Oh I can see that. But I am taking my time with it, trying to really focus on understanding the difference between concepts. Loss aversion bias looks similar to others and I can see where choosing between biases can get tricky. My tentacles are definitely up and I’m marking up the book identifying potential pit fall areas for further focus later on.
Jan 1st. Too much football to focus on to worry about this nonsense. I registered for the exam yesterday to make sure I got the discounted price, that’s enough work for the next 4 months in my opinion.
Doing GMAT right now for 2018 MBA matriculation…hopefully I can get started around Feburary. Four months of solid prep (>300 hrs) should do it IMO.
Honestly, I have no idea how i will get through level 3 with an infant in the house. I want to make a Tyrone Biggums meme… “Y’all got any more free time.”
I started Oct 1 for each level. i took a 2 week break in the beginning of April for L2 which helped tremendously. I plan on taking another break near the same time, but maybe will shift it to the end of march for L3
Nov 1. Finish all the material and review by mid Feb, take a week or 2 off, review everything again, practice exams until exam day. So close I can taste it, no room for error!!
i would not spend too much time reading the behavior finance. That’s a fun/interesting chapter, and can lead you to spend way too much time. Better use of time woudl be to create short notes, and do practice questions - that’s best way to learn the difference between biases. The questions are more like, by doing xyz, which bias person is exhibiting; or if you have xyz bias, which action are you likely to take. If you read enough examples/questions, you’ll learn that lot faster.
I think Nov 1.
There are 1256 pages in all of the Schweser notes and over 90 days, its about 14 pages a day on average so it is not bad all. So by February 1st, do EOC, QBANK, practice, reread schweser.
Go through CFAI if needed. You will have tons of time!!
If you have not already started today you are falling behind. Yes, the level 3 curriculum does appear to be half as thin as the level 2 books, and yes I know you have work and family lives. But hear me, level 3 is actually harder than level 2 in terms of exam difficulty and the material itself. Level 2 expects you to follow complex series of calculations. If you can memorize those steps and be able to regurgitate them in the exam you would have done just fine. Level 3 is mostly qualitative. The morning exam requires you to write down the relevant concepts and to explain why it should be applied to the case study. To get good at it you must apply deep critical thinking as you study the curriculum. You should not move on to the next page until you have reflected on the motivation and implication of each bullet point. One page of level 3 material demand twice as much time from you as one page of level 2 stuff.
Make no mistake. The morning exam is graded very harshly. You pretty much have to hit the nail right in the head to get credit for each sub-question. Don’t rely on partial credits. Award of points are pretty binary - 0 points or full credits in most cases. Treat the morning section as multiple choice question in which you have to pick the correct answer and explain why.
Start now. You will need to spend at least one month to practice AM question.
-and yes. GIPS will take at least 3 weeks. It is not enough to fully understand the concepts and calculations in GIPS. You have to know the smallest detaills - things that you cannot arrive at through reasoning. Rote memorization is the only option.
If i started today i’d burn out by January.
I agree someone should take a month practicing AM questions but devoting 3 weeks to GIPS is a poor use of time. It’s not even guaranteed to be on the exam, and if it is its only 5% of the exam. I found the questions to be straight forward and fair – not digging deep into the minutiae
If someone can start studying in September and has 800 hours to devote to the exam, sure…spend 3 weeks on GIPS. People that don’t have that time shouldn’t. When it comes to item sets at L2 and L3, I think having a firm grasp of the basic foundations of topics will get you at least 3 or maybe 4 out of 6 questions right and I think that applies to GIPS. Mastering GIPS requires a lot of incremental hours that I think are better spent elsewhere.
Stress yourself over the AM session. Have the worst Memorial Day weekend ever to make sure you’ve got the AM down, but definitely don’t for GIPS. Know the basics and move to more important topics.
Try to finish 2 readiing by march end and only questions in last 2 months
Always appreciate the input of someone who passed but your first sentence is absurd. It’s September 21st for god’s sake.
I’m starting when I get the printed Schweser notes. According to Schweser, it’s sometime in November.
If I had to do it all over again, I would have started a month early to review a good amount of mock AM exams to get an idea of how to write concise answers BEFORE even starting my exam prep as usual. I wouldn’t try to kid myself and consider this “studying” but use it as extra time to prepare yourself for HOW to study and what to look for. Someone explained on an earlier post that it’s a good idea to identify “how can I answer this question/concept in 3 bullet points?” and I completely agree. I started around the same time for each level (mid/late-January) and it worked well for me but I was a little flustered about halfway through when I realized I not only had to review all the concepts thoroughly but how to correctly structure good exam answers under pressure.
I had intended to start after registering the exam and being charged the fee but failed. Start today and think nothing of tomorrow, tomorrow never comes, but it’s easier said than done.
Well said. Using these “premature” study months as an opportunity to really learn what to expect and how to approach and apply given what you learn is really great advice. By treating it as if you were studying the exam frees your mind to study for the content during revision and refinement process.
I would add the importance of full comprehension and synthesis of concepts across content at Level III. One trick I sometimes used was the “lecture to the wall” approach as a litmus test for comprehension. Basically, I would discuss a topic aloud in my office when no one was around to see if I could really truly explain it. If I couldn’t, or I stumbed a lot over words, I knew I needed to refine my understanding. There’s no one size fits all, but it was a helpful addition to my prep.
Separately I took some time to consolidate some advice and resources for current candidates here => http://www.analystforum.com/forums/cfa-forums/cfa-level-iii-forum/91345342
Totally. This was my approach at Level II & III and it served me well.
I found myself talking to the whiteboards in my office constantly. Being able to calc & explain a specific problem is one thing, but trying to calc it backwards & explain it backwards is another. So having a mock discussion (with yourself or others) is very helpful. This happened to help me more on the afternoon session acutally but it helped me feel much more confident in the AM session as well.
The key to passing is “peaking” at the right time.
Too early and you burn out before the exam
Too late… well you know.
Start in January and grind!!