What should he do? Fail twice with curriculum addition, anything, difficulty, him

wildrose

A colleague of mine has failed level 1 in Jun 2008 with band 7 and Jun 2009 with band 9. He is one of the smartest guy in the company. However, look like he has underestimated the difficulty of the CFA exam. He thought that he does not need anything in addition to the curriculum.

He will be taking the exam for a third time in Dec 2009. What do you suggest him to do? Go for Schweser or Stalla or stick to the curriculum?

pacmandefense

I failed twice now, Level 3 band (pretty bad). I'm taking a breather. I was considering starting again and signing up this week, but if I were to realy get after it, I would have done so before Aug

dcfox83

Umekichi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A colleague of mine has failed level 1 in Jun 2008
> with band 7 and Jun 2009 with band 9. He is one of
> the smartest guy in the company. However, look
> like he has underestimated the difficulty of the
> CFA exam. He thought that he does not need
> anything in addition to the curriculum.
>
> He will be taking the exam for a third time in Dec
> 2009. What do you suggest him to do? Go for
> Schweser or Stalla or stick to the curriculum?


Are you referring to your yourself? Good luck in Dec.!

jim8z3

CFAI texts should be adequate, if he masters all the example and end of chapter problems. He needs to practice a lot! Don't spend too much time reading the textbooks though, cuz he'll just get bogged down in the details and forget about them later.

dece2011

Umekichi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A colleague of mine has failed level 1 in Jun 2008
> with band 7 and Jun 2009 with band 9. He is one of
> the smartest guy in the company. However, look
> like he has underestimated the difficulty of the
> CFA exam. He thought that he does not need
> anything in addition to the curriculum.
>
> He will be taking the exam for a third time in Dec
> 2009. What do you suggest him to do? Go for
> Schweser or Stalla or stick to the curriculum?

It sounds like you answered your own question. If he is as bright as you say, then if he doesn't underestimate the exam he should be fine the next time. Sounds more like will than materials.

Get him on AF and he will pass for sure as long as he doesn't think he is a genius and goes off half-@#$%&. Plus, when he sees how the nasty regulars on AF prepare he will realize what he is up against.

Edit: That and a tons of questions.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at 11:18AM by mwvt9.

kamara5

First of all, can you put your results from both exams. That may help in giving better advice.

Now that you (sorry your friend) have gone through this twice with CFA books, I would advise you to use Schweser notes. It has fewer pages and, therefore, focussed; I know it covers about 95% of the CFA books, but I do not think you will fail because of this issue alone. I think the CFA books does not work for everybody. It has a lot of material and is difficult to bring it all together without notes.

waldziuchna

The Curriculum is enough. Worked for me!

RobertA

Umekichi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> He did not do any mock/sample except the free
> ones. He did most poorly in FSA and Fixed Income.
> I agree with you that drilling question with qbank
> and passmaster is very important.
> I think his face a dilemma that having only 4
> months left, he could either read the curriculum
> once (which he has read previously) or read the
> study guide twice (which is totally new to him).
> He can only spare 1 hour during weekday and 5
> hours during weekend. If money is not a big
> concern, what would you suggest him to do in his
> limited time?


I'd advise him to do more mock exams (e.g. Schweser books 6,7), then review them with CFAI text, especially the weak spots. QBank would be extrememly useful for him as well. He needs to do more practice and drill the questions rather than re-read material through another third party source. Once he's getting >75% on the mocks, he should be good to go.

FVPV

He should be able to pass Level 1 with just the CFAI books.

However, Stalla does a pretty good job for FSA (for Level1 atleast). If Peter Olinto is doing the CDs for FSA, and that is the only area your friend needs, he will pass. Olinto got me to > 70 for Level 1 FSA and I have NO accounting background.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at 09:50AM by bos_IT_guy.

leadcfa

How many mocks did he do when he was preparing for the second try? In this type of exams, just like GMAT, the things like time management and other multi-answer test tricks are more important than knowing the material. Of course one should know some material, but just doing Qbank and several real exam simulations would do for the fist level. I even substituted reading for videos, and did not touch the Curriculum. Test techniques are important now, if he knows the Curriculum already. Check the local CFA society for exam simulations