another exam, review, so on and so forth, then do the Quant, FSA, Equity etc etc. Just flat out drill those questions till you can’t do it anymore. What I found was that Schweser exam Q’s were harder than the real thinig.
Now that i think about it, I’ve never actually passed a mock exam.
Why would you ever think such a silly thing. You can still do this. You have 3 weeks. I don’t know your work situation but lets assume you get home from work around 6. You can get 4-5 hours of studying a night and 10+ on Saturday and Sunday. So thats 40-45 a week for 120-135 hours now until test.
Start hitting those mocks now. You will learn 5x as much as reading and 2x as much as EOCs. After you take one, look at your mistakes. Fix. And repeat.
Focus all your time on heavy weighted sections and any weak areas you think you can clean up rather quickly.
Keep your chin up. You still control your destinity up until your pencil goes down on test day.
This is great motivation. I knew I wasnt the only person scoring that low. Im currently around 30-38%. But I “put in the work”, literally do/ doing 7 hours a day, 6 days a week.
A week ago a friend of mine was in a similar situation as you. He skimmed through the remaining topics (Eco and Hypothesis for him) and gave 2 mocks to find out where he stands. He got approx 45%. But instead of being disheartened he got pumped up and decided he is going to give his best shot in passing this exam. He gave up all distractions: Cell phone, TV and laptop. He studies for 12-14 hours daily. His strategy involves doing tons of questions along with spending couple of hours going over topics/concepts in which he thinks he is weak. He plans to do 4 more mocks before the exam. I find this strategy to be simple and hopefully effective. Stop discouraging yourself, you can never ‘know’ if you will pass or fail, hence thinking stuff like this is just a waste of time. Given the time frame I would suggest you should put in as many hours as you can and give it your best. Hope this helps.
I didn’t take a single mock exam for Level I or II. I finished studying the week of the exam and had a baby the week of the exam. Stop crying and posting here and read your material. Don’t let your family think you’re a loser and pass the test.
I have been in your exact frame of mind. Do not lose hope. Many fail CFA because they get too worried and freeze in the days approaching the test. You need to stop questioning yourself and just keep hitting the books.
Rely only on Scheweser, keep reading the summaries and do the scheweser end of chapter questions. You can pass level 1 with this.
Spend 60% of the time on new topics and the rest to revise the rest.
You have almost 19 days. 19X20 is 380 hours!! The recommended is only 300 hrs.
You have a great chance to pass. Don’t bog yourself down.
you can listen to video lectures at 3X speed , thereby increasing ur chance to pass with ease. do mock tests n examples from curricullum, they are as important as kaplan . ALL DA BEST
You are a lot better off than some of hte people I have seen posting on here & reddit dude. There is a LOT of overlap on corp that you will have seen in quant/FI/Equity its just some modified concepts.
If you buckle down I dont think you are screwed at all, not in the best shape but certainly passable!
Screw the Qbank, I would do a mock right now and see how you do, get a gauge of where you are and what work you need to do. You have to take inventory and then make a game plan.
brother, i think you can do CF and derivates in 2 days . if u have a finance backgroud … derivates might be bit difficult ( ignore if u find trouble, as no time left) my advice is just focus on cfa topic based mocks, mocks exams, n cfa mock. dont get hung up if you dont know many of question , try to understand once you finish all. what you have done till yet … do that perfectly like FRA and others. hope u do well in exam wish u the luck (Y)
wish u the luck (Y)