Time (days) per SS ?

I realize these generalizations rarely hold true on an individual basis, though by and large I have found that the average tends to remain around 7 days per study session. Is that still pretty accurate for Level III ?? Looking for a little guidance as I put my study plan together.

Thanks in advance!

Your assessment is true, but incomplete. A week per study session is about four months. Sounds about right. You need to spend four months studying the material.

But that’s only to learn the material once through. After that, you probably need another 6-8 weeks to go back and review it, because you’ll have forgotten a lot of it. Then you need another 4-6 weeks of practice (Q-banks and practice tests).

I started studying in October. I’m a CPA in tax practice, so I will study less in January and February, and probably very little (if any) in from March 1 to April 15. That’s why i started early. However, if you have a “normal” job, you should be starting now. No matter what kind of job you have, if you wait until after Christmas, you’re going to be playing ketchup.

Another thing that may change estimated study time is the fact that in L3, many topics are interelated and some of it is quite dry and memorisation intensive.

'Tis true! Another thing to remember is this: Based on last year’s exam,

  • Individual Investors (including behavioral finance) will be about 20% of the exam.

  • Institutional Investors is about 10%,

  • Ethics is about 10%,

  • and Fixed Income is about 10%.

  • So if you can nail those four areas, that alone is about half the exam.

Of the other areas, derivatives and econ/capital markets are weighted a little more heavily, at about 7% each.

All the others (performance evaluation, execution, alternatives, equity, risk management) are only worth 35% total. So allocate your time accordingly.

(IMHO, performance evaluation was extremely detailed, and takes up a lot of the “hard drive”. I’m going to cover it, but if Performance Evaluation + GIPS only equals 5%, I will definitely study accordingly. I think it’s better to devote that time to the “big 4”.)

oh you muffin