When is a good time to watch the videos?

After finishing all the readings or after finishing a reading… Or maybe any other suggestion.

I was hoping to watch the videos before (or maybe instead of…) the reading. Is that just dreaming?

Did you get the Schweser videos Hamada? I’m still investigating 3rd party material at this stage and was checking this guy out last night. Let me know if you have any thoughts based on the research you did.

http://www.arifirfanullah.com/home

My worry with ordering the videos is that I’m not sure if there’s going to be enough time. If there’s 150 hours of videos, when am I going to find time to watch them on top of the reading. Still not sure of my plan of attack on L2. Any thoughts welcome.

I saw that guy he doesnt seem bad…I think im going to go with the Elan videos. I havent heard 1 bad thing about the instructors recetly aquired by Elan (Peter Olinto) I heard so many good things about him, how he makes even FRA interesting that I was sold. Plus i will get a 20% discount on the Elan videos for being a full time student. I used the Schweser videos for L1 and sincerely they werent that good. They helped me refresh many concepts at the end when i dint feel like reading, but you definitely have to had read before watching those videos, because they dont go as deep as the lectures. I dont think you should watch the videos before. My dilemma was if either to watch the over 80 hours of video that elan gives after reading or to watch them after i have read all the notes as a substitution to reading the material a second time.

I think thats what im going to do, im only going to watch a video inmediately after finishing a reading if i was really confused. But im going to keep the Videos part for after im done reading.

PS. You can check out the Elan QM videos which are free in their website along with their notes.

Hey Hamada,

It says on your profile that you’re studying with Schweser. Are you thinking of switching to Elan for notes as well or are you mixing and matching? I studied with Notes from Schweser for L1 and now trying to figure out who to go with, Schweser being my fallback choice if I can’t find a reason to go with anyone else.

I personally wont count the hours watching videos as studying… Its a tool which can help you accelerate time in front of the books, again depends on the teacher.

I am a student of Peter Olinto for Level 1 (at Stalla), now as Hamada has said he has joined Elan. I can vouch for him and if you are looking for video solution, dont miss him! A simple google search can tell you why I rate him highly :slight_smile:

I have used irfanullah for Fixed income in level 2. I liked his videos for that portion as well. I think he has free Level 1 videos in youtube. Worth watch his FRA classes on inventory (I think its there on level 1 as well right???), watch that and then decide for yourself. The reason I am saying this is, being an Indian I could be comfortable with his pakistani accent (which in effect is same as Indian accent) - but please make sure you are fine with his accent as well…

But #1 goes to undoubtedly Peter Olinto :slight_smile:

And as to answer the initial question… It could be used both ways Hamada… I generally like to watch videos without a preset notion on the topic. I like it that way, where as I had a study partner who was exact opposite of that! And both of us did clear Level 2 :slight_smile: So I would say the choice is yours mate!

Im still going to study with the schweser notes and use their test, i will only use the Elan videos. My primary focus right now is to study from the CFAI books and then when i start watching the videos i will read over the schweser books. But all my extensive note taking from the readings will come from the CFAI books.

Yeah, I’m probably going to do the same. Going to order the $599 package from Schweser + $70 for the Secret Sauce, and spend $450 for the Elan Videos on CD. It’s expensive but I think it’s worth not taking short cuts considering this is going to be taking so much of my spare time this year.

The 10% discount from Schweser expires on the 31st of August for anyone considering getting these.

From now until the notes comes out I’m going to go off random sample notes (Elan Quant and Schweser Equity from 2011).

I think the 10% discount in Schweser is only for the complete package, I ordered the 599$ package and it didn’t apply… Instead of the secret sauce this year i went with the finquiz qbanks because I heard really good things about it , also because I hated the Schweser qbank last year, I really learned when doing their mocks, but I really dint like the qbank. Are you going to read the cfai books from now until August?

Yeah, looks like your right about the “Essential Study” lack of discount. That’s good, gives me a bit more time to do research.

The $599 package includes the QBank, so you’ll have 2 sets of QBank sources? How much is the finquiz qbank and what have you heard about it (i.e. why is it so much better than Schweser’s)?

I like the idea of the secret sauce because it condenses everything to review in spare time during the last month. For L1 I didn’t have it and kept just reading the bits I had highlighted in my Schweser Notes and carrying around 4 books at a time on my commute which wasn’t ideal. I found myself being all over the place when re-reading stuff when I wanted more bite size info.

I don’t know if I can read CFAI books. My brain just turns off after reading a paragraph of those books. I’m hoping videos and Schweser will get me through occasionally referring to CFAI books will work like it did for L1. I’ve heard a lot of people say you can’t do that for L2 but we’ll see. I’ll report back when I get launched into it. Right now I’m just getting ready, haven’t yet started.

I used the Secret Sauce for L1 and its really good, i recommend it because in the last month it reminds you of all these small details. I might buy it too.

The Schweser qbank from what i heard its the same as the Level 1 format so it isnt a Vignette style. The finquiz i did some research and heard that it would give some really challeging vignette style questions which will be a good complement to the EOC from the CFAI books. The downside from what i say is that they put a lot of gimme answers so they can reach 5000 questions. I might still do some questions from the schweser qbanks even though its not like the exam format will be, i will try to do some of the challenging qbank questions maybe 5 everynight before i sleep or something. But when i sit down to study and do 120 qbank question i will do them from finquiz. I got finquiz qbanks and 3 mocks for $100 because they were offering a 60% discount to retakers of their material, but i sent them a bunch of emails asking for the 60% so i could afford to get them. So you should try that out.

I know what you mean about the CFAI books. Ethics was fine but now im doing QM and I cant read the CFAI books because it makes everything so complicated, so what i do is im reading Elan free notes on QM and then re-reading the CFAI book so i can grasp the material. Then do the blue box examples and the EOC. I know its a lot of work but I want to make sure next time I see QM i dont have to re-learn everything, I want to grasp everything now. From QM at least. Its so horrible i dont want to see it again.

I just went for the Elan Package. I used them for Level I and am comfortable with their style plus their L2 QM stuff is way better than kaplan’s.

@cleverCFA

Did you research about eleventh hour? It’s way better than secret sauce!

I havent decided which one to use. What do you think its better than the secret sauce? The secret sauce was good for me but it was just way to over the top of all the material in one book. If i wanted some details about anything i had to go to the books.

I’m under the impression QBank isn’t in Vignette form, but Finquiz has vignettes.

You are right, this is why I went to the finquiz qbank. Believe me even if you know the material well, the vignette can screw you if you do know how to approach them

Hamada I had seen both books in level I. I found secret sauce to be too brief, whereas eleventh hour was very detailed. I had its hard copy back then, which came in a small print size and was very handy. Also i guess it was half the price of secret sauce at that time.

As far as level II is concerned, i did go through their free samples in my June attempt. They seemed fine but as i was short of time so i didn’t buy.

Qbank has both type of questions but again they are not that helpful in Level II. I have found only the vignettes in CFAI mocks any close to the real exam. Sadly, even the vignettes in CFAI curriculum do not come close.

Repeat Post.

I bought Finquiz with the 60% discount. I’m still consiering what video series I can get, if I don’t see a used copy come up on Ebay or Amazon soon