The most critical part of my prep routine - the month before I printed 2018-2006 prior exams. I focused strictly on the AM sections I knew were large and big (PWM, AA, Equities, PM, etc.) I practiced them in the following way
read the question, see the format of the answer page and jot down a few bullets of what I would have written (i’d spend no more than 2-3 minutes writting first few things that came to mind to simulate the true exam environment)
then I’d quickly rush to solution to see how close I was
the moment I saw a large gap (my points were WAY off from what the answer was) I’d go back to notes brush it up, come back to that specific area and write out the solution several times (link pen to memory)
ripping a 50/60 on the PM (which is prob what you did) and a 30%ish on the AM means you knew the material reasonably well but the exam format defeated you. i can relate as i left like 38 points blank in 2018. youll pass next year. mock, mock, mock.
I failed Level III in 2018 when I used Schweser. I found it very siloed, which doesn’t help with the level III preparation. This year I used LevelUp by Marc LeFebvre and it was awesome. I didn’t do the boot camp due to my schedule but I used his videos and material and went through the CFAI books and it really helped me prepare for the exam. He highlights the inter-connectivity between different topics and really brings it all together. I also did exams from 2008-2018 and I found them much easier this year to do vs. last year when I wasn’t fully prepared. Hope this helps!
got 90th in AM, I used Mark Meldrum: he is very good at explaining concepts and the mock exam walkthrough is particularly helpful. I only did his mock exams and questions on the notes. Plus MM’s overall cost is around 400 CAD or so? totally worth it.
Passed. I was 90th percentile in the AM. 50th percentile in the PM.
For the whole month of May i did past AM CFA exams. 2009 to 2018. Each one at least twice. 2014 to 2018 i did three times. I failed fixed income (around 30th percentile). Mostly because this is the one area past exams won’t help you much in. They did a major F.I revamp in 2018. But i crushed private wealth and institutional and did well on risk, equity and econs.
Well, I just set a schedule and put everything I was going to do, then every day i would put an “x” next to it marking I did it… I started this in early May but I did take mocks starting in April but didnt record it.
Scored >70% in a.m. and only used the original curriculum and past exam papers. If you read the material x2 times , solve past 7-8 years’ mocks, and do a mock from fitch or kaplan under exam conditions, a.m. is really easy cause they ask the gist of study sessions, there are no intricate details, except for the formulas. I recommend writing all formulas you come across on a paper cause there are lots of formulas in level 3.
I scored just above 50% in multiple choice. I think a.m. and ethics (also >70%) really saved me.
I don’t think ‘schweser only’ would work in level 2 and 3. I had retaken level 2 after studying from schweser only. Schweser is a complimentary material for hard or abstract concepts in my opinion.
