Choosing your strongest topic first and then the harder ones
Answering the most important topics first (ethics, FRA, etc.) and then the other topics
No strategy in particular, just going question by question
Any other?
Personnally, I think I will follow my usual strategy for every exam at univ : going through the exam three times. On the first time, I answer the easiest questions (if there’s such a thing on that exam, lol). On the second time I answer the harder / longer questions. Finally, I answer the hardest / longest questions on the third pass. It’s not perfect because I keep the hardest stuff for later during the exam and I might be tired at that time. However, it helps me building confidence and momentum by answering the easy stuff first.
I have no idea if this is feasible for the L1 exam since I’ve yet to write a mock / practice exam. I guess I’ll have to adjust my strategy after I tried it on a mock / practice exam.
I followed the same strategy in all 3 exams…start from the top and work your way to the bottom. The format of the answer sheet makes switching back and forth between sections highly risky, it’s too easy to fill in the wrong oval. People have had to erase all of their answers because they got to the last question just to notice that the oval is already filled in. I recommend this: start from the beginning and work your way through. Make a mark next to each question in the question booklet: a tic mark if you are sure of the answer, a question mark if you are unsure, and an x if you guessed (and of course always CIRCLE the answer you have chosen - that’s for your own reference). When you are done with everything, go through the guessed questions again, then the ?-marked ones, and if you have time left, double check the rest. You should be very careful changing the answers to those questions that you marked with a tic mark the first time around - with multipe choice, the biggest risk is that you start to overanalyzse and end up getting confused by the options put before you. If you are SURE that the new answer you have come up with is the correct one, change, if you aren’t it may be better to leave the original answer in place. Also, do try to write out your calculations at least roughly in the question book so that you can check them again - this makes double-checking those calculation intensive questions so much easier. For the infamous accounting questions where you will be asked to reason out whether income would be higher or lower in a given scenario, note the reasoning down (I did this with arrows and abbreviations) - again, if you haven’t noted it down, double checking your answer becomes more difficult. Good luck!
I followed the same strategy in all 3 exams…start from the top and work your way to the bottom. The format of the answer sheet makes switching back and forth between sections highly risky, it’s too easy to fill in the wrong oval. People have had to erase all of their answers because they got to the last question just to notice that the oval is already filled in. I recommend this: start from the beginning and work your way through. Make a mark next to each question in the question booklet: a tic mark if you are sure of the answer, a question mark if you are unsure, and an x if you guessed (and of course always CIRCLE the answer you have chosen - that’s for your own reference). When you are done with everything, go through the guessed questions again, then the ?-marked ones, and if you have time left, double check the rest. You should be very careful changing the answers to those questions that you marked with a tic mark the first time around - with multipe choice, the biggest risk is that you start to overanalyzse and end up getting confused by the options put before you. If you are SURE that the new answer you have come up with is the correct one, change, if you aren’t it may be better to leave the original answer in place. Also, do try to write out your calculations at least roughly in the question book so that you can check them again - this makes double-checking those calculation intensive questions so much easier. For the infamous accounting questions where you will be asked to reason out whether income would be higher or lower in a given scenario, note the reasoning down (I did this with arrows and abbreviations) - again, if you haven’t noted it down, double checking your answer becomes more difficult. Good luck!
Agreed, go in order. It’s easier to manage your time, there are 120 questions in each 3 hours session, so you have about 1.5 minutes a question. I always take my watch off and put it next to the exam so I can ensure every 15 minutes I should have covered another 10 questions, and I adjust my pace accordingly. Typically as the test goes on your pace will increase as you hit your rhythm. If you skip a question, as stated above, fill in the oval representing your best guess and mark it on the test booklet or scrap paper so you know to come back. This will help ensure you’re filling out the correct ovals, sometimes if people skip without filling in their best guess on that question, by the time they answer the next they’ve forgotten to skip and fill in the wrong oval. This mistake can quickly compound. Don’t spend more than several minutes on a question. You can miss up to SIXTY questions on LI and still have a 75% (generally 65% is considered a good shot at passing). So just realize you’re going to miss some and move on.
I had figured out the strategy while giving the mock. My strongest area was Corporate Finance. I started off with it then went to Portfolio, Derivatives, Alternate Investments. After I was completed with them I had the confidence that I was doing well. These areas with relatively less questions helped me out in saving time for the tough sections and giving me the required confidence. I would suggest don’t figure out the exam strategy in the exam rather identify it while you are appearing in the mock. Time is usually not an issue in Level I but doing the questions right and not getting deceit by the tricks in the statements should be the objective. 90 seconds are enough to do a questions its better to read the questions slowly in spite of reading it 3 times in order to understand it.
tried several strategies on mocks. and the best for me - just go in order. Ethics usually takes more than 1.5min/Q, but Quants are easy ant take less than 1.5min/Q and so on.