So tomorrow I should be done reading all five Kaplan books twice. Initially, my plan was to go over all curriculum books but ended up switching to Kaplan Schwester as I got nervous with progress (was not sure how much time would it require).
Having that said, I will have about 75 days remaining until the exam. Overall, I feel good after reading all the material and it seems like those concepts are not really that tough. However, there is a loooot of material and it feels like eternity since I started off reading book #1 and before moving to book #2, I reread book #1. So far I managed to log in about 210 hours but still did not really cover problems.
What would be a good plan for the remaining days? Should I do as many problems as possible problems or should I continue reading? What is generally a good idea for cca 2.5 months to go?
You should really make practice problems the focus of your next ~2 months. If you haven’t done any end-of-chapter multiple choice problems yet, I’d get on that right away as well as a Kaplan question bank if you also have access. When you get closer to 35 days out from the exam, start mock exams and shoot to complete upwards of 6 in a timed environment. My two cents, best of luck!
Answer as many questions as you can (and do them “honestly” without referring to notes). It doesn’t matter what the source is (but Kaplan has the best QB IMO). After each question, if needed, review the relevent material.
As you get closer (a month or so out), do longer quizzes/tests. No need for a full mock - better to do two half-day mocks with reviews. Focus on shoring up areas you’re weak in, but let the exam weights be your guide - make sure you’re doing well on the “Big” sections - FRA, Ethics, and QM by themselves count for roughly half (47%) of the exam weight, and throw in Econ, Equity, and Fixed Income, and that’s 77%. In contrast, Alt Investments, Corp, PM, and Derivatives together have only slightly more weight than FRA.
Open book, closed book. Half open. Half Closed. It really doesn’t matter at this stage. Just do them, and then repeat and then repeat and then repeat and then repeat. Come game day you should be in automatic mode, boshing questions out left right and centre.
You are doing great Torsten. If I were you I would do all the blue boxes and EOC practice problems. Get used to the calculator too.
I’m in a much worse spot, still haven’t started Portfolio Mangement, Fixed Income, Equity, Derivatives and Alternative Investments. I guess I’ll have to bust my ass this next 75 days!
What do you think of difficulty questions for Schwester`s concept checkers and challenge questions vs. the real deal? Would scoring over 70% on concept checkers would be indicative of positive outcome on the exam (assuming closed book, honest answers, etc.)?