Wasteoftime

Same situation here. Two books to go, down from 3 last week. I tried to go with Elan videos, but they turned out to be more time-consuming than I had thought. Switched to Schweser notes and it went better. Less time, more information retained.

I will focus on the 11th hour review, CFA EOC and practice exams from today, while trying to put in 2-3 hours/day for Equity and FI (one of the books I have left).

I would recommend skipping the Schweser EOC. They do help a little, but they are easier than CFA EOC and can give you the false impression you really know your stuff. Happened in my case anyway. I did FRA last week, was scoring 90-95% on Schweser EOC, went to the CFAI books and only got around 68-70%.

Also, try not to get discouraged. That's lost time we really can't afford to spare at this point. ;)

sgupta0827

Jay and Andreea (and all those who know they haven't put in the hours but are hoping to pass)

If you have read any study guide (Schweser, Stalla, Elan) at least once, then its time to just zero in on the Eleventh Hour Guide and make sure you know everything in there. Also know all the formulas. You don't want to lose easy points like PVBP, Sharpe ratio etc.

Make sure you read Ethics at least once properly. The ethics adjustment can push you over the line, or bring you under. You dont want to cram all the technical stuff, do reasonably well on it and then get pulled down by your ethics score.

Do the CFAI EOC questions. They will take time, but trust me they are worth it.

Do a lot of tests/ mock exams. Learn the stuff you don't know/got wrong, and cut down on careless mistakes.

Good luck. I hope you make it, and if you do, don't boast about how you only studied for a month Encourage others to start sooner.

disiz64

Beatthecfa, thanks a lot for the advice, we really appreciate it.

I did a practice exam today, and to my surprise I got 65% in Ethics - which I have never read properly - and a really low score in Derivatives, which I've read twice from the CFAI textbooks. I also watched the Elan videos once. Other sessions were close to my expectations - not high ones, except for Economics .

Back to cramming..

Daniel1985

I am in a tight spot myself. I have finished my readings except 1.5SS of FRA and Derivatives. I am planning to finish up FRA by friday and then take a practice exam...
Bad thing is that I rushed to read everything and didnt take any notes! I feel like I have already forgotten most of it... Hope this will come back when I do some qbank

Londonrocks

The best way to learn with so little time left is to go through all questions with answers side by side and write down what is the question asking? what relationships do you need to know? what formulas? what terms you need to know?

write down these, relationships, formulas, terms,etc.

If the mock exam is really going to like real exam focusing on relationships and terms are more important then formulas.

Another exercise i'm going to do the week before the exam is actually make a cheat sheet(that i would use if we were allowed). I used to do this in college and it works for me. Simply take everything you would need to pass the exam and place in as few pages as possible. Imagine if CFAI allowed you to use only these notes on the real exam. The process of actually creating the cheat sheet will actually help you big time.

JGovender

Do I need to do all the CFAI EOC questions or just MCQs?

invic

Dude, you have a job (presumably in finance) thats more than (I would hazard to guess) 70 percent of the test takers. So you're ahead of 70% of the guys sitting for L1.

FVPV

Quick question: I am finishing up on the readings, got 3 Study Sessions left. Without counting AI, which I won't be reading at all.For Fixed Income and Corporate Finance, should I read from the CFAI texts or does Schweser cover the material well enough? I have the Elan videos but I study better from books.

Thanks!

joemoran

CF is easy. You should be fine.

Fixed income is much better in Elan, but Schweser is good enough. If you dont understand anything, then you can always watch Elans videos, which are very helpful for debt.

Why aren't you going over alt. 8 questions but they are very very easy (usually).

shootingstar

Thanks for the advice!
I thought the questions were difficult for AI, that's why I didn't want to read it. I will try to skim through if there's any time left.