Band 9 to band 7 in one year change, opinion, multiple, earlier, studying

scruge

I am faced with a band 7 after a band 9 one year earlier. A band 7 with more preparation and a better exam done in my opinion.

I was practicing past exams before the actual exam and was scoring above 70% in both essay type and multiple choice questions.

I answered all the questions.

I don't really know what to do.

How to start studying again. What change should I bring about in my studying approach.

mp3bu

I thought this was going to be a joke motivational post in response to the Band 3 to Pass post.

parott

Repetition amigo. Do 10+ full practice exams, time them, do them under actual exam circumstances, and review them (even the ones you got right) multiple times.

This is in addition to doing the readings and answering every EoC question there is, and also reading the sauce 3-4 times and annotating it.

If you fail doing this, i don't know what to tell you.

PieMan

The only add-on to the above advice would be to practice being able to answer the questions more quickly. Time management is a real issue on the exam and the ability to move through questions at a crisper pace can be a great help. I tried to get to the point that I was answering the questions about 25-35% faster than what "time/questions" would normally allow. Getting faster at the things you know well will give you more time to work and think through some of the topics that are not as much at the tip of your tongue.

AnalystForum

WebGlider Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How to start studying again. What change should I
> bring about in my studying approach.


Post your 2010 and 2011 score matrices so we can see what's going on.

PieMan

post it up, I wanna see how this is possible.

Otabek

ATH Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The only add-on to the above advice would be to
> practice being able to answer the questions more
> quickly. Time management is a real issue on the
> exam and the ability to move through questions at
> a crisper pace can be a great help. I tried to get
> to the point that I was answering the questions
> about 25-35% faster than what "time/questions"
> would normally allow. Getting faster at the things
> you know well will give you more time to work and
> think through some of the topics that are not as
> much at the tip of your tongue.


And also make sure you take enough time to read over the questions so you understand because there're tricks all over the place.

Also make sure to check the footnotes. Very important.

xilinx_altera

compare results from those two years, try to find out patterns. AM vs AM and PM vs PM...was AM session bad in both years? Eassy better than Item sets? any particular weak subjects area? once you done that, you should have some idea where you should concentrade your firepower on for next round.
I was band 10 last year and really focused on the essay the second time and did relatively well. I had a post earlier and talked about my approach which is slightly different than most others. I focused on trying to really get to know the basic blocks/tackles of materials....and not so much on practice exams. If you grasped the basic stuffs really well, then your speed will natually be qucker in answering questions and itemsets.
My theory is that CFAI can find many different angles to test you, practicing exam is good for time management but can't cover all the angles and may give you false sense of security.

soverby

sounds like you were prepared and just didn't perform at game time. I would prepare just as hard for it next year, and also start thinking about the other things that come into the test day like getting good sleep leading up to the exam, eating right, and exercising to keep your brain fresh. Also not thinking about other areas of stress unrelated to the exam like family, friends, and work. Taking a week off work leading up to the exam, etc..

There's this book that talks about how exercise contributes to better brain function, called Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. I'm not sure what your exercise regime is like but I know mine starts to fall off the cliff when the exam date draws near. This year I made sure I kept up with it and got enough sleep every night for the week leading up to the exam.

brainsX

The course is not difficult: i think you need to address the essay section not as an essay but as a reverse multiple choice. The multiple choice has a specific and unique answer which you arrive at by a series of analytical steps. The term essay is a misnomer and is misleading and implies a wider assessment of the problem. Provide the answer and the steps but not in an essay format. Ignore the term essay!

The morning session is really wham bam thank you mam. Practise answering the AM as a reverse multiple choice, which means that practise for the multiple choice can also be used as practise for the AM. Both morning and afternoon sessions have the same objectives.

If you think about the PM session, you invariably have more than enough time to finish: complete AM practise with a brevity and directness that will allow you complete it with more than enough time. If you are overrunning it means you are going outside of the context required to pass and there is a risk that the test takers are programmed to only assess direct answers, irrespective of how correct a more essay type answer is.

In effect, think less about the problem and more about the answer, which is something that would make Einstein cringe but the CFA happy.