I have finally passed level 3 in my 3rd attempt after the gap of 4 Years. My emotions were running high yesterday before and after the result. I wept like twice before the result while thinking about all struggle and effort I have put and the support my family has given to me. When I saw the result, I was overwhelmed and feel like screaming and breaking everything in joy as I wanted to take my anger of previous failure out.
I am sharing my complete story about my background , strategies, failures, learning’s, sacrifices and what have I finally got. This is going to be bit long but bear with me.
I started my CFA Journey back in 2008 December when I came to know about CFA in my first job in HSBC as a management trainee. I never had an idea about it and when I joined my job I saw lot of competition so I decided to give level 1 out of curiosity, I hardly studied for 1.5 Months without any practice exam and cleared it.
Opted to appear for CFA LEVEL 2 June 2009 and started studying in March as I thought 3 months will be enough. I was able to cover and complete the course but somehow overconfidence killed me and I failed Band 8. I got flunked in quantitative method and derivatives which was my strongest suite. Finally cleared in June 2010
I appeared CFA level 3 first time in 2011 and failed band 7 and then appeared 2012 and failed band 6. These failures were eye opener for me because I never had failures in my life and I had been very good and hardworking student. Level 2 failure didn’t hurt me because I know I didn’t put much hardwork.
I got married in 2012 and since then I have been busy with business , wife and 2 kids during this time as I didn’t get courage to appear again because I was so down and de-motivate that one more failure will kill me. Last year I made myself to think to complete something which is not complete yet but I didn’t have the time and courage because of my so much responsibility. Rather than choosing simple path, I first plan to appear for FRM level 1 in order to see where do I stand in terms of hardwork, memory, family management because I don’t want to jump for something which has already drained me out. So I appeared for FRM level 1 2015 November and cleared it.
This was the time when I was not still sure to appear for Level 3 or Frm level 2 but my wife encouraged me and I choose a different path and planned to appear for Level 3.
STRUGGLES:
First few failures made me think negative about me and about the society in general because I never tasted the failure in my life.
Develop bad habits of partying and not praying and wasting my time on so many useless things that I didn’t realize it till I got married. Involved in low self esteem activities which I realize now.
Family Struggle, my wife and kids ( 3 and 1 year old) have to suffer because of me. But credit goes to my wife for supporting me through this.
No social life, weight gain, no gym training, too much caffeine and physically inactive ( I would advice to workout atleast 20 mins)
Lessons:
Life is all about struggle and failures do come and go in your life. I realized this after getting married . I believe marriage was turning point because I made me think not about myself but about my kids and wife as well.
Never loss hope. These struggles are very small compared to many other life struggles which will come to your life.
I Start looking at the people around me to realize that how much bless I am. I started comparing myself with people who don’t have opportunity to study and have the best of the resources. I started comparing myself with disabled people and I realize how lucky I am to have all these facilities of life.
I realized the importance of hard work, struggle and failures and what wonders it can do to make you become a good person( humble, down to earth etc)
Study Strategy:
Coming to the most important part which you all are waiting for. My strategy for study this time was not much different compared to last time.
Schweser Books : I relied on schweser just like for level 1 and 2 and even when I got failed. I started studying from it in Feb 2016 mid.
CFA Curriculum Mobile App: At the same time, I downloaded CFA curriculum on my mobile phone and I used to skim it after each chapter read just get an idea about the main theme of the chapter. This helped a lot to understand those topics which I was not able to understand from schweser. I used to use this app while travelling, in washroom, in social gatherings etcJ
After every schweser chapter, I used to do questions from Original curriculum in order to see where do I stand.
CFA end Chapter Questions: Till mid of april, I studied schweser twice and did CFA Curriculum end questions .
CFA blue Box and Schweser Evening Exams: 15th April-1st May, I studied Schweser once more ( More of skimming) along with Blue box examples and I started doing PM Papers from Schweser exam books. I was scoring around 58-60%. I didn’t do any AM exams during this time.
