Value of Study Guides examples, version, reading, noticed, similar

domani

I came across an interesting realization today after I read the income statement chapter in Stalla's study guide. I immediately started reading the CFAI books for the same topic and noticed that the Stalla study guide closely resembles it, and uses similar examples and thoughts. I'm not sure how I should feel about this - is that all study guides are - a summarized version of the actual curriculum?

It just makes me wonder if I'm wasting my time by reading both, CFAI and Stalla. What do you think?

kamara5

The study guides are exactly that, a summaried version of the actual curriculum. The staff of Stalla and Schweser review the curriculum each year and summarize what they believe are the important parts (i.e. the parts that will be tested - they are often wrong, but generally correct). If you look on the L2 and L3 forums, you will see that a very successful strategy has been to focus on the study guides and use the actual curriculum to reinforce areas that are likely to be high value on the exam and/or areas that you have trouble with. The EOC questions from the actual curriculum are also a must.

bluejazzy

Thanks. That is what I plan to do.

rkapoor

If the study guides are waterd down versions of CFAI why bother? Do the other parts of Stalla or Schweser provide a valuable review?

homie

devildog Wrote:
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> If the study guides are waterd down versions of
> CFAI why bother? Do the other parts of Stalla or
> Schweser provide a valuable review?


Study notes get you 90% of the necessary information in 50% of the time. Statistics may vary, but you get the point.

LokiDog2

spartanag07 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I came across an interesting realization today
> after I read the income statement chapter in
> Stalla's study guide. I immediately started
> reading the CFAI books for the same topic and
> noticed that the Stalla study guide closely
> resembles it, and uses similar examples and
> thoughts. I'm not sure how I should feel about
> this - is that all study guides are - a summarized
> version of the actual curriculum?
>
> It just makes me wonder if I'm wasting my time by
> reading both, CFAI and Stalla. What do you think?


I can't speak for Stalla because I used Schweser, but I thought Schweser did a good job condensing the CFAI text. It probably cut down my reading time by half and I liked how it was organized by LOS. I didn't even touched the CFA text.

cyber21

I read both the CFAI texts and the Schweser notes, and found them to be both very useful if you have enough time. However, if you are short on time you should focus on Schweser, as it's most of the information in a lot less reading.