@maverick
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Up5
@MFA. I agree with @Pranav‌. I am also not 100% sure of my location / job / etc, but I too wanted to get going on this. Personally I hope that regardless of what happens, I will be able to carve out enough time to take Dec 14 / June 15 / June 16 (hoping that I pass at each stage of the journey). Even if anything does happen, getting in the learning, or a decent amount of it now and right up until whatever happens will help with your path, regardless of your journey to get there in terms of what is actually achievable in exam dates on the way.
I hope that make sense?
Up5Hi Surangasa.
Personally, I’m a December 2014 candidate for Level 1. At this time I am studying exclusively from the CFAI curriculum, so I couldn’t comment on what Kaplan are missing out. However I plan to do things in reverse a bit.
The CFAI take great pains to really expand some subjects which you wish they’d covered in 1 page rather than 5, but then you come up against a section that brings in a formula that is entirely unexplained, rather that you should already know what they are talking about in the new notation randomly introduced for a given function.
You can take one of two approaches;- sit and try to wrap your head around it for an hour, look back in the book to see if you missed something, search for algebraic terms to see if they’re just assuming that you happened to already pass an advanced mathematics course. Or you can just accept it, move on and see if you can come back to it later via another providers material or similar and make sense of it.
I’m heading towards path two now. If something simply doesn’t make any sense, don’t fall behind in required reading, just note it, accept it and come back to it later with additional material or readings.
Has anybody else found this to be the case?
Up5Strangely, considering mathematics was my major at school. I’m finding quant the most difficult.
FRA / Econ / Ethics, no problem thus far…Up5@jessmat‌
Not entirely sure Jess! I’ve always been pretty good at reading. My work required that I do the CISI London international investments and securities exams, I did level 1 in 2 days and level 2 in 5 days, just by sitting and hammering it at full pace. I’m thinking that I really should take a few holidays off of work and get back on track. I know I can cover a good 300 to 400 pages if I take a week off, which will more than put me back on schedule. In all honesty though, I’m actually averaging about 10 to 12 pages per hour when you look at productive vs non-productive hours.Going back to analogies, I used to do 10-pin bowling in a couple of leagues per week and learned the importance of concentration or “being in the zone” mentally there. It’s so easy to suddenly go from bowling 190 to 210 pin (points) games to 120 or worse without feeling like you’re doing anything different. Then you get annoyed with yourself, focus on everything you’re doing wrong and start beating yourself up for performing badly. From there it’s just a slippery slope downhill in terms of your focus, concentration and therefore performance. You’ll probably find you’re doing the same with your studies. You must walk away, break the cycle and come back clean and ready to focus and deliver. Whether that takes 5 minutes or 30, you’re not going anywhere in a negative spiral so have to take the time to break it.
It’s not been long since we both signed up here Jess but I feel I’ve got to know to know you in a short space of time. You’re obviously not only a driven person but very caring as well, and as much as the mods are going to hate me for saying this… perhaps you’re on here a little too much (so am I in all honesty)? There is nothing wrong with helping others, but if it’s at the expense of 30 minutes to an hour where you could be studying, perhaps you need to look at whether your caring nature in helping others is harming your own time and chances of success.
Just my 2p worth. 🙂
Up5@artyeasel‌
Thank you for noting my obvious idiocy (and bloody tiredness) last night.
You are quite right. Rather than going with the sum in brackets (as I actually noted above – BODMAS), but then multiplying by the sum of 0.04 + 1.2, I should have calculated as you said.
If I wanted 9.3% then an additional set of brackets would have been needed around (0.04 + 1.2).I did do the calculation in brackets first (noted poorly above by making it the second item on the list) but then multipled by 1.24 not, as I should, multiplied by 1.2 before adding on the final 0.04.
I need more red bull, or not to study when under the influence of paracetamol and voltarol for a possibly broken toe.
Up5Hmmm…. I’ve never tried putting a book under the pillow. I guess I just thought that the CFAI curriculum on FRA was a bit too thick and might give me either A) Earache, or B) A stiff neck by the morning.
