By Arif Irfanullah, CFA
Posted on 14-03-18 at 10:47 am
With about 3 months left for the exam it is crunch time. Spend as much time as possible studying and make your study time as productive as possible. Here are some do and don’ts:
With every reading focus on the main points; do not get hung up on the details. (If you try to understand the depth of every single point you’ll not have time to practice… which is suicide.)
Understand the curriculum examples… especially the ones which are relatively short and focused. Some examples seem to go on and on. At this stage it does not make sense to spend much time on such examples.
Practice problems at the end of ever reading are critical. I suggest you do these at least three times before the exam. You might make the same mistake twice, perhaps three times… but hopefully never four times. Mostly the questions are in case study format. Needless to say, these are critical.
Some candidates ignore the non-case study practice problems. If you don’t have much time read the questions and jot down your answers. At the very least think about how the problem should be solved. Then read the solution.
In general the curriculum explanations are very good. They are short and to the point. You should carefully read these explanations even for questions that you get right.
Make your own fact and formula sheet. During your final revision you’ll find this far more useful than someone else’s fact and formula sheet.
Make every effort to finish the course at least 4 weeks before the exam. The last few weeks are best spent reviewing, revising and doing lots of practice exams.
Best wishes,
Arif Irfanullah, CFA
PS: You can also watch this video which has a similar message to the above blog post.
Sign up to get more!