My Piece of Advice on Killing L3 AM Essay

[will660]

@S2000magician

The key to the morning session, in my humble opinion, is this:

Answer the question they ask.

No more, no less.

Amen to that.

There are some videos from the various providers about exactly how to do that, and to me, that’s the most value item that the 3rd party study materials provide.

[hashtag]

@blackscholesvol

One thing that stuck in my mind from a previous CFA 3 test taker was the following :

"DO NOT GET HUNG UP ON A QUESTION. THIS IS A ROOKIE MISTAKE. MOVE ON"

During the test, I got stuck on a few questions and I moved on and was able to knock out the other questions. This was the best advice EVER!!!. Remember, you dont have to be perfect. You just have to accumulate sufficient points.

#URWelcome

[JeffO15]

I agree about time management. You may know everything but if you don’t finish with enough time, it doesn’t matter. My strategy was if I didn’t know the answer immediately looking at a question and couldn’t answer it in the time alloted I just skipped it. If you do this you will not run out of time and will have time to come back and finish the blank questions.

[The_Borg]

Everyone learns in different ways. Saying you should not use Schweser and use only CFAI text doesn’t work for everyone. In level I, I decided at first to use CFAI text only and after about a month or so, I realised that the text book was just far too much for my mind to retain the amount I was reading. I had to switch to Schweser. If had stuck to just CFAI, I honestly believe I would not have passed Level I and go on to pass level II and III using a similar strategy.

[Mikewinner]

It takes discipline…repeating the routine creates discipline…this creates a probability of killing the creativity but increase the chances of passing the formatted exam…

bottom line there are rules if you follow can take you to a pass but it may not work for you…

so one is really lucky if he/she can feel time under stress condition and still go on…

that brings me to fight or flight condition so you better fight even if that means drop the qstn and move on to the next, guess hashgag holds the copy rights… ))

Ps: keep on reading the forum, most of the time it is good…like L3 pass rate ))

[Put_Option]

@S2000magician

The key to the morning session, in my humble opinion, is this:

Answer the question they ask.

No more, no less.

This. This right here.

But OP makes some really great points. Specifically around patterns/structure aka understanding the test.

[Katyusha77]

YmsCFA what did you do differently this time in your prep? Please share - I really think it could help me. I was band 9 with AM: 6/2/2 and PM: 1/5/3. Thanks.

[analystDC]

@TakeiFinale and @ 2J2017, where did you get the CFA papers back to 2008 if they only post the last 3 years on the website? Also, what method did you use to categorize by topic area? Finally, did you exclude questions covering material no longer in the curriculum?

[Grand_canyon]

Actually, I think it really does go both ways. The morning of Results Day I scanned through the 100s of matrix posts to confirm that there were other Passes with matrices similar to mine or worse. One of the saddest Fails I saw was someone who had almost all >70s in AM but almost all fails in PM. That would be rough - to put in the level of work needed to do so well on the Essays but still receive a Fail. I would never tell an L3 candidate to not worry about PM just because we’ve all passed L2.

[TakeiFinale]

@analystDC

@TakeiFinale and @ 2J2017, where did you get the CFA papers back to 2008 if they only post the last 3 years on the website? Also, what method did you use to categorize by topic area? Finally, did you exclude questions covering material no longer in the curriculum?

On the first page of AM papers, there’s a table of content telling you which topic each question is related to. For questions covering obsolete material, just ignore them. WRT previous papers, you can leave me a message with your email and I can send them to you.

[abashtavy]

He just can’t stop boasting

[schuilnaam]

If you want to pass with a matrix with equal rarity then a unicorn use CFAI I for sure.

[SJ2017]

@analystDC

@TakeiFinale and @ 2J2017, where did you get the CFA papers back to 2008 if they only post the last 3 years on the website? Also, what method did you use to categorize by topic area? Finally, did you exclude questions covering material no longer in the curriculum?

Someone posted a link on AF to a Google drive download back to like 2005. I only did back to 2012 I think, but I didnt exclude anything because I felt like the way the want questions answered was the same even if something wasn’t directly covered anymore.

[CFAilure]

The most important thing is knowing the command words. If you know them - in the meaning CFAI gives to them - you can answer their question, as S2000magician said. Command word is the key you are going to provide them with the answer in the right direction.

[Mark666]

@TakeiFinale

@Mark666

My advice: Forget about the morning; just aim for 45% to 50%. Focus on acing the afternoon.

Please don’t mislead the new candidates. This is too dangerous IMO.

Mate I am not misleading. That’s how I did it and I passed on the first try. I am not saying not to practice the morning. I did do 4 AM mocks but the morning can be so random that I don’t think it is good to allocate most of the time on this.

[PassedMyCFAexam]

@TakeiFinale

3/3er here and passed 2017 L3 with AM 0/2/8 and PM 0/1/8 on first attempt, here’s my personal method to crush AM essay. When you have tried several past AM papers under real exam situation and still don’t feel good, you may try to follow this.

