OK so it is still pretty early. But I am getting set to map out a strategy to prepare for this final beast. For each level so far I have had a two part approach, 1.) Content, and 2.) Intangibles. i.e., LI keys to success for me were: 1.) Content - know Ethics and FSA cold, and 2.) Intangibles - learn to remain calm, manage my time, and accept the fact that there would be some questions that I just wasn’t going to get right, so don’t sweat it, just move on. For LII it was: 1.) Content - hit FSA and Equity hard and shoot for 80+s there, and 2.) Intangibles - get comfortable with the vignette format, speed, reading comp, etc. For LIII? 1.) Content - I am reading the text now and at this stage I do not see a section that stands out like LI FSA or LII Equity as a distinct key to success, IPS?.. any thoughts here? 2.) Intangibles - learn how to score well on the morning section. I think last years scores implied that people who scored > ave on the morning session passed. It looked like most AFers scored well on the PM, pass or fail. So how do you best prepare to succeed in the AM and set yourself apart? Old exams? Time management? Learning the lingo and keywords to read the q’s and to format your a’s? What is your plan for LIII? Any thoughts on this plan of attack? or how to improve it?
My plan is to wait and see yours then hit ctrl-c. Seriously, I am going to sit down soon and map it out too. I still have a lot of reading to do, but I need to boil it down to how many pages I have to get done a day. I think I will probably develop my plan based on how my first read goes, but I am open to anything. I would love to hear from those that had good plans/made mistakes last year.
LIII is a big picture. Everything is interconnected, at the end, ask yourself how you are connect all the piece together. That was my game plan.
The IPS questions are the most significant. They’re worth the most points and you know they will be on the exam, so they are absolutely worth every minute of study time you put into them. (Unlike Macro Attribution, a seemingly important thing that wasn’t on the 2008 exam, and reverse cash and carry arbitrage with leaseable commodity futures, which seemed minor but was on the exam.) I struggled in the second half of the morning session, but I got 70+ on the two IPS questions and that might have been the difference in my passing. I think you should just be building the base now, but maybe in April, when you start to review in earnest, you should do the morning exams from 2005-08 (which will all soon be online, with the guideline answers) and really examine how the IPS questions are asked and answered.
Buy Schweser > Start in late January early Feb > Work like a slave > Hope.
I failed last year and got murdered on the morning session. Afternoon was fine but not great. I think it’s very important to write out your answers when practicing the morning session. Write the answers and then compare them to the guideline answers. The morning session is tough and part of this is trying to get marks by writing quick concise answers and not waffling (wastes time and possible points). I think this post is a good example of an inability to get a simple point across, I still have work to do.
Just read, solve QBank questions, read again, try sample exams, again - read, read, questions, exams, read, read, exams, read, read, questions…