Today was the first full day of review for me. I read through the Schweser end of chapter summaries for every single reading. I stopped to review in areas where I had forgotten most of what they were talking about. Overall I feel like I have a good understanding of the basic concepts for all topics. After I finished going through all the summaries it hit me for the 1st time that there is just no way to remember every single formula and do every calculation. Even though I went through the curriculum slowly and understood them at all some point, there is just too much to be able to walk in on exam day and know how to do every calculation presented in the material. There are 32 days still the exam. Aside from doing lots of practice problems, what should I do to nail these calculations? Should I focus on learning the ones on the critical concept sheet and summaries, or what? I apologize if my question isn’t worded that well, my brain is fried from reading through all those topics.
I feel in a similar situation. In fact, most L2’ers are in a similar situation. Just keep studying, reviewing, practicing, etc. It will all sink in. Just keep the faith. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway. I listed my problem areas (difficult concepts) on a spreadsheet. I have been taking a couple of concepts a day for the past week and reviewing and then moving on. It’s what I did for L1 and it somehow worked. I try to resist studying topics that I know well (it’s all relative) and pound the concepts that I need to learn better. When I’m through my problem areas, I’ll take a practice exam every few days (with emphasis on reviewing the practice exams) Like I said previously, just keep at it…It will work. The less we stress the easier it is too learn. I, like you, apologize for the poorly worded sentences! Good luck.
i think one of the thing to do is to compile all those formula in one stack and take some time to memorising it. it would be easier if trying to memorise by jotting down on rough paper… tried it myself and works for me…
I took one day to go through the curriculum and pull all of the formulas that I will need (most are listed in the back of each Schweser book) and copied them to the front and back of one sheet of paper. While taking practice tests, if I come across any new formula that I need I add them to the list… Then I copy, copy, and recopy the formula sheet until it is burned into my memory (which actually only takes a few times). I did this for L1 as well and it definitely helped immensely. I figure by knowing ALL of the formulas, one can reason through most of the problems that you come accross.
You won’t need the formulas on test day, the only reason they let you bring calculators is so you can figure out how much time is left.
schweser quick sheet does a good job btw at a quick glance at the formulae … you can give that a try too…
Thanks for all the suggestions. I’m going to try and go over the quicksheet every day. I wish they’d give you a formula sheet so you can focus on understanding and not rote memorization of formulas. My secret sauce book came in today and in the intro it mentioned that the tests have moved away from number crunching, which is good news for me. I get most of the big picture ideas and how pretty much everything works, but the details of the forumulas are tough. For example, I know you need to adjust R^2 when doing multiple regression b/c regular R^2 gets larger as more independent variables are added, but I can’t think of the formula for adjusted R^2 off the top of my head.
“You won’t need the formulas on test day, the only reason they let you bring calculators is so you can figure out how much time is left.” I should have actually gone to the ballet…b/c this killed me.
Dude, stop following me around the forum, hahaha.
Make sure you go through the LOS carefully because many times they have formulas, but the LOS do not mention that you need to calculate anything. Definitely know all the formulas in the Equity book, quant, and the formulas/concepts for Econ. At least those are the ones I’m focusing on, the rest is not useless, but it just seems like it will be tested more conceptually based on the LOS key words. Of course, there’s Port. Mgmt, which is a beast full of formulas and I think the Quicksheet (as mentioned) does an excellent job with summarizing everything. Regardless, I’m focusing more on concepts there also. Considering the focus I’ve seen so far aside from Schweser, the CFAI questions will concentrate more on concepts. For example, rather than asking you to calculate implied growth rates (g = ROE x b), they will ask you something like, “So and so says that if you increase dividends the company will always increase in value, is this statement correct?”