@daharmattan1
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Up5
Yeah I’m going to disagree with formula memorization not being useful for L1. It’s very very useful. It gets less useful the further you go and by L3 you’ll need way less formulas. That said conceptual understanding can almost always eliminate at least 1 of the 3 answers
Up4Here’s a side by side contrast of each LOS and any changes between 2014 and 2015
Up4Brilliant graphic
Up3Just FYI, the CFA Institute explictly stresses to only look at the last three years of exams as things change. That said, when I did L3 I definitely used exams dating back to 2001. They were helpful, with the occasional problem that made me go “WTF”
Up3I agree with you, it’s solely a balance sheet transaction as it doesn’t affect a company’s revenue or profit.
When a company buys back stock, it first reduces its cash account on the asset side of the balance sheet by the amount of the buyback. Say a company repurchases 100,000 shares for $50 each. The company would subtract $5 million from its cash balance. In the equity section, the company increases the “treasury stock” account by $5 million. Treasury stock represents money paid out to reacquire stock; it is a “contra equity” account that offsets contributed capital, so increasing treasury stock $5 million has the effect of reducing net contributed capital $5 million. The balance sheet is back in balance.
Up3You’ll need to be able to use them to get answers, if that’s via the calculator and you can do it every time, then great
Up3Test strategy is huge. Agreed that there are a lot of lists, and “identify” type questions in L3 that lend themselves well to memorization/flashcards (which is why I created a free study app at gostudy.io). It’s also 100% true that L3 has fewer equations to memorize than L1/L2. For many of them, instead of having just 1 equation on a card I found it helpful to write out full steps to solve for a problem. For example, listing out exactly what you need to do in order to modify a portfolio’s duration
Up2In case it’s helpful I stumbled across free study notes at http://www.cfaexamlevel3.com. They send a great overview of Behavioral Finance right away and then drip out the rest of the study chapters over time. So far it’s mixed with pretty useful email tips/tricks etc. Anyway, another supplemental resource. I found the first three chapters I got to be on par or better than Secret Sauce–but definitely that level of detail. After talking to the creator it looks like they’re developing (and will release in early April) a notecard app for L3 as well which would be cool because I haven’t found a good one.
Up2Agreed with @Christine. I used Schweser with online supplements and it worked fine. Advantage of 3rd party notes IS the condensed version. L3 is about broad connections between material, and not having to wade through overly detailed readings from the original curriculum works well as a time-saver. As with L1 and L2, the secret is going to end up being practice problems and sample exams
Up2The most critical part of review for me was doing mock exams. Over and over. I was able to take a week off before L3 and did 6 morning exams and like 3-4 afternoon exams that week. There were no curve balls left at that point.
Generally, I finished the material about 3 weeks before L3. that was a little later than ideal but I had been reading Secret Sauce or flipping through notecards on my commute to keep all the material fresh throughout the process.
One other strategy I find particularly effective is circling the difficult (or crucial) practice problems at the end of each chapter and flagging their page # so that I could review only the most relevant EOC questions as part of that cram review process in the last few weeks.
Keep it up you’re in the home stretch!
Up2Good idea @peekabooitsme Now that we’re into the cram, time I’d recommend finding really decent summary notes. Schweser Secret Sauce was OK when I used it in 2014, but I’m tutoring some candidates now that really love the free alternative at http://www.cfaexamlevel3.com/
Up2Agreed with all of that. I’d just add that in your first few practice exams, it can be really helpful to do a problem, then review the answer, without worrying about the 3 hour time limit etc.
Up2I found their long-form notes to be great (For L1, way less awesome for L2/L3). I hated their secret Sauce, the cram sheet is OK/useful. Some candidates find the videos/qbank useful. IMO QBank is really over priced and the questions don’t mimic the test format. But if you want to drill specific types of questions over and over, I guess that’s helpful.
Up2The only substantive change to the curriculum was the merging of the two ethics case studies into one reading. Otherwise from 2015 to 2016 the curriculum remains unchanged. You should be fine
Up2Agreed, the BA-II plus is the standard that all study providers will reference
Up1That’s awesome! I’m getting an email series from http://www.cfaexamlevel3.com that has both free study notes and access to old mock exams. Supposedly we’ll be getting 6-7 morning AM session exams to practice with for free from them.
Up1Agreed. I find their long notes (5 volumes) to be solid, the secret sauce can be helpful but I think other providers do a better job with that…Also their mock exams are good practice and pretty good value. Note, their notecards are AWFUL. They just print out pieces from their notes, so they’re not really “notecards” in any constructive question/answer type of way.
Up1The NYSSA (NY Society of Security Analysts) have a pretty solid 10 minute video up on youtube about earning points in the essay section. Link:
Up1Think of each level as a layer of knowledge they want to ensure people have. L1 is like the rite of passage–90 seconds, lots of plug and play across a wide swath of material. L2 is similar but you go deeper into concepts and you now need to stare at vignettes of material and be able to figure out which pieces of information are relevant. Then L3 you need to move past multiple choice and calculations and apply it all into a framework.
At least in theory I think that’s what’s going on
Up1It’s more interesting to understand how you plan to mix practice problems with reading
