This is hilarious!!!
tkt: If you think Day 1 was intense, it’s actually the most relaxing day out of the four. It gets more intense on Day 2 and 3. The grace of Day 4 is you know you can leave soon…lol However you leave feeling like you just got hit by a truck but you got a dose of L3 reality. Go to Schweser reviews if you want to feel good about yourself, then be surpised on exam day…
I agree, Marc’s slides are very wordy and dense! But they are virtually Notes to the entire curriculum, I’m about to re-read the whole book before starting mocks. If you read the curriculum and the slides side by side, they pick up everything: why they are so detailed and overwhelming. Good luck tkt!
As for Audacious: at least his jokes are getting better. However, all the good looking people went to the Boston Bootcamp;) If anybody wants to pick up a girl at bootcamp, try the following… However, be warned most people at BC are pretty serious.
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Hey, I got the 20XX year CFAI mocks, do you want me to send it to you?
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You seem really smart, do you want to do IPSs with me after class? My hotel or your’s?
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I’m not very good at X topic, could you help explain it to me? (play stupid, we like to help people)
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Can I read through some of your notes over lunch, we can munch on (swaps) together. My treat!
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Let me show you how to get the exact day count between 2 dates on your calculator for the IR option, I can do both the BA and the HP 12C.
Guys who went to the bootcamp, how are you doing? How are you spending the last four weeks?
Marc’s materials, BBs and EOCs from here on out
Feeling a lot better after this weekend, bootcamp was awesome. My process now is to read through the slides for one study session during the day (over lunch, few slides here and there). Then after work go through the CFAI text, hitting the BB and white text examples (seeing most of them for the second or third time now, so it is partly review and partly practice problems). Then I move onto the old exams. I did Institutional IPS yesterday, 2014 back through 2009, and it went well.
I’m doing Marc’s SlideBook, CFAI text BB and the 10yr old exam binder. I support the idea that doing each section all together and then reviewing it all, then read the CFAI book as needed is the way to go. Like a rise and repeat process. I’m breaking the Binder down so you all know how much time each section will take.
SS3 BF 2 hrs 42 mins (162 mins-sum of points)
SS 4/5 Non-IPS 1:40
SS 6 Institutional 7:21
SS7 Equity 3:40
SS 8 & 9 AA 3:36
SS 10 &11 FI 2:48
SS 12 Equity PM 3:27
SS 13 AI 2:08
SS 14 Risk Mgt 1:34
SS 15 Risk App 1:56
SS 16 EMR 2:39
SS 17 Perf Eval 2:41
Total time to do ALL 10 yrs of relevant exam material by section 35 hrs and 12mins.
Double that for reviewing and taking notes, we are looking at 70 hours that needs to be carved out for the Binder. This process should knock out the AM prep and make your AM solid.
I highly highly recommend everybody at Bootcamp do their darn Binder!!! I didn’t in 2013, looking at it made me want to pewk then but live and learn, it has to be done. How Marc has it sorted out I think is money! If you have time, do the binder twice.
I finished the San Francisco bootcamp yesterday and thought I’d put a quick review in here.
It was totally worth the time and money. Five stars–would recommend to a friend.
Marc taught the entire curriculum during the 4 day session. I forgot how helpful it is to have a professor teach the material in lecture format. Going into it I had a solid grasp on most of the information but for some reason hearing it explained out loud helps a ton. He’s been teaching this for a long time and did a great job making the information understandable and memorable. It feels like I just read through the entire curriculum one more time and it only took four days.
Marc knows this material and how CFAI writes their exams probably better than anyone. He gave us predictions for what will likely be tested and all sorts of little twists they might put on old questions to make them more difficult.
There’s a session dedicated to how to take the exam where he exposes all traps the test writers set for us (those a******s.) Another session is dedicated to calculating required rates of return for the IPS. His 2 methods of solving them turns those extremely difficult questions into easy points.
What you get:
- focus packet with a brief outline of the material and which blue boxes/EOC questions to focus on
- book of his power point slides which are really good
- packet for just the IPS required rate of return calculation
- binder including all of the old AM exams organized by topic
Now I have a solid gameplan for the final stretch.
