Other third party providers don’t really need much in the way of advertising, but I’ll speak to what helped me get through. Here was my path through the exam.
Level 1: Dec 2012 - Pass
Level 2: June 2013 - Band 6 Fail
Level 2: June 2014 - Pass
Level 3: June 2015 - Band 9 Fail
Level 3: June 2016 - Pass
Each time on level 2 and 3 I had to pull up my socks and identify what I was doing wrong. For level 2 it was a lack of study time and lack of prep. I almost exclusively used Schweser for Level 1 and 2 (used CFAI mocks)
Level 3 is a different animal in my opinion, and although it’s best to study directly from the textbook, Go Study was an amazing supplement and incredibly useful material. The guided notes were very conversational, I felt that it was a real human that had gone through the exams and was teaching it in a way that was much easier to understand rather than being lectured by the CFA textbooks. The “cram sheet” for lack of a better word was great for quick review, and covered all the important material.
The material I found to be the most helpful was the Cue Card app. At work with nothing to do? Load up ethics and quiz yourself. It was perfect, especially the ability to mark questions you weren’t sure. This way you could go back and drill down concepts that you didn’t know. I made sure I went through at least 100 cue cards each day, and by the time I wrote the exam I could safely say I had almost every one of them memorized, it was very useful.
This may be different for you, and full disclosure I used Schweser and CFA past exams as well as Go Study, but it’s very inexpensive for the amount of value you get out of it. I would entirely recommend it for 2017.
Definitely agree with you – I used the CFAI books, together with the Go Study Cram Guide and their mobile app (which was great for reviewing flash cards when you have a few minutes here and there). I didn’t order the full Go Study notes package, but they provided the behavioral finance chapter for free (it was well written and useful). The full Go Study package is a bargain too, compared to pricing for other providers.
I’m a big fan of the GoStudy material… Best value for money I’ve come across yet in terms of CFA prep. It’s not stand alone so you will need to supplement with CFAI material but it’s was a great, great buy in my opinion…
I used CFAI curriculum (both for Level II and III) and suggest you use it. I failed in Level II because I think I relied too much on Schweser. Since then been using the curriculum and been constantly getting >70% in 70% of the questions.
I augmented this with a lesser known tutor called Arif Irfanullah. His tutorial videos are very comprehensive and easy to understand. I think he charges $300 for the videos but totally worth it. CFAI+Arif videos is my secret to passing this exam !!
For Go Study, I kind of use it like Secret Sauce/11th Hour guide as a final run through on everything. It is not very efficient to search through study guides while you are working on practice questions in the final month. It has graphs and diagrams which is a big plus to visualize the theory. Cram guide is a good read before sleep too. Highly recommended.