am i the only one who is suffering during studying qauant here ? , the concepts & formulas just evaporate out of my mind as soon as i turn the page . what is the best way to master this section , i feel so frustrated while studying it .please guys give me ur opinions.
Do examples until you do not need to remember the formulas actively.
You’ll probably think I’m nuts, but I enjoyed quant… just seemed to come naturally to me. Econ and parts of FRA on the other hand… driving me nuts If you are not already using Schweser or Stalla, I highly recommend purchasing one… They distill down to core concepts and supply a boatload of questions to drive home the material.
i am already using Schweser and that makes me more worried since i cant go through the concepts & formulas. and yeah am doing all the concept checkers after each reading but i am still not feeling comfortable about this part at all…
I think one of the big things about passing, is making sure that you go over the material again, and again, and again, until you understand it. The Schweser readings are not too long in my opinion. Doing a lot of practice problems wouldn’t hurt either.
do u think that doing only schweser end of reading concept checker is enough ?
Not at all enough, suggest to do all the q-bank questions. For me, at first it was difficult to digest all the concepts & formulas, but by doing q-bank, I felt quite comfortable with the application.
I hated Quants and really struggled, so I did all the concept checkers twice, all the CFAI quant questions and about half the quant questions in qbank. I got >70% in the exam so it paid off…(and it was a lot easier than I expected too)
i am totally convinced now by the qbank importance and i decided to buy one , just waiting for schweser guys to reply a couple of inquiries that i sent them
Nutshell, Best advice I can give is to not get too bogged down. I was really struggling with quant when I started studying - part of that was due to the fact that I had been out of school for 10 years so I was quite rusty when it came to stats, recalling intricate formulas, etc. However, much of quant shows up again and again throughout the curriculum, that is going to help drill some concepts into your head. Moreover, just using math so regularly (in fixed income, equity, PM, etc) is likely going to improve your intuitive grasp of the subject as well. You’ll be surpsised when you finish the curriculum and go back to review quant how much of it you’ll suddenly get. In short, when I started quant was one of my worst subjects, by the time I was taking practice exams, it was one of my best, consistently scoring in the 80s.
I completely agree with Chi Paul. I posted last year looking for a good maths book to refresh my memory because I just couldn’t get my head around quants. I hadn’t looked at much maths in ten years and I found it awful. I did the whole curriculum in order and last week I went over quants for the second time. It’s definitely easier second time round.
Chi Paul , soddy1979 thank u guys for sharing ur experience and the motivation u gave me , part of my struggling with Quant is based on the fact that i have been out of school for like 9 years as well , so i am quite rusty as well but hopefully that the intensive usage of the qbank will put me in the right shape for the exam.
Don’t worry, we’re all in the same boat. I’m comfortable with quants (I think), but the benefit of it is that it is all formula based. Once you get closer to the exam and you’re just doing problem after problem, the formulas will become second nature. What I’m worried about is some of the FSA (like income taxes) where it is difficult to understand the situation fully. I would move on to the next section and periodically come back to study it. It’ll be easier the second, third, fourth time, etc.
If you are a visual learner, draw graphs, pictures, or trees for the stats part. I was pretty good at quant until I started grad school and starting doing phd econ work. That sucks. We had to memorize and recite the proofs of the concepts here, never apply formulas with “numbers”. I really missed numbers…
I also noticed that quant got easier as I moved through the other sections, because some of the vocabulary was just incomprehensive to me in the beginning. Later on, when I had learned what a 10 23/32 bond or a covered-call was, quant scores improved. And yes, graphs routinely help me with most of the probability problems too.
I am working as a full time quant in an investment bank, but the econ part drives me nuts right now. Also nervous about the ethics part.
schouwla Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I am working as a full time quant in an investment > bank, but the econ part drives me nuts right now. > Also nervous about the ethics part. I simply don’t believe this. A quant with an IB who doesn’t understand the simplicities of Level I econ? Come on man…you’re full of shit, and you are not a quant.
I’m just going through quant now. Not really finding it difficult thus far, but i’m moving through it very slowly. I was really freaked out when people told me how hard quant is so I am taking my sweet time. I assume it will get much much harder, I still have a ways to go. One thing I like about it so far is that everything builds on previous concepts. Once you learn one formula it is elaborated on in subsequent formulas. The two things I have been focusing on for each formula are: 1) What is the formula trying to do/accomplish 2) What are the fundamental components of this formula and how does it relate to the overall theory of this reading. I hope i’m on the right track. I really wish I was moving through this stuff quicker.
With this type of topic, practice, practice, practice til you are comfortable with formulas, is the key.
I take it back…quant also kills me. I calculate all the examples within the books longhand not using the calculator functions described in schweser and it takes me so long to figure out. It’s the small little details that keep getting me…but I am getting through it…slowly…painfully.