I have often wondered however why almost every management strategy or study book has a silhouette of a woman in a pencil skirt walking away into the distance with an overlaid graph heading up from bottom left upwards to top right (with a little correction in the middle). Is this some subliminal message to say that “Our material WILL make you better than you were before. Watch out for the dip in your own self confidence in the middle, but you will pass! Either that or everyone will walk away from you and you’ll have no friends or business associates in the future”…Up5I must admit I’d probably be one of the idiots that would have already been in the test centre having got there 2 hours early, only to then lose track of the time and go for a coffee / smoke / bathroom break right at the time that the doors close. I’ll remember not to make that particular goof now though.
Up5Hi Nedo,
As is the case with any exam, there will be changes from year to year. Much of the material will be the same, however new principles accepted by regulators and suchlike will be included in new books and will not be in the old material. Also any areas that the CFAI wants to test more rigorously on the next exam may be expanded somewhat in the new books / curriculum.
In short, much of the material may not have been changed much from June 2014 to June 2015, however it is not recommended to study from old material. You may find yourself up against a question which was not included at all in the old books and material, as if changes have been made, they have probably been made by the CFAI with the intent of testing it on the next exam.
I wouldn’t recommend using old books and would buy the latest curriculum from your choice of provider in order to have the best possible chance of passing the June 2015 exam.
Up5As a CFA and not an accountant, then you would likely be analyzing companies that may report in US GAAP, IFRS or even a regional accounting method. CFAI cannot express a preference as they are not the industry setters nor do they have the regulatory powers to make the entire world conform to a singular standard.
If the CFAI did not prepare it’s members to know the two accounting methods widely used in much of the developed world, then it would be badly failing its candidates and charterholders, and it would be nothing more than ‘another regionally specialized financial analysis qualification’, not the thorough and globally respected qualification that it is.
Hopefully this explains why CFAI expect you to know both methods and their differences.Up5The CFA do not release what score candidates got or what the MPS was. However I believe that the long-term MPS has been triangulated down (based on pass / fail results and the three bands per candidate, per topic) by some more advanced mathematicians to be circa 62%.
Obviously, it can be higher or lower than the average for any given exam if the writers believe that the exam is harder or easier than the average.Up4Hi @kredman‌
I started about a month ago and to be honest, you’ll have to really
power through some of the stuff to do it now for the December exam. But if you can get in about 3 to 4 hours a day without any gaps then you’ll possibly be able to get through the material. It’ll be VERY tough though I’d have thought. Can you dedicate the time to it?Up4Thanks @Dr_Pain28‌ , seems pretty much the route I’ll go down.
Wasted an hour in probability theory thinking I was totally missing something when it came to covariance and the matrix they illustrated. I knew I wasn’t going mental and there was nothing in that section about how they came up with it. Finally, after thinking sod it and moving on to correlation and joint-probability function, they finally dropped the line that “you can’t work out covariance without a joint probability….”
Cheers CFAI! You could have slipped that in somewhere about 10 pages previously to stop me rereading the same page for an hour thinking I had entirely lost the plot! Sometimes the logic of teaching the science of something that you can’t work out without first knowing a variable they don’t intend to introduce for quite some time utterly defies me.
Up4Well done @elixir707. I look forward to hopefully sharing the same relief in around 6 months time.
Up4@gajun‌ What may help you with this, is the link that Sophie posted a few threads ago: http://www.300hours.com/blog/what-is-cfa-good-for
If you’re in retail banking at the moment and seek to move to brokerage or analyst / portfolio manager positions in the future then it seems that the CFA Charter would be a good fit for your needs in terms of the concepts and practices that it teaches. You must realize however that it’s not an instant ticket to a new or better job, and your own skills, interview technique and other factors will play a significant part.
It should boost your chances of getting a foot in the door somewhat though.
Up4Hi @jessmat‌.
I’m also at L1 stage for December and have been using the CFAI material. What I’ve done is got myself a big book for answering EOC questions anywhere other than in the book itself, so that I can come back and do them again to see how much I’ve learned (or forgotten) since I last did them, but also so that I can write down a couple of lines to summarize things in my own words or indeed scribble page references that I know I’m going to need to come back to and fully re-read e.g. Econ p224-226 or similar. For the formula’s I have an A5 book into which they all go, section by section. Therefore I can just come back to that to refresh my memory of the quant formulas and such without having to re-read entire sections of text. So far it seems to be working well. not sure if any of these techniques could work for you?
