Unique circumstances (Schweser exam spoilers)

This part of the IPS seems so inconsistent to me. Anyone have any good tips on the strategy for answering this? I know we’re supposed to try and keep writing to a minimum, but I was thinking of just writing as many things as I think could fit since there doesn’t seem to be much consistency. Maybe Schweser’s just bad at this since I haven’t looked at the CFAI exams yet but in one example I remember a large position in company stock being unique, so then I wrote that as an answer for another test and it wasn’t in the answer. Or, one listed not having a husband or kids as unique but I missed it as I didn’t see that as being anything that directly affects the IPS. (I guess being a 30-40ish single woman w/o kids must mean you’re highly unusual?!) Any thoughts?

agree with your point … faced similar problems and still get stuck with those Qs. however a few things if given in a caes that almost always finds mention in unique circumstances are: - low bsis stock - any other (public or private) concetrated position - SRI investing concerns (like dont invest in tobacco cos, alchohol cos etc) - sometimes a very clear prohibition of speculative investments in portfolio

That’s my point, this woman had something like 3/4 of a $2m portfolio in company stock and when I listed it as one of two unique circumstances, I ended up missing the question because instead they wrote that she was single with no kids.

I would suggest to stick with CFAI problems for IPS.

^ Probably a good idea.

Single with no kids is unusual??? Hmm…does that mean I am normal since I am married with kids?

yes you are not unique as everybody does what you do. She is old and never married or no kids so she is unique as per Schweser.

For the purposes of practising IPS, aside from doing the CFAI 2006-2009 exams, is it worth doing the CFAI 2000-2005 exam questions on IPS? In otherwords, are the IPS questions in 2000-2005 still relevant to the 2010 curriculum? I would think so… so just checking.

I plan on doing them. I mean, there may be some things in there that aren’t relevant anymore but common sense should help you pick those out pretty quickly. I won’t go through them in a testing format, more just to get a feel of how CFAI likes to test it.