^ That’s the dumbest logic I ever heard.
I think effreyj means that if you try to learn everything, including some smaller areas that really aren’t likely to be tested, or just have one question, you may be better off spending that time ensuring you know the larger ones that have a larger percentage of the test. All things being equal, if you had infinite time to study and you could learn everything, of course you will do better than spending less time focusing only on large areas.
exactly!
this continues to bother me. There is no set amount of study time that is needed to pass this exam. I know people who have studdied for one month and passed the exam and others who have put in almost 8 months only to find out they failed. Having a set time each day is the WORST idea, rather work on a topic until you finish that EOC. Set an amount of material you want to learn that day,
I put ~325 hours in studying for level 1. Although I am fairly confident I passed, I now realize how those little “details” can come back to bite you. I think flashcards would be a great remedy for this problem (and I was 100% anti-flashcards pre-CFA).
Flashcards helped me for several formuals that aren’t necessarily intuitive (i.e. that you can’t puzzle out and derive during test time if you didn’t remember it). The act of making the flash cards is also a good tool. I wrote small notes about formulas on my flashcards as well so that every time I needed to look at the answer, I’d see the note. If you do this, keep the notes short since otherwise it defeats the purpose of the flash card.
It’s just not that hard to measure your progress and know how much time to put in. If you are taking the Schweser tests and scoring in the 70% range, you are done studying. You will pass the exam. If you have studied for 700 hours and you are getting 55% on the Schweser tests, you need to study more (or find something more productive to do with yuor time).
whatever it takes, “just do it”
Hi guys, I’ve applied a lot of what you’ve told me, so I thought I’d give you a bit of feedback: 1. I’m not using time in my progress calculation anymore. Instead, I allow myself an amount of days in which I have to finish a study session. So far, working 2 hours every morning before work has allowed me to do that and review the previous SS, which is a great morale booster. 2. The study session breakdown in my original post was actually wrong. After updating it, I find I have a lot more time to do each subject. 3. I started using the lag tip, but I don’t anymore: I’d rather wrap up a study session with all the end of chapter questions, and then drill it with questions on Schweser’s Qbank. 4. So far, this method has allowed me to feel more confident about my ability to finish the program by the end of april, to score a Qbank average of 80% on the study sessions I finished so far, and even to get some days off on weekends. So thank you very much for all of your input, it was extremely valuable. I’ll keep you up to date!