i am taking level 1 in dec, and i’m starting to get worried b/c there are sooo many formula’s so far and i’m wondering if i should be memorizing all these formual’s or know how to calculate on a calculator?? what i mean is, if someone gave you an example problem regarding say 10 different sets of returns, and standard deviation, and wanted to know the frequency, relatively frequency, cumulate frequency, and separate into 5 equal periods…would you all write it out, like in the text, or is there a shortcut i should know and work on the calculator??? i’m starting to feel overwhelmed…
It’s freaking June and you are feeling overwhelmed? C’mon. Don’t worry about memorizing anything for months. Try to understand things, keep reading and doing problems and you will find that you don’t have to memorize much at all. Sometime around Halloween you can begin thinking about memorizing.
the only thing i wish i would have memorized was ethics…
Try to understand the formulas and do problems first, then it will be MUCH easier to memorize since you will have some experience with what you are trying to memorize.
Save “overwhelming” for the month before the exam :). As you start doing questions (qbank/passmaster), you’ll automatically remember all the formulas. Schweser quick sheet is very handy for revising formulas.
right now i find myself reviewing different problems in the text again and again to really sink them in my head, but i’m wondering if i would be better to come back to them later, or review at work etc…i am right now studying Statistical Concepts and Market Returns and haven’t purchased Schweser yet, but plan to as a supplement in a few months. it sounds like u all say i should just keep reading and tie it all together w/ memorization later?
formulas stick after a while of practicing. you may not even have to explicitly memorize them. most of them should become natural after you’ve studied for several months. a lot of times you also can “derive” the formula on the spot through logical reasoning and understanding of the underlying concept. as others have mentioned, i recommend just studying for now and do questions along the way. when the test date comes closer, you can set out to memorize those 20 or so formulas that may still be eluding you.
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Try and understand the formulas then you won’t have to memorize them.
Honestly for most of the quant stuff I just tried to understand it conceptually while studying and ignored the formulas. Then in my last week of review I went back to pound them into my brain. My logic was that I would forget the formulas in 6 months and need to review them anyway, so why bother trying to memorize them during your 3rd week of studying?
IMO, you need a working knowledge of all of this stuff if you want to pass comfortably. you need to have the formulas memorized b/c you’re done practice problems, thought about the formulas, and you understand what they are asking for as well as the relationship between all of the variables and what changing one of the variables means to the outcome. i’m not an english major; that could be a run on sentence.