cMerry Christmas and a happy new year everyone! I hope you have happy holidays and enjoy the rest you hopefully get. If you are studying for the June exams you should have a complete break from your studies for this holiday period. If you have been studying hard up to this point you may burn out if you continue. Just live up the holiday and you will have more energy and motivation for your studies when you get back into it.
Take care,
164 days until the June exams. (so relax!!)
I'm still recovering from the exam. I wish I could say it was easy and I'm sure I passed..but I can't. I found it to be the same difficulty as the CFAI mock exams. The morning session was probably a bit easier and I finished with 30 minutes to spare, so I went over the ethics questions again. The afternoon exam was probably a bit tougher. I left 4 questions I found difficult during the exam and came back to them at the end. I only had 5 minutes to do them so I solved one and guessed the others. I will probably get similar scores to the mock exams which will mean I am borderline on passing.
Overall, Ethics was definitely the toughest section and Quantitative methods was probably the easiest. FSA was not as hard as I was anticipating. This is probably my best hope since it's the heaviest weighted topic. One thing I noticed is that my concentration wavered in the last 1 1/2 hours of the afternoon. I managed to get decent sleep the night before, but it goes to show how tough the exam is since the afternoon questions are just as important as the morning ones.
I will have to wait until January 29th to find out whether I passed. In the meantime I will take it easy and relax my brain. I will do the first study session for level 2 since it's online. Even if I need to sit level 1 again, it can only help me for that. But today, I will rest...
181 days until the June level 1 or 2 exam.
On Friday I did the first CFAI mock exam and got 65%. I didn't get below 50% for any section but the areas I usually score highly in (ethics and economics) were only just above the pass mark. It was a wake up call and I spent the day reviewing the exam and reading the secret sauce on FSA and Fixed Income.
Today I did the second mock exam and got 70%. This was the first time I failed ethics (67%) but getting 75% in FSA helped me get the pass mark. I will spend some time going over the mock and reading ethics but I plan on going to sleep around 9pm and get up around 630am. There's not much more I can do to prepare. The mock exams show I am borderline on passing so there can be no silly errors. Getting enough sleep could mean the difference between passing and failing.
For everyone sitting the exam tomorrow, good luck. Try to get a good night's sleep. Stick with your first answer unless you have good reasoning to change it, never second guess yourself. Keep an eye on the time. Narrow the answers down as much as you can. And have a proper breakfast. If you have studied, you should perform well. Have confidence!
PS: Read this and this, and finally this.
1 day until the level 1 exam.
Today I completed the revision of my notes apart from ethics. It has resulted in another set of notes which I plan to go over everyday now leading up to the exam. It contains all the formulas and bits of information I think is vital to remember for the exam.
The plan for tomorrow is to go over my ethics notes, and do the 25 question self-test on it, as well as the curriculum questions since they are all past exam questions. I have made a list of all the concepts I didn't understand in the last sample exam I took, so I will go over those areas as well. And I will go over my "cheat sheets" (that's what I'll call them).
On Friday morning I will take one of the CFAI mock exams and I will take the other on Saturday morning. There are a few things I want to get out of these exams. The main reason for doing them is to familiarise myself with the format of the exam, the questions I will face, and the time constraints. Another thing I want to do is to minimise errors from NOT READING THE QUESTION! I have constantly made errors because I will quickly scan the question and look at the answers with a completely different question in my head. I don't go back to look at the question properly so I don't pick up the error before answering and get the wrong answer. In the last sample exam, I lost 3% from this. You can say it's only 2 questions, but this can mean the difference between passing and failing in an exam like this.
Another thing I want to get out of this exam is a confidence boost. I am aiming to score 80% in the second mock exam. If I can achieve a 10% buffer, I have a very good chance of passing. If I don't, then it could be a 50/50 thing..
I'm feeling tired but the worst of the study is over. There's no time to relax but I will feel more refreshed by exam day.
4 days until the level 1 exam.
EDIT: Haha, my countdown has been off by a day. At least it was an extra day and not a day less ;)
If you are using Analystnotes for your studies, you've probably already been shocked by the fact that the website appears to be down.
You can still access the site if you use this link. Although who knows how long this will work for. Good luck with your studies. Today I'm reviewing Alternative Investments and SS5 (the first study session for economics).
5 days until the level 1 exam.