Schweser+CFA APP Study: 1ST May Onwards, I start studying Schweser once again along with CFA app but I kept myself slow. At the same
CFA Candidate Resources: 1st May, I started doing CFA Online Exams for evening from cfa website. I used to do 4-5 cases every day. I solved few case studies twice and thrice as well
CFA Morning Exams- I gave my first CFA morning exam on 5th May and I started with 2011. I solved from 2010- 2015 exams once or twice specific questions. I used to give exam after every 3rd or 4th Day and I was able to solve all exams 5 days before the exam.
CFA Mock Exams. During this time I gave CFA Mock exams on 12th May and 20th May in order to see myself where I stand. I scored above 70% In both.
Tips:
Its not about where you are studying from, CFA LEVEL 3 is all about practice. The more practice you do the better it is.
There is only one strategy for the morning exam, practice and practice. Print out the exam, choose the pencil or pen which you like to do exam . Make yourself time bound for each exam and see how much you are able to solve it.
People who do exam without any time bound, believe me they will perform poor in the exams. 100 Bucks
_4._Those who believe they understand all concepts and don’t do written practice and just do morning exam by reading question and making answer in mind. They will definitely fail with lowest band. This is what happened with me in first 2 exams.
After every morning exam, not only grade yourself but also try to understand the answers written in the answer sheet. It will help you to clear many concepts.
Maintain Excel sheet for all morning and CFA Online case exams. Write the score against each question in excel and see whether you are improving by each exam or not. If you are not improving you need to brush up few concepts from the book.
In the last week, try to revise curriculum, I got a chance to get Finquiz summaries and I start reading them for the mental map.
In last week, look at the questions which you did wrong and where you scored less in both AM AND PM exam.
Ethics:
For ethics, it has been my weakest part and I have always scored less than 50 % in all CFA exams. What I did, I study from Schweser and did all the examples from the CFA book. I used to do 2-3 Cases of ethics from different sources. I completed all questions of Schweser exams, End of book questions and cases and I used to look at the wrong answers. It improves my ethics day by day and I finally able to manage to score above 70 percent first time in my life. There Is no other strategy to excel ethics. I felt at ease in the exam.
Institutional and Individual Portfolio Management
There is only one strategy to excel it and that is to practice them from morning exams. Study alone will not help. Practice as many questions as you can. CFA answers are the best course of study to understand these two main topics.
Best of luck to all the new comers and those who are not able to pass this time. I wish you all the best of luck and if you have any queries, you can contact me on Bilal830@gmail.com anytime.
This post is not for people like you who never leave a chance to degrade anyone anywhere .
i wonder what will you do with your life with this attitude ? I never proclaimed to be master of English language . Atleast I have a courage to continue this journey and end it on high note .
I can only wish you best of luck and I feel sorry for you
Good essay ! … a bit TLTR… but effort is definitely appreciated…
sounds a bit of a redemption and you probably needed one
To : Others who might be interested
Remember one thing that works for someone might not necessary work for you !
You may chil, have a beer, have a hxxxx and still make it … or you can read all you want and still come next year… whatever you do, take it as it comes…
I think many people are cheating when they do their mock exams/ practice questions. They don’t put their answers on paper, and don’t spend the extra minute to add up the scores and grade everything objectively. It is much better to face reality before the exam and know exactly where you’re at than getting “surprised” during the exam/ by the exam result.
Now do you really want me to point out to you how many of your countrymen failed more times than that with even worse english? Can’t you just keep your personal or national biases/hatred to yourself please on such an international forum where such comments don’t do any good to your perception even? Please let this place be for motivating and cheering others only. If you can’t speak good then don’t speak at all.
To many, your post may seem TLTR but only those who can understand circumstances under which you were taking these exams would really admire your journey. The key take away from your post for me was
i) realization of how blessed we are given so many more intelligent, eligible people than us who live far worse life than us just because we were born in a better place or had a well-off family and had better accessibility to education/work.
ii)strong commitment and dedication of CFA Charterholders like you, no doubt why those 3 letters means so much, never give up.