Repeat Taker Tactics obtaining, struggled, practice, multiple, problems

Micholien

I know this may be an early topic for many but as a 2x Band 10 I am looking for some input. Both years the AM sessions have cost me the test. I have rocked out the Individual IPS but for some reason struggled on the remaining AM questions. By struggle I mean in terms of obtaining a good score...honestly, walked out thinking I did just fine. Any recommendations on how to study or prepare for the AM sessions next year? So many of the practice problems are multiple choice and I am looking for ways to walk into the test more prepared next year.

YAhmed

Fail band 10 as well. Seriously considering a career change. I don't know how many more CFA exams I have in me. I've spent 1-3% of my life on the CFA. Is another 1-2% worth it?

zbird2134

Two keys that got me over the hump: have to know fixed income inside and out and doing the creighton boot camp. I did not have much prep time this year and used the boot camp as a cram session. The 40 hours of prep time right befor the exam is priceless. With kids, full time job and long-ass commute, it was my only hope. Fyi, classroom is my preferred learning mode. I would attend all classes in under grad and grad school. Never took many notes, just being there and listening/seeing the material was enough.

Also, other than the individual ips calculation, i decided that i would not memorize any formulas. Took a high level approach and it worked. Decided to do this after someone else posted passing without a calculator. yMMV.

dvilayphet

I think it would be very useful to have a third party (a friend or someone on this forum who knows their stuff) read some of your sample answers to previous exams. It's possible that you're not the best judge of the quality of your answers.

ASSet_MANagemen

cadlag,
Thanks.
I just don't understand the result of PM considering although I was not good at it I continuously took so many PM tests and got over 65.
so many possibility i am thinking my insufficiency, possible mistakes, or some other errors .. I think I need to be sure I could get over 80 or 85 marks earlier enough.
Thanks for your advice. really helped.

economicz

@soundboy

Thanks for reading my post above. My answer to your question about how to improve the PM section is this. We need to know how to solve these quantitative problems the way that it is solved in CFA texts (or any review course texts that teaches the CFA method of solving the problems), and we need to be able to solve quiet a large repertoire of these. About 90 percent of the problems in the PM section are always written at a level that is comparable to the ones in the Readings. By that I mean the in text examples (and some examples are not always in the blue boxes in the sense that they are written into the paragraphs). The remaining 10 percent are harder than the ones that can be found anywhere in the texts, but if you nail the 90 percent I mentioned, you will have time to knock off some of the 10 percent questions that appear to come from left field. You can usually tell which ones are in 90 percent category.

So how do you get to be good at solving these problems? For some the answer is as creative as watching paint dry: repetition. For others it is using a question bank. Either way, you just got to get enough practice that you feel comfortable doing these problems. I am not a genius, so it takes me several times before I can internalize a concept.

Having said that, I am still mystified at my morning scores. I knew I bombed some sections, but to have bombed that many sections is really strange. I do wish I could have my exam booklet, because I believe that looking at my answers can be a pretty good learning tool (but of course, I do not see CFAI returning that to me). Go figure….I guess I’ll find out the preferred answers when they release the June 2011 AM section in spring 2012.

canadiananalyst

cadlag,
Could I know how to be sure of 'very little guessing on the PM question'? I mean how to be prepared in PM section.
I think I have better result than yours in AM section (but not good I think, may be it is around 50~55) But poor than your PM result. I think I have to be higher than 75 or 80 points in PM at least. But I just couldn't find out how, after putting much effort . actually i felt I would need more time 1 or 2 weeks prior to exam because i found i only got 65~70 points in PM mocks.
I actually unexpected that and was surprised. becuase people say you have to focus on AM as AM is essence of lv3 and if i have got around 55 i thought it will be easy to be over 75 points in PM. But it was not.

BelalM

I was band 10 in 2009 then band 9 in 2010... I managed to pass this time... the thing that i did differently on the am section this year was starting from last question to first.... while doing this I focused on solving problems that needed calculations first, then moved to problems where I needed to write or explain stuff.... Problems that I had no clue about were left till the very last half an hour....

sabre

I fell into the quantity over quality trap this year. I was so keen on passing and being done with all of this on the first shot I began counting hours; my mindset became, "if I book 26 hours this week, I'm sure to pass." rather than focusing on absorbing concepts and making sure I understood what I was reading. Inevitably I wore myself down to the point of really not absorbing much material at all between Arpil and May, I believe.

I also stopped going to the gym. This, in my opinion, was a HUGE mistake. In my push to 'guarantee' a pass, I stopped my normal weekly training. The atrophy not only occurred physically, but mentally too. I wasn't as sharp after April. I was sluggish mentally. I never took any shortcuts (read CFAI text cover to cover, did all EOCs multiple times, reviewed Schweser in my weak areas, and did all chapter examples), but by test day, I burned out.

These are a couple of the broader issues that led to my lack of success this year, I believe. There are some details I will change (adding more practice exams to the mix), but these are ultimately at the root of the issue.

RoastBeef

vanb0057 - u sound a lot like me. and i think we'd be in the same boat if this year's pass rate was just a tiny bit lower (i think i just skated by this year)

so what i would tell u is that rather than totally overhauling your approach, just do what you're doing but just get sharper on a few more points, understand a couple more things, get into a couple more corners. that's what did it for me this year. sorry if this sounds simplistic.