Spork: Thanks for taking time out of your prep to write a review! I heard you guys laughed and made fun of the Schweser review candidates next door for being clueless…LOL Power to being L3 curriculum based (where the highest probability of Passing live and cheap short-cut takers die…)
Before Marc struck out on his own this year, he worked with the Schweser review books. The fact that Marc actually built his own review books to hammer the material means that all of you get more (and better) than last year. I can’t believe that Marc’s sessions were held next to Schweser’s sessions! Anyone from Schweser wander into Marc’s class by accident and then vomit for the monumental waste of time they were enduring in Schweser?
Because this year is the first year that Marc is doing multiple sessions, attendees in the later sessions may benefit by Marc knowing ahead of time from the earlier sessions which issues are beating up the candidates and adjust to spend more time on these. Anyway, all of you are fortunate to get him. His endurance is legendary – I think he runs his marathons and does his preposterously difficult bike runs just to build up tolerance for his Level III classes.
Auburn: Two very SMART people sat in on the first day of the LevelUp Bootcamp bc his class started on Thurs vs Friday and then realized it was clearly the place to be! Then opted out from the schwesers review after they had paid Schweser. More money wasted but at least the correction was made in time.
Yeah, he’s pretty much a physical and mental machine… After 4 days, I was like “pls release us, no more” and we just mostly sat there listening…lol
Glad to hear San Fran went well, and that is funny about the location of the Schweser review. I know plenty of people pass using just Schweser, but I threw my Schweser notes away as soon as I got back from Omaha. They were just taking up room. Since then have been using the focus material to go through the curriculum again, re-working BBs and white text examples and marking important parts, then hitting the study session in the past AM exam workbook. I feel that I’ve improved markedly over the last few weeks, with my overall understanding and retention both much, much better.
Yes people can totally pass with just Schweser, someone I know totally flunk the AM but his test taking skills was so good, he likely 80% the PM and passed by his underwear not understanding the material very well. I think only a very small pool of peole can do that. The people who report Schweser only could just be the lucky batch who got topics they know well but then contribute it to brains/Schweser.
My study partner is a super smart, hardworking, amazing guy who is really really through, and he too also converted out of the Schweser camp and hit the curriculum after the Boston LevelUp bootcamp, couldn’t convince him to leave it before to save himself from wasting time n energy. Now he points out to me stuff he has never seen covered by Schweser and gets frustrated with them.
Good plan, in financial planning we say “Nobody plans to fail, people fail to plan.” I think half of L3 is strategic planning, and the other half is Execution. I need to work harder on my execution or not going to make it, bookworm studying is rough. Must find my inner Supernerd… Plain-vanilla nerd is not going to cut it this time.
Good luck everybody! Lets end the multi-year suffering, it can be over in 18 days. God help us all!
There are 1000 religions in the world. Their followers are 1000% certain they’re going to heaven; while the rest are 1000% definitely going to hell.
The CFA Day of Judgment is coming soon. Revelation is looming in the horizon.
The best studying plan consists of… studying
One and Done in 2015! Hope all the other bootcampers are getting good news today.
One and done it is!!! I’m so grateful that I was able to see this thread! Marc is the man!
Marc is the man. I got very good news this morning and suspect he had something to do with it. If you can get out to his boot camp it will absolutely bring you closer to the promise land.
thank you Marc.
One and done! I concur with posts above, Marc is the man! I signed up for Omaha at the last minute and I’m glad I did. The bootcamp certainly had an impact and helped me pass this beast.
Not one and done (failed last year so no fault of Marc’s) but I would certainly recomend his boot camp. I can think of at least 3 questions that I owe to his class alone and who knows if that pushed me over. Plus I got to spend some time in San Fran so it was a win-win!
One and done here! Plain and simple. Marc is a beast. If you want to pass L3, go to his bootcamp.
Not one and done here - I did attend his bootcamp class this year and felt it did help, despite not passing. I think the only complaint I have is the following: he recommends you get through as many prior CFAI essay exams as you can, and I attempted 10 years’ worth of prior exams. What I found on exam day is that the essay questions were very unlike anything tested say, before 2011; so, it made me feel like the time could have been better spent focusing on other areas that were also recommended by Marc (again, this is what worked/didnt work for ME, everyone is different).
I’ll conclude by saying he truly is an amazing instructor and I do plan on signing up for the bootcamp for 2016 exam. Also, I believe the success rate for those who attend the bootcamp a second time is around 90% or so. So, yeah, I want to be part of the 90% on my second go at the rodeo 