Ok guys I’m registered for December 1 sitting and so far I’ve done Readings 5,6, and 7. On ethics, I’m just finishing standard 3B from the curriculum. I’m planning on finishing ethics from the curriculum (since examples are the best in the curriculum?) and doing GIPS from schweser notes.
By the way, I have no finance background WHATSOEVER.
I’m guessing that now its too late to read the actual curriculum, and so I will do schweser til November 28. I’ll take the sample test on the 29th. I will reserve November 30 for rest and take the test on Dec 1.
The question is that apart from getting the knowledge from schweser notes and videos, will I be alright if I do the practice problems from the notes or should I try to do practice problems from the curriculum?
Also any other advice from you guys that will help me out will be appreciated.
Yep, but my question is will I be ok if I don’t do EOC questions in the curriculum and do the one in schweser instead? Or should I get the knowledge from schweser and do the EOC questions from the curriculum?
I’m also going to be supplementing a bit of investopedia if I get time.
EDIT: I think I also read that the curriculum is only good for reference anyway, right?
Dude, I think you and I are in the same boat and both F’d. I’m trying to get through as much of the reading as I can by November 4th and then will just be hammering on the EOCs in both Schweser and the CFAI for a couple of weeks and trying to actively learn the material and hopefully memorize the formulas. I’ll then spend a week doing a few mocks. Revising what I suck on and doing a few more mocks to get my mind right for exam day.
No dude, I’m probably more f***ed than you are…but we are going to make it. Its gonna take supernatural dedication though. I’m thinking 12-14 hours of intense studying.
I’ve read people finishing schweser in 15 days. 1500 pages of notes and at 100 pages a day is managable. I do work 40 hours a week in 3 days. Well actually I work 40 hours in a 56 hour window. So I’ll have 4 days a week to study like a mofo’.
Good luck man!
Do you have any advice regarding EOC questions from kaplan being enough or should I not do them but do EOC questions from the curriculum? I highly doubt that I’ll have time to do both.
Leave way more days to do mock exams. Especially with a tight timeline like yours, you should ensure that you have at least a week of mocks so that if you find any problem areas you have enough time to review prior to the exam. Other than that, good luck!
The CFAI EOC’s are much better than the concept checkers. I’d put both on the same level difficulty-wise, but they’re just a slightly different style. And like Oliver said, more time for mocks - I’d say at *least* a week for them, though more is better.
Thank you guys for the suggestions…I’ll try to get as much reading done as possible and will give a week for mocks.
I’m just about done with Ethics. As Alladin said, I’ll focus on the biggies. Looking at the exam weight per section, FRA seems the biggest with 20%, then quant methods and fixed income at 12% each, and then econ and equity with 10% each.
But is it possible to understand FRA and other stuff without doing them in order?
Like I said, so far I only have the first 3 readings from quant method done. Can I understand FRA and other topics if I skip? I guess my question is can I do the volumes in any order. Are they kinda sorta independent of each other? Or do they build on each other like sciences do?
And is reading from schweser (supplemented with investopedia) and doing end of chapter problems from the curriculum a strategy to pass?
Yes, you can do the volumnes in any order. If you’ve got the schweser videos, you should watch them for topics you are finding difficult to grasp. If there’s a concept or LOS you find especially difficult, you can post it on this forum and then continue with other readings. By the time you get back, you are likely to find that someone may have a simplified answer for you.
Overall, it’s likely going to be challenging, but still, hats off to you for giving it a shot.
I’d suggest that you need to have the TVM material down before carrying on, as it comes into play for things like discounted pay back, NPV, IRR, and a bunch of corporate finance. The statistics section can probably wait though.
Fortunately, I got the TVM stuff down pat. Did that from the curriculum and schweser. I also did the calculator training from quartic training (it is free on the web and really good too!).
Thanks for the suggestion.
So now I’m doing the reading from schweser notes, supplementing with investopedia, watch schweser videos, post here if I have a topic with difficulty, and do EOC questions from the curriculum. This is gonna take a herculean effort, but I’m up for it.
I don’t personally think that reading all of Schweser is going to work. You need to think laterally here considering you have so little time here. I think that if you read schweser 10 hours a day for the next month, you are going to retain very little.
So this is what I would do:
Read only the Schweser EOC summaries and then do the Schweser practice problems. You don’t have time to do readings, just focus on the problems you need to solve and read what’s relevant from Schweser to allow you answer those questions. Spend up until 2 weeks before the exam doing this.
You need to do practice exams. Spend the last 2 weeks doing as many practice exams. Because you had so little time for doing step 1, practice exams will be a form of study instead of review. The important thing is to focus on the most commmonly asked type of questions and make sure you know how to answer these. These will become obvious from practice exams.
Spend 1 day reading the entire Ethics from CFAI
Read FRA from Schweser
I would forgot EOC CFAI. You don’t have time. If you are going to do them, then only do the a.b.c. multiple choice questions and skip the explanation type questions, they are useless for the exam. What your doing is a long shot, you need to take some serious shortcuts at this stage to have even a tiny chance of passing.
I pity you for the pain you’re about to put yourself through. Good on you for trying though and again good luck to you.
Thanks mate for your detailed response. While I’m at work, I’m trying to get some studying done on breaks/free time but I’ve been putting in killer time on my 4 days off.
Hope it all pays off. Sucks that the results don’t come out for such a long time after taking the test even though its multiple choice. Oh well, it’ll give me time to recuperate from the hell I’ve been/will be going through.