Having gone through Part 2 I was hoping you could impart some useful tips for those of us tackling this in November. As you know I was meant to write in May but life stepped in and I had to push it back. From my side I am 3/4 of the way through the 3rd schweser book and it has been some slow reading to say the least. The first two books were “Ok” but operational risk takes an enormous amount to stay motivated and finish. I know that I will have to revist most of the material again just because of the sheer quantum of the theory relative to to Part 1 . Anyway getting to my questions please see these below :
You mention that Schweser alone is not sufficient .I haven’t purchased the BT questions yet but would you suggest completing the notes on a particular topic out of schweser and then supplementing this with BT questions covering that topic instead of doing the schweser Qbank? Up until now I have been doing the schweser QB and found they have been of the same standard as the part 1 questions . As you know they didn’t really reflect what come out on the actual exam but did give a fair understanding of the material .
Are the schweser videos worth watching ? I have started with the 8 week online course and the guy who delivers it is not Greg Filbeck ( lecturer for part 1) and quite frankly very monotone and difficult to listen to without dozing off.
For the Basel chapters in book 3 they mention the need to read the actual AIM’s as this includes more detail , did you do this and did you find it was needed for the questions asked for these topics on the exam?
Please tell me Book 4 goes a little faster than Book 3 ?
Hey John, good to hear from you. My thoughts on your questions:
Yes, continue your strategy – read the Schweser first and then supplement with BT afterwards. Just don’t fall into the trap that I did. I really only dove into BT about 1-2 weeks before the exam; if I could do it over I would have skimped on some Schweser stuff to make sure I had at least 1.5 months with the BT stuff. Schweser does provide a good base, but the BT questions were more like what was on the exam, particularly in regards to the credit risk and Basel stuff. I suppose that I probably wouldn’t even touch the QBank until towards the end of my studying, but it makes sense to me to do those 5-question end-of-section quizzes though in the Schweser books as you’re going along, for reinforcement.
The weird thing about BT was, at the time, I was reading some of the questions and thinking, “Where did BT pull this stuff from?” It didn’t bear any resemblance to the Schweser stuff. I was tempted to think that as a result, the BT questions were out of left field and dismiss some of them. Wrong move. Gain the basics from Schweser, but learn the background and how to answer all of the difficult BT questions. David Harper knows what he is doing when putting those questions together.
Schweser videos have zero value. That person who was narrating the Part 2 videos was pretty terrible and they were completely unwatchable. There’s no real teaching going on in the videos, it’s all just reading bullet points. Very frustrating. One thing I would suggest, however, depending on your budget, is to seriously incorporate the BT video package into your studying. In the couple of those that I watched, I found them to actually teach, not just review. If I could do it over again, I would have just watched BT videos, no Schweser.
If by this you mean did I read the source material, no, I didn’t. However, I think that by supplementing with BT notes for these sections, you’ll be in top shape.
Book 4 is infinitely better than what you’re reading now, particularly the “fun” parts (Madoff, Dog and Frisbee, parts on tail risk, etc.).
Good Luck, John. With any luck myself I’ll pass and won’t need to re-join you in November.