brain_wash_your

I passed Dec 2010 and took it in June. I started studying around October/November for L1, and ONLY did Qbank and passed. I was under the crazy impression I could pull off the same feat on L2 until thankfully I ran into a CFA charterholder who set me straight who failed L2 (very bright guy). Then I jumped on these forums and saw some very intelligent retakers on the forum. That scared me and made me realized this thing is no joke. I wish I had another 3 months before I took it.

Its very difficult to get through all the material in a meaningful way. There was very little I could actually read.

I started in March. Here was my method (in chronology):

1) Did Schweser Video for Quant and Ethics and EOC Schweser Q's
2) Took John Harris Accounting Class without reading material. If I pass the exam (not feeling great about it but still feel I have a shot), then John Harris deserves some credit. Accounting really stuck well for me after his class. I spent very little time reviewing it. I even score high on the accounting sections of the sample exams (not mocks the samples).
3) studied about 50% of Equity
4) Took Schweser 3 day live course - Good but very high level, doesn't get into the nitty gritty. Very good at helping setup a framework for understanding the big picture though. It was very very helpful on currency and arbs though.
5) Talked with professor, she went over my previous background (took a quarter of derivatives, fixed income, portfolio management in MBA program 8 years ago).
6) With the time crunch at that point, I jumped into the questions/mocks

I hit high 50s low 60s on first two mocks but then really reviewed the topics I missed well (using CFAI, Schweser notes, videos, anything it took to get it to stick).

By the end I was scoring 70's in book 2 Schweser (except book 2 AM, ouch!). I even broke 80 in one of my final mocks. I got a 70 on the CFAI mock.

But on the exam, I know I messed up some sections.

Then my daughter was born the Thursday before the exam. I lost about three days the last week before but to be honest, that will not be why I didn't pass. I was running on very little sleep but I do know that I felt I knew 50% of the material well and the rest was sketchy. The more you work with the material the better you will get and the faster you will get. You will also stop memorizing formulas and realize that formula memorization can be a crutch. When you KNOW the material the formulas will just come to you.

If I were to do it again, I would still have started answering questions sooner. Forget passive reading (at least for me). I doubt many people ever say, "I started answering questions too soon".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 05:46PM by stingreye.