There’s been alot of debate on here as to how handle Schweser Practice exams, Schweser mocks and the QBank. I think this is especially important going into the final 45 days. In my expereince, it is the final month where I “learn” the most materials, i.e. this is where we push our 60% to 70% or vice versa, its what I call the money month. If you’re like me and you work full time, your probably killing it on the weekends and trying to get an hour or two of studying on the weeknights. Here’s how I’m handling things for the money month. Take a Schweser practice exam on saturday and sunday. Do exams from both volumes, do vol 1 test one on sat and vol 2 test one on sunday. also make sure to spend considerable time going over the exam and “learning” why you got the answers right and wrong. During the week: 1.) Identify your weakness from the practice exams and then build yourself 30 question quizes in the Q bank on weeknights to drill home the concepts. 2.) re-read the materials of your weak points 3) pull item set questions from EOC questions of CFA books and do them one at a time Doing this will take 3 weekends. Do this for this for 3-5 weekend leading up to May 22. On May 22 do the Schweser mock exam. I took the test 1s this past weekend Save the CFA mock exam for memorial weekend, doing it on saturday, then do the 2008 and 2009 essay exams on sunday, giving you monday and the rest of the week for review. Review is more 30 question qbank quizez, chapter re-reads and EOC item set questions. --CFA sample exams should already be taken, if not take them ASAP on a weeknight. They are only 30 questions. Same goes for 2006 and 2007 CFA essay exams If possible, do weekend review in a live classroom. Most importantly…DO NOT get caught up in your scores on these practice tests and quizes, just keep improving!!!
good strategy. Especially, “DO NOT get caught up in your scores on these practice tests and quizes, just keep improving!!!” Stay focused and manage emotions are also key.
you find the Qbank helpful? I’ve been going through a lot of the questions and very few seem relevant to the actual test, or what will likely show up on the exam.
I agree that they are not in the not in the same format as you will see in the test and I certainly don’t use qbank scores are a proxy for future test scores. For me, the qbank is really just repeatative tool to drill home concepts and formulas. It is certainly not as good as practice test but I do believe there is some merit to it especially if you are an active learner like myself and prefer doing problems vs reading text.
yea I feel ya there, your studying is very similar to what I did at level 1 and 2 (as many questions as possible), I just hate some of the Qbank questions that are poorly worded and not very relevant. I think this year I’ll focus more on EOC questions rather than stressing getting through the Qbank. Are you finding EOC questions more helpful?
Yes I am. I’ve done one round of EOC question already and I’ll be making a second pass soon but I’m just doing the item sets on the second time around.
Danhoop21 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I agree that they are not in the not in the same > format as you will see in the test and I certainly > don’t use qbank scores are a proxy for future test > scores. > > For me, the qbank is really just repeatative tool > to drill home concepts and formulas. It is > certainly not as good as practice test but I do > believe there is some merit to it especially if > you are an active learner like myself and prefer > doing problems vs reading text. +1
Danhoop21 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yes I am. > > I’ve done one round of EOC question already and > I’ll be making a second pass soon but I’m just > doing the item sets on the second time around. For the life of me I can’t figure out how people find the CFAI EOC questions helpful. They’re so vague, ambiguous, and poorly worded that even if I know the concepts fully, it’s a pure guess as to try and figure out what they’re asking. I’ve done about three book’s worth of EOC questions, and I do believe I’m going back to 100% Schweser. Never should’ve strayed to the CFA curriculum in the first place (first year ever opening the CFA books, and I now wish I hadn’t). Gonna do what I’ve always done, which is the Schweser exams, grade them and understand why I got wrong what I got wrong, review the difficult concepts, and call it a day.
I partially agree with you. I think you are spot-on with open ended EOC questions. I spent very little time on them, just jotting down bullet points for each one. However, i think item sets in the EOC have some merit and I’ll be using them again this month.
Danhoop21 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I partially agree with you. I think you are > spot-on with open ended EOC questions. I spent > very little time on them, just jotting down bullet > points for each one. > > However, i think item sets in the EOC have some > merit and I’ll be using them again this month. My partner and I called it quits with the CFAI material today - halfway through Volume 4, and we decided that the cost/benefit ratio with Schweser is way lower than with CFAI. The way I look at it, people pay Schweser to give them enough info to pass the test; if I can do everything that Schweser throws at me, I’ll be fine. Pretty annoyed I wasted two weeks on CFAI readings/questions, but such is life. Taking my first practice exam today; interested to see how I do.
Interesting, Skill what’s your take on EOCs vs Qbank? I was in the same boat the past two levels thinking schweser was enough but with the addition of short answer I am more tentative to dedicate a lot of my time to just multi choice. I am thinking if I can bang out every practice exam I can get my hands on and still have time to do EOCs it will be to my benefit. I’m doing Qbank as well even though some of the questions are so stupid it pisses me off.
hazyskunk Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Interesting, > Skill what’s your take on EOCs vs Qbank? > > I was in the same boat the past two levels > thinking schweser was enough but with the addition > of short answer I am more tentative to dedicate a > lot of my time to just multi choice. > > I am thinking if I can bang out every practice > exam I can get my hands on and still have time to > do EOCs it will be to my benefit. I’m doing Qbank > as well even though some of the questions are so > stupid it pisses me off. I haven’t really done much (read “almost nothing”) in terms of Qbank (but I’d like to pick that up), but I’ve done every Schweser EOC question/self test in the readings, and got halfway through answering every CFAI EOC question (stopped today 2/3 of the way through Volume 4). The issue I have (which I just posted in another thread) is that the CFAI curriculum is simply information overload for my simple mind, so I rely on Schweser to pick out the most “testable” topics, and I feel like virtually everything testable will be covered on one of the 6 Schweser exams (+three old CFA exams). If I can handle that material, I’ll be fine (even if they throw a couple of curveballs that I have no idea about). I know I’m not gonna master the entire CFAI curriculum, but I can come close to mastering the Schweser practice exams. That’s good enough for me.
when is the mock coming out?