How to do it differently experience, studying, understood

spartanag07

Hello All,
I took the exam for the 4th time this year, and i failed band 7. I truly do not know what I should do differently, what should I concentrate more on, but what i know is that i have a hard time remembering the exact content of formulas - simple formulas like Herfindahl's or value of an option. Does anyone experience the same? How do you approach studying, do you read and then try to put down what you understood out of that LOS, with no books aside? After failing so many times, I dont know anymore how studying works.
The material does not seem hard to me, I understand it, but when it is about being tested on it, i feel i lack its depths.
Good luck with studying!

kkn006

Thanks all of you...really valuable information. You all may be right.
It makes sense to me when i read it, but then when I tackle a problem, i sometimes need to peak at the concept in the book. That surely means something in the comprehension part of the process is missing. Maybe I dont take it seriously and dont focus because juts by reading it I understand it?!
Spanisheck, an example of a formula is simply the value of a future...Or the two stage model....dont laugh at me if this seems too easy for you :-)

WarrenB1

SF Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The material does not seem hard to me, I
> understand it, but when it is about being tested
> on it, i feel i lack its depths.
> Good luck with studying!


There is a difference between reading material and saying, "I understand this concept. It makes perfect sense to me. I get it." And taking mock tests, problem sets (EOC) and answering them all flawlessly w/ no notes, no formula sheets and not pre-reading any material before you do the problems. If you can sit down and open any chapter of the books and nail every EOC question flawlessly, you will pass. If you can hit mocks with 75-80% rates, you will pass.

If you had 80% on Schweser + CFAI over 5-7 mock exams, you were pretty much guaranteed to pass. If you didn't even do this work in the first place, you might not have prepped right.

Learning is repetition, not comprehension.

parott

I went through the material 3 times - and times 2-3 did Qbank for each LOS after finishing it. That helped me make sure i got the ideas down and keep all concepts fresh

The last month i tried memorizing all formulas that i felt were improtant. This worked as i knew all the formulas i needed in the exam. Since i had gone through the material several times, i knew which formulas i needed when etc, and understanding the content makes the formuals easier to remember. Also recommend doing many many mocks. But i think repition is the key (and you need to learn it through your pen, not just by reading).

Most formuals are easier to understand once you really get the concept - for example FRAs and Swaps. Once you understand what you are doing, the formuals really become explanations of the topic in number terms.

Would you mind posting some of the formuals you have trouble with? Maybe you can get good feedback as to how to remember them

mkytz15

I made condensed notes about anything that I thought I might forget later, including most of the formulas. I tend to think of things in visual terms; for instance, if I'm thinking about something I read, I will actually visualize the page and recall the information from that. So, my notes had a bunch of tables and flow charts - basically stuff that I could easily visualize. This helped with L2, where you have to categorize many different things for different accounting treatment.