Hi, I just failed Level II for the second time and I think I need a new approach. Previously I have spent a lot of time reading the Schweser notes and filling out the Schweser flash cards. I think I don’t get much bang for my buck with this approach. What I am thinking of doing now is focusing almost entirely on questions. Starting now, do 1 60 question sample exam every week. As the months pass I would increase this. What do people think of this approach?
ph4t Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hi, > > I just failed Level II for the second time and I > think I need a new approach. > > Previously I have spent a lot of time reading the > Schweser notes and filling out the Schweser flash > cards. I think I don’t get much bang for my buck > with this approach. > > What I am thinking of doing now is focusing almost > entirely on questions. Starting now, do 1 60 > question sample exam every week. As the months > pass I would increase this. > > What do people think of this approach? ===================================================== first approach you need to take is to stop asking stupid things on AF, grow up dude
Sorry what do you mean? I don’t see how reading the notes for a third time will do me much good. They are still pretty fresh in my head so I’m thinking maybe only focusing on questions is the way forward.
CFA_werewolf - if you dont have anything decent to say then dont bother. obviously, ph4t is looking for some guidance. i have failed twice and now taking a year off from exams as getting married next year and need to re-think about how to tackle this. 2008, i was not prepared and thought i knew the material, but i didnt - therefore, i caution you with your “pretty fresh in my head” comment as you failed aswell. i would take the syllabus and turn it on its head. make notes on new stuff/weaker stuff and do lots of questions, think of permutation of questions until you can talk about it - only then do you understand, as reading lulls you into a false sense of security. the stuff you know v well, just summarise those notes and do questions BUT, if you start now, you will be burned out/fed up. take a break, plan your study and keep your hand in with a couple of hours here and there, but nothing too strict. hope that helps in some way, as thats the way i will tackle it when i come back, other than i will have to get my hands on a L1 syllabus for 2009, before tackling L2 in 2010.
SETTLE DOWN CFA_Werewolf . I also failed twice, one out of my control the other due to being lazy. I’m gonna go through the CFAI texts for about 2-3 topics, do the questions for all SS from the CFAI texts and the rest of the SS I’ll leave up to Schweser, and lots of questions. If the material is still fresh in your head then just review and then go with the practice Q’s. And don’t forget the new material.
I passed on the second try and the things that I tried this time were, readign de CFAI books and defenetly make my own flash cards that helped tons, good luck.
I failed and am going the other direction…last year I read CFAI texts cover to cover (same as I did for L1), probably got too caught up in that this time around, a different tact, studying schweser only and focusing on more questions
the approach that i find useful is doing questions followed by debriefing the answers. given that you have already gone thru the material on a few occassions, you just need to figure out how to consistently unlock the knowledge in your head. so - if you do end of chapter questions, or q-bank, or old exams, or whatever…you need to spend as much time understanding the solutions (and associated LOS) as you did on initally trying the question. just my two cents…that is gonna be the basis for a lot of my prep…
CFA_Werewolf, I failed level II- last year and I think your approach is write, but I would still review the material where new topics have been added for 2009. As time goes on, you must review some of the material as the test is 9 months away and things wont be fresh on y our mind. Anyway, Goodluck
I hear what you are saying about becoming burnt out but is there any way to keep the material fresh without risking this? I thought I could handle 2.5 hours doing a mock one evening and 2.5 hours correcting it the next evening for the rest of the year. I can’t think of any better approach.
i think if you want to maximize your mark that the best way is to do every single question at the back of cfa readings… very time-consuming (must start early) and pure drudgery (name the 5 roles a compensation committee fulfills), but that’s how you really learn the stuff, instead of fumbling around on the exam (which i think afflicts all of us)… basically you need the analytic side, but you also need to study like a biology test (hard core memorization)
If you’ve failed twice already I wouldn’t take any more shortcuts. Otherwise you’re going to have a familiar feeling this time next year and asking the same question. Have you thought of getting the books and actually reading them? CFA don’t test on Schweser, they test on their books. Schweser is good for consolidation, not for the actual material. I have to ask, but what are you going to do if you are advising a client one day and they ask you a few questions. Are you going to get out your Schweser and do a few questions so you can learn the answer for your client? Last time I looked, questions were there to test your knowledge, not provide it. All you are doing is learning how to guess the questions.
Schweser is fine on its own if you acutally understand the material conceptually by using it. If you don’t, you need to supplement with the CFAI readings and really dig down and figure it out. They are cumbersome and it sucks, but so is having to retake the exam, right? Just hammering questions isn’t going to get you there, IMO, unless you thoroughly study every single one you missed. And the propensity to brush of wrong answers with excuses like “oh, I just misread that” or “duh, I won’t do that again” seem fine on their own, but when you start layering hundreds of wrong answers on top of each other, you are back to where you started. In taking that approach, I would do what Vegas said above and do the end of the chapter questions and if you miss one, go back and reread the material and drill it into your mind before you move on. That’s what worked for me and everyone is different.
i think that is solid advice which means its very time consuming. but as people say, its best not to take short cuts. like i say, even though i am taking a year off i am reading this stuff so i dont make the same errors again
Like I said earlier, I don’t think re-reading notes (be it Schweser or CFAI) is going to be an effective use of my time. What VegasACE said above about doing questions followed by properly debriefing the answers sounds like a good approach. I must admit in the past I have not properly debriefed the answers. I’d spend 2.5 hours doing a sample exam and maybe only 30 mins reading the answers that I got incorrect. Another question arises here. Would it be better to do the questions open-book style. I.e. if you don’t know the answer then go back to the notes to find it? Or exam style where if you don’t know it, then just move on and go back to the notes afterwards?
perhaps Months 0-3 open book Month 4-5 closed Month 6 - real thing
I have to admit that last year I spent most of my time reading the CFAI books and revewing the Schweser notes. Aside from what I learned at Level I, most of the material was new to me. So I read everything and did the end of chapter questions checking the answers at the back of the book right away. Most of them I got right because I had just finished reading those chapters a couple of days before doing the questions, especially for Fixed Income and Portfolio Management, which are my weakest areas and yet provide a lot of practice questions. However, as someone said in another post, reading a lot can give you a false sense of mastery. My point is that the test is not about simply understanding and recalling the material. The way I see it and what I intend to accomplish is to be able to recall the material off the top of my head effortlessly. Only then can you use that knowledge to break things down and do a proper ANALYSIS (and application) of whatever they throw at you during the exam. Obviously doing many practice questions and reviewing the answers carefully is very useful, but I would also recommend learning/memorizing ALL of the key concepts and truly understanding the details. That’s going to be my strategy rather than simply reading to understand. READ and RECALL… as if you were going to teach it to someone else. Then TEST yourself.
You don’t remember too much from writing notes and using flash cards. It’s doing questions that makes the material really hit home.
haha, wtf? CFA_Werewolf Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ph4t Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Hi, > > > > I just failed Level II for the second time and > I > > think I need a new approach. > > > > Previously I have spent a lot of time reading > the > > Schweser notes and filling out the Schweser > flash > > cards. I think I don’t get much bang for my > buck > > with this approach. > > > > What I am thinking of doing now is focusing > almost > > entirely on questions. Starting now, do 1 60 > > question sample exam every week. As the months > > pass I would increase this. > > > > What do people think of this approach? > > ================================================== > === > > first approach you need to take is to stop asking > stupid things on AF, grow up dude
My new approach is starting way earlier and overkill the material.