Hi, Yeah, I am still on Ethics. I started studying from 2nd week of August. I am reading the CFAI texts and making copious amounts of notes. I know Ethics is key and I am trying to nail this so that if I am weak in other areas, it can make up for it a little bit. Am I too slow?
WildViper, unless you’re already well-versed in other parts of the curriculum, my opinion, based on my experience, is that you’re falling behind, but may still have time to adjust your study approach if you so choose. You’re going to need several weeks to review and take practice exams. At your current pace, I don’t think you’ve got enough time. Here are links to a few more complete responses to similar questions I posted in the recent past. Using search function, I’m confident you’ll find insightful advice from other AF participants too. Good luck this December. http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?11,604843,604847#msg-604847 http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?11,578688,578706#msg-578706
Done in Quantitative, FSA, Fixed Income, and I will start reading equity this next week. I will read ethics & econ lastly. Date Started Reviewing: April 07 Exam Batch: June 2008 (also serves as my 1st take) PS: Dude you are not alone, I am slow too. Its just that I avoiding burn-out.
What do you guys consider as “done”? Having read the stuff for the first time, or pretty much having it down packed already? just curious… I am still on my first time reading trough everything and will start with book 5 of the schweser notes this weekend. This first time reading through, what I’m trying to do, is to understand all the concepts and basic ideas. Then I’ll start all over again and really try to get all the details down. Does anyone have an estimate on my timing? Too slow…?
For me: DONE is to indicate I already finish reading & understanding each concept w/in the subject matter & yet I have to re-read it or browse it at the last 2 or 1 month before the exam for retention purposes.
Already cleared Ethics, Quants, Econ, and am halfway through FSA. I am continually going back to cleared material to refresh my memory and boost retention. Main thing I am concerned about is stats, so far…
Started in mid July, finished it all except half of Econ and Quant. Will need 1 1/2 months for a comprehensive review and Qbank questions. Study time and habits are all relative. I think the education/work background has to play a big part in the preparation strategies.
Started mid August, so far finished Ethics & FSA with the respective Qbank questions. Starting Quant this weekend. I started late and haven’t been progressing as fast as I should have due to illness. Already recovering and I am speeding up. I’m not giving up. My plan leaves 3 weeks at the end for review and tests only. I hope that undergrad classes in Inv. Analysis I & II, Options, Money & Banking, Corp. Finance will be of help.
Yeah, like dec2007, I too am not progressing fast enough due to work and family commitments. Now I will have to push faster. To me Done is where you only come back to review a section and are already passing the tests in that department. hiredguns, thanx for those links. I will have to get my motor running here now.
You will have to bust a$$ but I think you still have time. As long as you give yourself a few solid weeks of practice exams you should be gold. Ethics is key, but one thing I would say is don’t sleep on financial statements (might not be an issue depending on your background), the section is huge and if you can kill it and ethics you will be in good shape. Just my .02
Is there any sequence on these sections that we have to worry about? For example, can I jump straight into FSA? THen do Quant and other areas? Is there any knowledge I have to have from other sections before tackling FSA? Also, I have figured out that I have less than 2 months till Nov 1. From that day, I will only do reviews and exams. So that means, I have to put in about 35hrs+ per week to study. How many hours are you guys putting in? I work full-time so this is going to be tough stretch.
I don’t think FSA needs any prereq. You can just jump into it.
WildViper, you don’t need any previous knowledge to jump to FSA. I did the same, aiming to review it again some time half-way through the material, because that’s the most unfamiliar area for me and a key one on the exam. I only found previous knowledge of Fixed Income very useful when it came to Analysis of Financing Liabilities. It’ll help if you understand bonds very well, however, it is not required. They explain it well enough. 35hrs/wk just seems a lot to me, but after all you know best. Just make sure to incorporate time for splurging on whatever is important for you here and there - friends, family, movies, sports, etc. I put in about 20-25 hrs and I think that’s fine, I am just trying to be more efficient, which i know I can. You can do it. Good luck!
Ah. I find that you do need to know something about PV, FV, etc in lease accounting…
Viper, I also decided to read the ethics section on cfaI rather than schweser because I figured it would be a better read. Just to let you know, the 160 pages or so of CFAI reading is condensed into only 60 pages in schweser and all of schweser combined is roughly 1200 pages. So, if you are planning on reading the cfai text, maybe you ought to re-evaluate your strategy or else iit s 100% certain you will not have enough time. Remember, ethics is only 15% of the test. I’m assuming that people have such a difficult time because nothing can be memorized and unlike learning concepts in economics, everyone relates to ethical issues differently no matter how much you study what’s “right” to do.
There is definetley some TVM in accounting, as well, knowledge of fixed income instruments comes in handy in a couple situations. I still think you should be alright, you just have to buckle down
done with ethics, quant, econ and half way thr derivatives. My plan is to do FSA at the end so i have all the concepts fresh in my mind. i have heard that FSA is the body of CFA1.
I’m kind of following the same approach. I hope it’ll work
cart10 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > done with ethics, quant, econ and half way thr > derivatives. My plan is to do FSA at the end so i > have all the concepts fresh in my mind. i have > heard that FSA is the body of CFA1. what I meant is I’ve already covered FSA, but plan to emphasize it more by exam time.
Well, I am a Financial ADvisor for 7 years and am pretty familiar with TVM calcs. I also have experience with Ethics (though SEC/Company policies are different then CFAI). THe reason I am reading the CFAI text is cause I read the Schweser first and didn’t do so well in the first Ethics sample test. I feel Schweser has left out a lot important quirks in this area at least. Ethics always gives problems cause of the grey areas and how you interpret an issue. Two people with opposite views in this section, can both be right. And that is the problem. It is not clear cut. I remember when I took my 24 exam(US SEC). What a nightmare that was. I am hoping that with my experience, I will be able to move faster on other areas…like FSA, Derivatives and so on.