Some more tips for those new comers and re-takers

CFA Level III
#1

After I read Trimonious2’s post on how to pass CFA level III following my first failure on level III last year, it was my determination to write this post if I manage to pass in 2014. Here, I just want to highlight some more points on top of Trimonious2 post that might be useful for you guys.

Trimonious2’s post: http://www.analystforum.com/forums/cfa-forums/cfa-level-iii-forum/91314226

Recap on 2013 exam

To get to the point, I’m a re-taker from 2013 exam. I spent c.300 hours on studying mostly on Scheweser with some practices on EOC and mock exams. Why I failed last year? A very simple answer is I managed my time sooooo badly and left essentially 3-3.5 questions blanked. Leaving 3 questions blank can be a huge different on the exam day given your potentially full score can be ~70-80% at max. Also, my PM scores were not that great to fully offset a weak performance in the AM session. Needless to be told, I ended up at band 6, while all of my friends, who finished the AM session on time, passed the exam.

Update on 2014 exam

1) Focus more on CFA curriculum. As I said earlier, I used Scheweser for 2013 exam and I think the depth of knowledge it provides was not enough and/or not explained clearly in some topics. For 2014 exam, I gave most of my focus on CFA curriculum, especially on those areas Scheweser does not explicitly explain the logic behind. I extensively practiced the EOC questions and tried to shape my AM answers as close as to the curriculum. I personally think indv. & institutional investor questions in the curriculum provide different scenarios and more detailed analysis than what Scheweser did.

2) Practice under time constraint. In 2014, I practiced more on how to tackle the AM answers under time constraint. In the beginning, you don’t have to finish the whole AM questions in one go, but you just have to finish EACH question within the time required in the bracket. This also applies on the exam day. If you cannot finish the question in time, you HAVE TO MOVE FORWARD to the next. Otherwise, you will end up spending too much time on that particular question, and it will impact the following questions until you cannot finish it in time.

3) Use bullet points to shorten your answer. With the bullet points, it will automatically force you to write a short sentence to answer the question. One sub-question might require you to fill only couple of bullet points. Some of them can be answered only within one single sentence.

4) Write with “small” alphabets on the exam day. It may sound stupid, but it can definitely save your time. Writing small alphabets not only save your time to write the essays, but it consumes less energy to write for the long period. The bigger alphabets you write, the more energy it consumes and your hand will get fatigued quite easily (at least to me).

5) Skip those questions you cannot answer at a first glance. I got this trick from one of the seniors who just finished the program couple years ago. As AM session requires you to actively recall the knowledge, you need to know how to tackle the questions right after you see them. When I cannot answer it at the first glance, I skipped them and move forward to the next so that I can use my time efficiently on those questions I think I can nail it.

Hope this can help you a little bit. Good luck to you all!

PS. - Apology if my English is broken as it is not my mother language.

  • Also I want to cheer those who did not pass this year exam, but trust me I know how you feel. It hurts for the first couple weeks, but I believe you all can definitely get through and kill this beast next year!!
#2

Many thanks for your additional tips, Picsaba!

#3

Picsaba, great post and congrats in passing.

I am an L3 retaker and have still been able to make it.

Just wanted to clarify, when you use bullet points, did you rephrase the question in your answer or did you just jump into the answer directly?

Also, did you use only CFAI materials to prepare for 2014 exam? How soon did you start and did you also do the examples (blue or grey) in the readings itself? I heard that some of the questions in the examples are in the actual exam, is that true?

Did you use Schweser at all in 2014?

What’s your strategy to take the PM section? I thought I nailed it but obviously I didn’t know the materials well enough, were there multiple choice problems that you worked through? Where were they from?

And lastly, to all passers, do you find that Schwesers videos and exercises were helpful in understanding/retaining concepts?

Thanks.

#4

Picsaba, great post and congrats in passing.

I am an L3 retaker and have still been able to make it.

Just wanted to clarify, when you use bullet points, did you rephrase the question in your answer or did you just jump into the answer directly?

Also, did you use only CFAI materials to prepare for 2014 exam? How soon did you start and did you also do the examples (blue or grey) in the readings itself? I heard that some of the questions in the examples are in the actual exam, is that true?

Did you use Schweser at all in 2014?

What’s your strategy to take the PM section? I thought I nailed it but obviously I didn’t know the materials well enough, were there multiple choice problems that you worked through? Where were they from?

