FRA (Schweser Notes) / Stress

Hey @archer90 (Mike), good to see you here!

What part in particular is difficult? FRA is a tough section, so you’re not alone there. Don’t worry too much about retaining at this stage, but understanding the concepts and doing end of chapter questions to reinforce that understanding. You’ll do more retaining of that by doing practice questions (getting them wrong, learning why you got them wrong etc). For now, it is important that you try to learn and understand the concepts, doing basic questions at the end of chapter, and keeping on schedule. You’ll learn the most in the last month, ironically – worrying thought I know, but it’s important to keep to your study plan. 

Highlight areas you don’t understand and/or are weaker at and come back to it at the practice question/ last month revision stage. 

@archer90‌ It’ll start to gel together when you start doing practice exams.

@archer90‌ i personally didnt find kaplan fra notes very helpful either…in my opinion, they are quite broken, in the sense that all the important information relating to a topic is not in one location…it is distributed over half of the book…
if you would like to continue with kaplan, i suggest making your own notes as you go through the book…you could concentrate on differences between gaap and ifrs – make a table for this; and notes on how all the elements in each of the statements are treated…
it was too late by the time i figured this was the issue, so i just went ahead with the exam…didnt have time to check cfai material either…its possible that their material might be more organized…

considering your time constraints, give some thought to making notes ( dont know your time schedule, but judging by what i read above, you should be able to make notes in 1-2 weeks at most ) and then continue with the other books while regularly reading the notes…

also, writing stuff down while studying fra helps a LOT! especially with the focusing and retaining part 😉 

hey  @archer90 even i dint find kaplan much helpful for FRA, i switched to watching videos for FRA…i came across a website called apnacourse.com which had free videos for CFA L1. I found the faculty very clear in explanation of the concepts, esp in the FRA section. You may try it out…its in the 4th chapter/section of their CFA videos

@archer90, while I haven’t begain studying myself, I second the points of @tacheman and @Pranav above about practice exams and making notes as you work through the books. If you’re not already doing questions from the Q-bank at the end of each section, that should help hammer down things you know and things you need to polish up.

Another suggestion from a CFA study-strategy book I read: flashcards. The act of writing the flashcards will help you retain and provide you a quick and simple way to review bits you haven’t looked at in a few weeks.

In short:

• Make notes (brief summaries) as you go of sections you would like to retain more of

• Do practice tests and Q-bank questions

• Make flashcards

Get back to us and let us know if these help.

Best,

John

@archer90‌ flashcards work too, as long as they contain the material that you need refreshed…

@archer90‌ 

Hey! Since FRA has the maximum weightage – 20%, it would be prudent to finish this as quickly as possible, more so because you seem to be having trouble retaining the material. The earlier you finish FRA, the more time you will have to revise this subject and also complete other readings. So yes, please try to stick to FRA and finish it off on time!

As everyone has mentioned above – make summaries, solve practice sums and refer flashcards. Excellent memory boosting methods. 

But there is an obvious time constraint. So instead of making summary notes yourself, you could use the Schweser Summary given at the end of each Reading. You can start reading a particular chapter, say Reading 30 – Long Lived Assets. While reading it, you may come across some info that you may feel is important and should form a part of the summary. So go to the summary and write that particular piece in your book. Chances are that Schweser might have already included that point in the summary, so you won’t have to waste your time writing it down! In this way, by the time you’re done reading the chapter on long lived assets, you’ll have a Schweser Summary updated with all the additional information (written in there by you) that you felt was necessary for revision! Now you can use it for quick revision whenever you want.

In general, to remember anything, whether written, or on flashcards or highlighted or whatever, you’re going to need concept clarity and you will also have to keep revisiting that section! If you are stuck on some concept or some particular thing that you just can’t seem to understand, you can always ask on the group! I am sure there are many people over here who are happy to help! There’s another option- since FRA is a topic that’s studied in depth in many professions other than CFA, you could also just simply Google it and find a plethora of explanations!

I hope this helps!! 

@archer90‌ 
You’re welcome! 

And thank you for pasting the quizlet link! Those flash cards are amazing!