Take a notebook, and practice AM problems by topic. For example one day you may want to practice intensely with only problems on Individual Portfolio Management from past exams, and then summarize how this type of problems may be asked in the exam and the standard answer patterns. Say you are asked to judge the risk tolerance of a foundation and give three reasons, you should immediately come up with several standard patterns in your mind (longer/shorter horizon, low/high spending rate, etc) and fit them with the information given. Whenever you feel you are “creating” something rather than “following” a pattern to answer a question, you are probably going wrong and may want to review that part again.

As for the previous AM exams, I don’t think you need to go back too far. I used AM papers from the past 9 years (2008-2016), and IMO papers earlier than that have too many obsolete questions.

Golden rule:

1 . In L3 essay part there’s always a template to follow almost for every type of problems, and guideline answers to past AM papers and EOC teach you exactly those templates.

2. Patterns should not be complicated , I know some people like to write a lot on what they know, but it’s not wise. The time allocated to each question is deliberately designed by CFA Institute, e.g. for a 6 min question asking for 3 reasons you should feel comfortable to write 3 bullet points with 3 sentences within 5 minutes.

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Some tips: (I’ll keep updating whenever I have something in mind)

1. When answering the questions during the exam, I always underlined or circled the key number/word/phrase in my answer, it doesn’t even take a second but I think it makes a huge difference for those who are not confident with their handwriting because the grader will see what you want to express at the first skim and grab your idea.

For example: (A question from 2017 L3, I can’t remember exactly though)

Q: Please choose the most suitable bond portfolio and give the reason why.

My Answer: Portfolio X, because it has the widest Duration range.

2. About time management: personally I would put a digital watch on the desk (easier to read the time) and write down the time by which I was expected to finish before starting to answer each question. Say at 9:00 you begin to take a mock and the first question is allocated with 20 minutes, then write down 9:20, it only takes less than 2 seconds. Then after finishing each sub-part , take a glance at the watch (really only takes half a second) to see if you are ahead or behind. Say the first sub-part is given 4 minutes, then you should finish it before 9:04. The bottom line is: never, never, never let yourself fall behind the time, not even a single minute. If for any sub-part you feel you can’t conquor it within the allocated time, move to the next one without any hesitation. Believe me, for a sub-part if you don’t have any clue about what to put down in 1 minute, you’ll still be lost after 5 minutes; if you do have something in mind but feel it takes much longer than the allocated time to write down, you are probably not in the right direction either. The strategy here is that if you strictly stick to the rule that you never exceed the time given, you will probably end up with some minutes left when you finish all the AM questions , because 1) it doesn’t take a long time to give up on a sub-part once you know you can’t come up with an answer now and 2) you are likely to finish the questions you know well half to one minute prior to the expected time, and this “saved time” will accumulate as you go on. Then you can go back to work on those sub-parts you didn’t manage to solve - with no further burden - and you may be able to figure them out now with less pressure. The key idea is : Don’t let the questions you don’t know waste your time and ruin your performance on those you know, make sure you have enough time to answer the questions you can master and get as many points as possible from them. For me I always cleared AM part on mocks with about 10 to 15 minutes left and 2-4 sub-parts unanswered, and then I could try to figure out those sub-parts or, if eventually I didn’t have a clue, write some nonsense, which still wouldn’t matter that much.

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My thought on prep materials:

Regarding the materials: this is only my personal opinion, NOT the bible. Everybody has his or her own preference, if you feel totally good with Wiley or Kaplan, then go for it and ignore this part. Choose the way that works best for you, it is YOU not anyone else who will sit in the test center and write the exam.

I would strongly recommend to stick to CFAI curriculum.

I only studied from CFAI official materials and never touched third-party notes/mocks for L3, though I passed L1(0/4/6, no background in finance then) and L2(0/1/9, Ethics 51%-70%) with only Schweser notes and not a glance at CFAI books. From what I’ve read and heard, the notes don’t cover every angle, this is crucial in L3. In L1 and L2 it doesn’t really matter that much because the exam is all about multiple choice questions and calculations with formulas play a huge part, as long as the notes cover the logic and formulas you are safe. But for L3 you really need to understand every concept and are likely to be asked surprising questions on them during AM session, in this case if you’ve never seen them in the notes then you are bombed.

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P.S.

I’ll post my notes next month when I’m back at home, though I’m not sure if everyone will be comfortable with my handwriting and the format.

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Hope my experience helps, good luck guys!

Thank you

[jezzachezza]

Hi there,

Thanks for your advice on L3 AM paper. Real insightful and probably what I did wrong resulting a resit this year.

I would be interested in your notes if you wouldn’t mind and could you also send me the past AM papers you were referring to?

[bfedor]

TakeiFinale

Thank you for the great advice and your offer to share your notes! Definitely interested.

[Michael_Lau]

Thank you for your advice

[igor555]

thanks. do you tutor?