Up4Hahaaaa @ommthree very funny. Yes there’s certainly some regionalisms, but in business you’ll need to spell in Queens English.
Actually, I think Christine raised some very important points here in terms of terminology and usage, so, just to help your transition to Ireland and the UK, please see the below guide:DISCLAIMER: THE BELOW IS INTENDED FOR ENTERTAINMENT AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. THOSE EASILY OFFENDED OR LACKING A SENSE OF HUMOUR SHOULD NOT CONTINUE PAST THIS POINT.
Sports:
American Football: Entirely unknown in Ireland and the UK. Misappropriation of the word football to a sport not involving feet is seen as laughable, as is the fact that a “touchdown” does not indeed actually require the ball to be ‘touched down’ anywhere. But we guess that football sounded better than “Catching Whilst Running” and touchdown was better than “crossing a line while cheering”.
Nearest equivalent: Ummm, none.Baseball: Again, virtually unknown and certainly not covered on the TV.
Nearest equivalent: Rounders, 95% match. A game played by high school (11-16 year old) girls.Basketball: Known, but not widely played outside of the council estates. Some limited TV coverage, but not with any consistency as 99.9% of the populous have little interest.
Nearest equivalent: Netball, 90% match. A game also largely played by 11 to 16 year old girls at school.Nascar: Absolutely lacking any understanding in Ireland / UK due to the lack of any corners which actually involve braking. Most of the guys in any pub (see public house later) will tell you “I could do better than that lot”.
Nearest Equivalent: Touring Cars or Formula Racing, 70% match. A racing format which does actually involve corners of varying left and right dispersion and tightness. Thus requiring the drivers to both accelerate and brake, as well as steer.You may like to try the following as alternatives:
Football (you call it soccer): A game involving 11 men on each team, played over two halves of 45 minutes each. Only feet are allowed and handling the ball is considered a foul. This is the most popular sport in the UK and Ireland, and indeed, the world itself. The object of the game is to score more goals that your opponents.Rugby: This is a game upon which your own American Football was originally based, however it does not allow the significant advantages of: A) Forward passing, B) Excessive body armour, C) Noggin Protectors (Helmets). The ball must also actually be touched down with pressure in the scoring zone and simply crossing the line is not enough. Serious injuries are common.
You may also come across Gaelic Football, which is like rugby but with rather more violence involved.
Common Terms:
Public House or Pub (USA translation: Bar). A place to go and watch the above mentioned domestic sports, while drinking real ale (not fizzy lager) and probably ending up in a fight for no real reason.Well Oiled (Translation: Drunk). What you’ll probably be when you leave the pub, having been goaded into drinking 5 more pints of beer than you originally intended.
Copper, Old Bill or Rozzer (Translation: The Police). Probably best to avoid these if you have been in a fight in the pub. Otherwise, generally quite pleasant people, keeping the community safe.
Gun (Translation: Gun) Unknown to most in terms of owning and certainly is illegal to do so. Unlikely you’ll come across one unless you happen to mistakenly join a paramilitary group.
Bird (Translation: A woman). Perfectly acceptable term between a large group of drunken males, however considered quite offensive to the opposite sex (unless of low standards).
…. I can keep this going if you want but my fingers are getting tired…
Up4Ive seen an image along these lines Jess…
Nobody can be blamed for having an opinion and we must all recognise that the opinions of other may not match ours. It’s what makes the world the wonderfully diverse place that it is.
IMO, it’s not possible to ‘waste water’. It simply gets returned to the water table and will either sink in or evaporate, and turn up somewhere else as rain. It keeps the corporates who then process it and turn it back into drinking water in business. If anything, it’s only wasting our money on buying water which we then return to the water table from whence it originally came, and also thus diverts some of our own money to a charity, to which we may not have donated without the challenge.
There’s plenty of people who have donated to other charities close to their heart rather than ALS.Up4Well played there @christine‌
At the risk of turning this into an ongoing (uk / roi term) “pissing contest”. Try also:USA: Jelly
a conserve or spread for toasted items
UK/ROI: Jelly
A set, sugary fruit flavoured dessert used to keep small children quiet.USA: Fall
The third season of the year
UK/ROI: Fall
To fall over and potentially hurt oneself. In the UK/ROI it is normally customary to accept that this probably happened because you are an idiot and not because you need to sue somebody.
