So I’ve logged about 160 hours to date of mostly passive studying. My plan is to get to 300-320 hours. I stay after work for 5 hours every night and will be doing 8 each on Saturdays and Sundays.
My problem is - I’m not remembering anything! I feel good with Equity but going through FRA I find myself just forgetting a lot, like Multinational Ops, Intercorporate Investments, stuff like that. I’m going to do a FULL mock exam after work tonight “just to see where I am at.”
When I do the EOC questions for a topic I don’t remember, I don’t even know where to start or if it’s worthwhile… like if I am just guessing, what is the point? Or should I continue doing questions with my notes handy?
I think I wasted so much time taking detailed notes in Word that now I don’t know what to do. Flash cards seem to work better for me anyway.
Goal is 5-6 mock exams. Should I just stick to the mocks and revise from there? Pick out the most commonly recurring LOS’s and really nail those down?
My goal is to know Equity, Ethics, FRA, Corp Fin, and Alt Inv very well in that order and not focus on the rest too much.
I am in the same boat. Feeling exactly like you are. But we still have 30 days to go which is a hell lot. I believe we can conquer it if we work smart. Any inputs from the forum members might help.
I felt the same way no more than 2 weeks ago. By any chance, have you only read through the material once?
I felt like I was retaining nothing when I would look back, after reading through most of the material a second time, I’m feeling much better. You don’t realize what you retain, I’ve noticed that on the first read through, most of the material is foreign and you waste a lot of brain power understanding it. The second time though, even if only subconsciously, you already understand the material, and you start to remember much more.
Hopefully this helps. 31 days is plenty of time if used efficiently, at 5 hours a day you can get in another 150 hours.
Everyone feels this way but in reality we’re slowly retaining this information. Key is to ramp up your study to an extreme level in this month without burning out.
Agree with kj. I felt this same way after the first pass but after the second reading through, I’m feeling much better about the exam. FRA and Derivatives seem to be sections that really require a second or third review for me at least. Lots of formulas in derivatives.
I’ve read all the material once over but at this point I don’t think just passive reading is going to do me any good - but neither is answering questions where I don’t know the material! Bit of a catch-22. I’m thinking I’m just going to make a bunch of flash cards and answer EOC questions while using a formula sheet and my notes just to make sure I can get through the “process” of answering a question and then go from there. Fk I hate this test.
You still have plenty of time. The general concensus is that in order to pass, you MUST score 70%+ on equity and FRA so I would definitely focus on those 2 subjects. I dont think skipping derivative is a great idea either as you will most likely see 2 item sets on the exam which is 10% of your grade. Do EOCs on those 3 big ones and make sure you UNDERSTAND the answer.
If you’re like me, then fear grips you as soon as you realize you don’t remember how to do the problem, the formula, etc. This used to be almost paralyzing- “OMG, if I can’t remember this now, then I’ll NEVER remember it on June 7… I’ll never get my CFA charter… I’ll NEVER get promoted… I can’t do this again…Blah blah blah”. One big chain of worry.
I finally learned that it passes and the more practice problems I do (by hand, on paper) the better it gets. I tell myself “I will know it by exam day” I tried this and failed L2 in 2012. Lots of reading, waiting until late to do practice exams. Hence, my status says “Level II Candidate” and it is now 2014 (took 2013 off). Contrary to what i commonly read about ‘how to study’-- read first, take notes, do problems-- I essentially did it backwards. I’ve been working all the practice problems starting with FRA and Equity ‘open book’ since February, making flash cards, taking notes and reviewing videos after the fact. Even if my memory of the definitions is foggy when I see a problem, remembering the method to solving the problems seems to jumpstart my memory.
All that said, I was eager this time around to do practice exams much earlier. Starting this weekend I’ll do one per weekend (including a live mock in 2 weeks) and hopefully 2 more the week of the test. Still debating (in my thread from earlier today) what the best strategy for practice exams is. I’m thinking I will do the AM and PM on Saturday in same time frame as the actual exam as a baseline (again, WITHOUT obsessing about whatever the score is…), then the next couple do an item set and then check the answers (learn as I go) and then the final ones exactly like the exam, straight up.
Also, this time I made flash cards to ingrain formulas in my memory by writing them out-- typing them doesn’t work for me. Also, I’ve been suggested to go through all the CFAI curriculum books (4 - 5 hours) and make ‘bite-sized’ notes-- may be formulas and items i want to make sure i don’t forget, stuff I don’t remember seeing in previous passes… A friend who passed did this-- ended up being about 30 handwritten pages and he read it every day for a month before.
You do have time. Keep moving forward in spite of the fear.
Each time I get frustrated I made list of 10 questions whic I do not know for sure and I practice them until I am pretty sure that I finally know that. For me this works fine.
I feel exactly the same, especially for derivatives I feel like I remember nothinf… but 30 days has got to do, it’s all we have now so we need to be in full speed. Good luck
Feels like I’m looking in a mirror! I failed L2 in 2012 by not studying nearly enough. Was in the process of quitting my job and studying for the GMATs to go back to grad school. Failed horrible like Band 3.
I ended up not doing a mock last night. I spent 6 hours after work just drilling Intercorporate Investments and Multinational Ops. Made flash cards for the whole chapter. Went through all the Blue Box questions in the book (This is big I think. I’m going to print out all the blue boxes for all the sections now). Now I’ll probably do all the EOC agian and just glance at flash cards if needed to give me the little extra nudge.
But yah, I plan on doing 1 mock each of the next 4 weekends and 2 more during the final week before the test (taking off from work that week). I feel much better today then I did 48 hours ago. Crazy how this test can toy with your emotional wellbeing so much on a day to day basis.
I can feel my stress levels increasing with each passing day. I’ve been through the material a few times now and i am doing each EOC qs without to much of a problem. My biggest problem is, I will review a section, say PM, feel very confident then revise a section i did a few weeks ago where i felt extremely confident and realize i forgot some key steps. In other words, it is like i reached capacity in my head and in order to retain some information, other informtion needs to be eliminated.
Summer will be a great present to myself this year.
i noticed a lot of people are taking the approach of a mock per weekend from now until game time, thats about 4 to 5 mocks between now and june 7th. I was planning on taking the CFAI mock this weekend and the March Mock next weekend. Im curious as to what other mocks people are using? Swescher? Elan? Both? any recommendations on which mocks to use? Ive seen in most forums that CFAI are the best mocks, followed by Elan. But i only have swescher. Should i even waste my time w/ the swescher mocks?
Schweser mocks are good learning tools (in my opinion) - they are designed to help you learn - not necessarly to replicate the test. I did all 6 for L2 last year and thought they helped. I also did the official CFAI mock. My advice is treat the schweser mocks as learning tools, do them before the CFAI tests. So you need to do whatever CFAI has on the website, but if you have additional time then fit in the Schweser mocks first (as many as you can).
