Just use the CFAI material
Agreed. Personally also recommend EOC questions from the CFAI curriculum.
Finquiz is not as bad as posted (def consider the year those posts were on the site). In the past they used to have a lot more mistakes but I used them for L3 and they are acceptable for the price. I used their Summary Notes extensively and the online Qbank as well. I believe they now answer on questions you think are incorrect which they didnt when I took L1.
They also provide a huge amount of Item Set questions via mocks and AM exams. Something to consider. Def not a write off in my opinion.
I found Quartic Training staff to be really much better than 7 city for those who live in London
Is there a real alternative to Schweser (apart from FinQuiz) ?
For Level 2 I used Elan Guides and found them very good. But Elan is not offering Level 3 (or later this year and it will be their first Level 3 notes).
Any other ideas? I checked a couple of the CFAI online prep providers but only found Schweser and FinQuiz quite helpful.
Anyone with a comment on that?
CFAI books, EOC, previous mocks and AM papers… should be more than enough 
I failed L3. I do not blame the providers at all. Here’s a quick review of what I used.
FinQuiz : didn’t use the notes and the mocks. The QBank in vignettes format were quite good despite some errors.
Schweser : notes are good, concept checkers are just good to refresh memory, same for qbank. Practice exams is a mixed bag of good and dafuq is this.
For 2015, I will use CFAI books because time will not be a constraint.
Schweser all day
Whichever one you’re comfortable with… if you used schweser for L2 and liked it, use it for L3. If you didn’t, try something else. The content is pretty much the same since it’s the CFA curriculum after all… it all comes down to the nuances in the presentation and whether you “click” with it or not. I personally used Schweser videos and Finquiz questions.
Thanks!
The only question is which good prep provider remain? Elan is not doing L3 at the moment or it will be their first year. Finquiz I already purchased for more questions not their study guides.
So which good prep provider still remain?
In Canada , try passmax - its the best
I agree on this.
I am NOT going to use Finquiz again, even if they give me for free. Used it for level II last year and was very frustrated with them.
Tons of errors in the materials, typos, not proper English, wrong formula, etc. Their material are not concise either comparing to Elan.
Their mocks are even worse. Completely wast of time. One big error I made for not passing level II last year was that I used Finquiz.
Learned my lesson in a hard way.
bump
Schweser, full stop.
i’m not a fan of Schweser’s books but i think their review seminars are pretty decent. I like the screte sauce as well.
If I failed and have to do it again, I will just use CFAI books and nothing else.
Readings are relatively easier & shorter compared to level 2. Schweser notes are fine but more often than not, I ended up reading the books to get the details. After doing 6 AM papers, you would also come to realize that 3rd party notes have a very different focus on the approach of learning the materials than that being tested on real papers.
That might be true, but but I also think that mock exams are a lot different than the real thing.
I’m surprised. I really found the materials to be quite effective. That said, haven’t used the others. The Secret Sauce is awesome. I found reading through it cover to cover over and over as I progressed through my prep to be very useful in keeping things fresh. Never have done their seminars, but have found their video library and live online classes to be really good, too. To me, Schweser is the gold standard.
No matter what you choose, I think best practice is to start early and read the actual CFAI books (in a more leisurely than the rote approach as the exam closes in). Then whichever third party prep provider you choose simply reinforces your bas of knowldge. Then PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE and PRACTICE some more - especially the AM session.