Do you read the whole item set completely bevore answering the questions? Or is it better to read the parts belonging to the question? It is quite time consuming to read the whole text first and go back to the text for each question.
I scan the questions to see what i need to find in the item set, possibly flagging things as I read it. But i do not answer questions before reading everything. Jumping the gun on answers could backfire on you if you miss a small point later in the vignette that you needed to correctly answer the question.
i read question 1
I read question 1 myself as well. I think glancing at the question to see whats on it is helpful, but knowing what question 1 is helps me as well, because I can zero in on what IM looking for. The thing is, the questions are more or less 6 separate questions pertaining to, often, 6 separate parts of the vignette. Reading the entire thing before answering the first question, imo, doenst help.
I wouldn’t only concentrate on where you think the question is focused. I did that for some FSA vignette on all-current vs. temporal and I thought I needed to use the temporal method based on the info in that section of the vignette. However, at the end it stated to use the all-current.
The vignettes on the real exam are so much shorter than the schweser practice exams, so I’ll just read the whole vignette first. I’ve tried it both ways, but I tend to make more stupid mistakes when I read the questions first.
The vignettes on the exam are lengthy for LII, but they aren’t all text…usually there are tables and list of statements, etc. I disagree with caspian that reading the whole thing is not worth it. The last two times I did the scan and find strategy, but this year as I’m doing practice questions and mocks I’m realizing that every so often there is a vignette that has important info that can be missed if you just do the scan trick. It isn’t often…perhap 1 in 10 q’s, but I’m not screwing around this year…I’ll glance at the questions then read the entire vignette marking up the important info. There is plenty of time to complete the full exam, so no reason to try and save time by scanning vs. reading. Just my $.02
I might be the odd one, but I like to read the vignette first and make notes/underline important information before I know what is being asked. I find that a lot of times I will have already answered some of the questions by doing so by the time I get to the end. I won’t go so far as to start doing calculations but I find that my first impressions/thoughts are more accruate by reading the information first without tainting it with something I may have read from the questions.
spongebob-are you sitting for the third time for lvl2? you said you tried both already…
on the practice exams, i’ve lost so many marks by not reading the entire question and underlining… and it’s amazing what you miss… i seem to have a presumption that the questions go sequentially with the vignette, but i’m finding sometimes some key info for 3rd Q is at the bottom and i’m thinking info is missing because i’m looking for it where 90% of the info is located.
That’s affirmative, superchef…'06 I wasn’t prepared; '07 I studied and did well, but still didn’t pass (>70% in Equity, FSA…). Last year was brutal, but I think this year won’t be quite as bad.
“I disagree with caspian that reading the whole thing is not worth it. The last two times I did the scan and find strategy, but this year as I’m doing practice questions and mocks I’m realizing that every so often there is a vignette that has important info that can be missed if you just do the scan trick.” Whoa whoa whoa. All I said was I like to glance at question 1 before reading the vignette. I *totally* agree that often times there is information towards the end that is crucial to answering the questions correctly.
I read the vignette first as well.