My depressing Realizations practice, concepts, prepares, repeated, general

joehogue

Here are my assessment(s) since it looks like I will be taking it again, thanks to that AM section. Feel free to agree or disagree.

1. Studying past exams prepares you for the test in those prior years. Practice exams in general are of little value since you are not going to get those same questions repeated or asked in the same way. I think I agree with you guys who are leaning towards understanding concepts versus taking practice exams. Studying past exams are of even less value. The best thing to do is the mock and sample exams. Even cfai says don't use their past exams as a guide. Will listen next time.

2. Schweser I can't decide if it is good or bad though I keep buying it. Obviously many people pass with just schweswer, while their summaries are good, their EOC questions and test bank are worthless. If you need questions, look at CFAI EOC questions. Also whenever they say something won't be on the exam, don't believe it.

3. For the AM test, reading the vignette first and then attempting to to answer the question is poor time management, since the question usually pertains to one or two specific statements. (I knew this but didn't completely practice it).


Thoughts?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Monday, June 7, 2010 at 01:47PM by boondocksaint.

mp3bu

agree

text book is the most important. I found lots of questions are just the same as samples in textbook.

However, I don't know how much you can memorize by only reading textbooks as CFAI likes to pick those tiny stuff that nobody would pay attention to to test you.

Unforseen

The CFA text route would have paid better dividends. Schweser is great to get an overview of the BOK and helps nail down some easy calcs that CFA throws your way, but to get to the bottom of some trick, conceptual questions they ask, which has only increased over the years, the CFA text should be the preferred source to prepare from. my 2 cents.

Darien

I'm a re-taker and here are my thoughts... I believe I passed this year but we'll see.

I used Schweser entirely last year... big mistake. Failed in Band 4 and I felt confident going into the test.

This year, I read through all the CFIA text books. I then reviewed using Schweser and did all the examples and EOC questions again after reviewing the specific study session. I feel studying the past IPS questions is important but anything else is up in the air. I think the EOC questions are much more helpfull as that is the information they expect you to know and that is what they test on.

aidebaobao

dude i am sorry but if you used only schweser and failed band 4 that is not schwesers fault.... i used schweser exclusively first 2 levels and passed relatively easy... and used probably 90% schweser on level 3 and felt pretty prepared for this test

jmh530

My learning style is such that the practice exams/prep-provider questions help to drive home the concepts. I pick up way more info scoring/reviewing a practice exam than reading 100 solid pages of CFAI text. I think it really helps to see some of the concepts in action (like how you would see them on the exam). I would definitely agree (at least for L3) that you really do have to take one solid pass through the CFAI text, but I think the prep-provider materials (esp. practice exams) are very helpful.

canadiananalyst

boston21 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> dude i am sorry but if you used only schweser and
> failed band 4 that is not schwesers fault.... i
> used schweser exclusively first 2 levels and
> passed relatively easy... and used probably 90%
> schweser on level 3 and felt pretty prepared for
> this test

It's a matter of opinion and I realize after the fact that I was not prepared last year. Schweser for levels 1 and 2 are great but I think the text is the way to go for level 3.