Harnessing Your Memory for the CFA Exams – Part 1

thanks @fabian!

@Gary maybe if there are enough tricks and tips contributed I will start organizing and compiling them.

@ARGOS7 thank you for your help and assistance and share whatever material you come across that may be potentially interesting. Even if it has been shared before a quick refresher never hurts =D

If you have a list of mnemonic devices you have been using and don’t mind sharing, I’d be more than happy to organize, help and add my own to make it more complete.

@ARGOS7 thanks for sharing that. I think somebody else has also shared this before on this forum.
I would suggest that people create their own mnemonic devices and learn how to implement it for anything that requires memorization. The “stories” used to memorize is a very individualist process. I have been mulling over creating a guide for some of the easier CFA chapters but at the moment I don’t have enough resources to undertake this type of project.

@Ryshi that is perfect! You are getting the hang of it. Now whenever I have to work with the fama-french model I am going to think of a cow reading a book :p

I could but it won’t be helpful to everyone because this is a highly personalized process what is striking to me might mean nothing to you. I deposited the pension accounting rules on my bookshelf (this is another method of memorization which I will share in part two).

To give you an example of how non-transferable it is I’ll give you a story I use for multinational operations.

current rate =rurouni
temporal rate = battosai
(why? because rurouni = simple life and temporal = difficult)
Rurouni is a wayfarer, no attachment, he is separate -> just like we have to use the current rate for independent operations.
Battosai’s scar is part of the past (historical rates) one is for COGS (his cost is the guilt he bears) and the other is depreciation (he doesn’t age (depreciate) The pairing still creeps me out).
In the temporal method only non-monetary assets are translated at the historical rate just like he didn’t monetize his pivotal role in history. It also reminds me of the Megumi arc and how he “torn down” the canon-like gun I don’t even know why I associate that (temporal translating non-monetary assets) with the Megumi arc.

Rurouni Kenshin first came to Japan/East Asia – IFRS and thus I use current rate for hyperinflation (simply because I memorized them in order and current rate appears first in the book)
Rurouni Kenshin came to the US second – use temporal. Just if you are curious it wasn’t licensed to VIZ until 2003 and didn’t translate them all until 2006 (a year before we started university and were busy doing the whole angsty teenage thing. Get it temporal-temperamental ->angsty.

But as you can see a lot of people are going to read this and wonder what the hell I am going on about.

@Zee even though I’ve known about these memory tricks while I was studying for level I I didn’t use it much. It is actually pretty difficult to do and doesn’t help that I have no experience trying to do this.