Hello everybody, Does anybody out there have strategies for attacking vignettes? ie: should I read the questions or passage first, should I circle the important stuff or write it on the margins Anything would be helpful. Thanks!
I’ll browse the questions, then read the first one in depth before I read the vignette in full. Personal preference I suppose.
Personally, I browse the questions first and go for the proverbial low hanging fruits to start with, i.e. questions that can be answered without reading the vignette
Should always circle those “least/most likely”, “best/least” in the questions. The CFA tests are pretty organized. Usually one problem for one paragraph.
it does seem on the mocks, that the questions go in order of the paragraphs on the vignette. I started out reading the whole thing, and then doing questions, but honestly i stopped doing at that way out of habit about 2 months ago. I just dive into the questions, then search the vignettes for the paragraph(s) and table(s) that fit the question. I lose focus when i sit there and read a whole vignette start to finish - especially because it seems at least 1/4 of the info in them is completely useless.
smileygladhands Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I just dive into the questions, then search the > vignettes for the paragraph(s) and table(s) that > fit the question. > > I lose focus when i sit there and read a whole > vignette start to finish - especially because it > seems at least 1/4 of the info in them is > completely useless. isnt it a little risky strategy? there might be important information here and there in other paragraphs. I noticed it when i was doing EOCs. I usually read it all first when im taking the practice exams, underlining important info all the way. Then answer the easiest first and hardest last.
One way to do it is first skim the questions and then go back to read the vignette. That way you have some idea what they are gonna ask so you can hone in on the keywords. Also, the more problems you do and the more solid your understanding is when you read the vignette you would already have some idea what type of questions they are gonna ask. As I am doing the mocks, if I read the vignette first and I don’t have any idea what they would be asking then I know I’m in deep doo doo.
sumz Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > smileygladhands Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > > I just dive into the questions, then search the > > vignettes for the paragraph(s) and table(s) > that > > fit the question. > > > > I lose focus when i sit there and read a whole > > vignette start to finish - especially because > it > > seems at least 1/4 of the info in them is > > completely useless. > > isnt it a little risky strategy? there might be > important information here and there in other > paragraphs. I noticed it when i was doing EOCs. > > I usually read it all first when im taking the > practice exams, underlining important info all the > way. Then answer the easiest first and hardest > last. it probably is - on L1, i had enough time to essentially do each section twice. With the extra time, i’ll probably go back and be “more careful” with it.
My experience has been to read the whole things then go. There are a couple of questions that if you just glance for the answer in the paragraphs, you may get wrong. Like in a Schweser practice exam yesterday, it was talking about a foreign company. The question was “What ADR level should the company get?”. The first two sentences of the paragraph said “Company needs to raise some external capital”. So I first thought Level 3. But buried in the middle of the paragraph read “Company wants to avoid registering with SEC at all costs” so the answer was Level 1.
wow… i seriously hope there will be less of those questions. I forgot ADR level crap a long time ago.