And lastly, to all passers, do you find that Schwesers videos and exercises were helpful in understanding/retaining concepts?

Thanks.

#5

As a former candidate who used bullet points to, for what it’s worth, I just jumped to the answers directly. Time is of the essence.

Personally, I think the use of whichever third party materials is a matter of preference though myself, I largely used the CFAI textbooks for all levels (with some random hand me downs).

Study them as thoroughly as possible. I treated the PM section as the low hanging fruits, so to speak. Do as many past year questions and end of chapter questions as you can. When you are done with those, erase and repeat. Some of the questions have a relatively cliched approach of answering it and with regards to this, repetition can really help drill some of the concepts in.

While I managed to pass the 2014 exams, I did fail multiple past year questions. In the AM section, the way I eventually solved my time management issues was to actively monitor the amount of time I used (the time schedule is even given in the first few pages of your examination booklet). After a set amount of time was up, I marked that section and moved to a new section to avoid wasting too much time on it.

Come the 2014 exams, I actually “surrendered” one entire question (the 11 pointer) by leaving it blank. True, with the last few bits of my time, I could have wrote a thing or two for the question but I felt that my time was better served making sure (and buffing up) the questions I am already fairly confident of.

#6

@needsomeadvice - 1. did you rephrase the question in your answer or did you just jump into the answer directly?

Ans. Jump to the answer directly, you don’t need to rephrase the question. Make your writing concise and get to the point at the first sentence when you answer.

  1. Also, did you use only CFAI materials to prepare for 2014 exam? How soon did you start and did you also do the examples (blue or grey) in the readings itself? I heard that some of the questions in the examples are in the actual exam, is that true? Ans. I still use Schewaser, but i gave more concentration on the EOC questions in CFAI materials. I continued my study again since early Feb as I am personally a guy who can forget things quite easily. So, i didn’t see the point to start early like in Oct or Nov. I didn’t really do much blue box exercises. I did only the key cases like in Indv. portfolio management case, where CFAI dig down into detail with multiple scenarios provided. And i don’t really know if the blue box questions used to be in the actual exam or not. 3. What’s your strategy to take the PM section? I thought I nailed it but obviously I didn’t know the materials well enough, were there multiple choice problems that you worked through? Where were they from? Ans. I seriously recommend the EOC questions as they are more detailed than those in Schwaser. EOC questions in fill in the blank format can give you better understanding the concept as well. 4 .And lastly, to all passers, do you find that Schwesers videos and exercises were helpful in understanding/retaining concepts? Ans. I think the videos are not really well explained.
#7

Picsaba, great post and congrats in passing.

I am an L3 retaker and have still been able to make it.

Just wanted to clarify, when you use bullet points, did you rephrase the question in your answer or did you just jump into the answer directly?

Also, did you use only CFAI materials to prepare for 2014 exam? How soon did you start and did you also do the examples (blue or grey) in the readings itself? I heard that some of the questions in the examples are in the actual exam, is that true?

Did you use Schweser at all in 2014?

What’s your strategy to take the PM section? I thought I nailed it but obviously I didn’t know the materials well enough, were there multiple choice problems that you worked through? Where were they from?

And lastly, to all passers, do you find that Schwesers videos and exercises were helpful in understanding/retaining concepts?

Thanks.

#8

Another tip: Do as many Essays as you can! I practiced all from 2006 to 2013… all topics (except maybe Ethics) are topics that can be tested on both the essays and the multiple choice. If you are capable of answering questions from a topic in Essay form, you should be set for it in multiple choice.

Save the multiple choice mocks for the end so you can familiarize yourself with that format again for the exam.

You don’t have to read everything in the curriculum but definitely read Ethics front to back… and also the new topics for the year since they weren’t tested on the essay mocks.

I barely touched the CFAI curriculum except for Ethics, the PwM section, and the EoC questions. I spent maybe 2/3 of my time doing problems (Schweser, Finquiz, CFAI Mocks, EOCs, etc.) and maybe 1/6 of my time watching Schweser videos… so very little time actually reading.

I failed L1 twice in the past and only passed it in 2012 when I switched to this approach of doing relatively many problems and spending relatively little time on reading (prefering videos over reading)… and I finally passed L1… and then passed L2 and L3 on the first try with the same approach.