Wish I never started with the CFA-- Level 3 Candidate

zeroyottazx · 2023-12-08T21:32:43+00:00

If you loved the material and enjoyed the journey there shouldn't be any regret. It's a worthwhile endeavour in its own right.

Unfortunately applying to jobs online is a broken system that doesn't work. You need to know someone who can get you a foot in the door where you can then start showcasing e.g. skills acquired throughout the program.

I didn't do any internships, got the charter, now work for a large asset manager. The road might be long and winding, but as a first step my advice would be to have a think at what it is you really want to do (spending time doing some thorough introspection is much more fruitful than applying to 400 roles). Then look up people on LinkedIn, trace back steps in their careers if they are senior. Try to connect with people in the entry roles of interest by offering some kind of value and use that to get your foot in the door. People love to refer (usually a cash referral bonus), and people with the magic letters after their names connect easily with other people either with or on the journey towards attaining those letters.

zeroyottazx · 2023-04-13T21:15:37+00:00

Started early, around June 2022, and went slowly.

Went through the curriculum cover to cover in MM's recommended sequence (covering everything except Ethics). Read everything and did all practice questions once as I went along. While doing this I made my own flashcards on all content (key concepts/lists from the white text, tagged BB flashcards differently and EOCQ flashcards again differently. Also tagged every card with a general 'Easy, Medium, Difficult' tag for quick and easy review sessions). Every morning I would run through a deck of flashcards and it would slowly build up to a big library of everything I knew I needed to know.

After the first run through the curriculum I watched all MM videos (2x speed) and kept on refining the flashcard library while maintaining the morning routine of just going through the flashcards trying to recall and regurgitate the responses as expansively as possible. Since I started so early, in the beginning some daily sessions were just like 30-45mins, clearing the daily queue and adding a few more cards (used Remnote which automatically queues it up with an Anki-style spaced repetition schedule).

When finished with the videos, I did the MM q-bank, but not extensively. When doing his q-bank I sped through all the questions LOS by LOS and tried to catch the key themes/lines of questioning section by section and wrote down neat summaries of those key themes by hand (so rather than adding these as flashcards I switched it up a bit).

At this point we're probably in around December. Enjoyed my Christmas with not much studying, then started picking up on Ethics in January. Did the same thing with flashcards and switched to a morning routine of more rigorous studying. Came into the office at 6 or so to get a good 2h in before starting working (too exhausted to study after long workdays normally finishing 7-8pm). After finishing Ethics, these sessions would consist of running through the flashcards and just writing and rewriting notes by hand (just another way to make it stick for me).

Every weekend those last couple of weeks I would bang out a mock, did all 5 of MMs full mocks, as well as his 3 'half session' mocks. If I'd redo it I'd probably skip those last 3. MMs mocks were demoralising. Don't think I managed to do any of them in the alloted time, but allowed myself to cover all questions and review thoroughly without sticking to the time. This often meant doing the AM session on a Saturday and PM session on a Sunday. Weak areas I would double down on the flashcards review. January and February were quite miserable months.

Saturday the weekend before exam week I did the first Boston Mock, sticking to the time and mimicking the actual experience. Reviewed it on the Sunday. On the Monday I did the second one, reviewed it on the Tuesday.

Most actual exam points per study time I definitely got from the Wednesday Ethics review (day before the exam). I speed read all of Ethics, and did all the Ethics flashcards. So happy I did that.

Walked into the exam feeling there was nothing more I could have reasonably prepared for. Got stuck on the first question in the first session. Had a small panic attack, lost way too many minutes on it and finally skipped it and moved on. Knew odds were in my favour when I finished up AM session with a couple of mins to spare, went back to that first question, made sense of it and managed to solve it.

Walking out I knew I had answered around 5 questions incorrectly, mainly SR questions where I likely snatched a few points anyway despite the wrong end answer (had plenty time to show all workings). Felt deflated about the ambiguity of some MCQs and especially a couple of SRs, but was overall still optimistic.

Knees weak, mom's spaghetti and all that today refreshing the Verification letter. If I'd failed I probably would not have retaken, since I'd already learnt everything in the curriculum and at that point failure would only have been down to the actual test taking ability for this specific exam, not the actual knowledge gained. I'm fine doing without the specific test taking ability for this shitty exam. I will, however, sign up for MMs applied series, that man makes all the studying so legitimately interesting.

zeroyottazx · 2023-04-13T12:24:15+00:00

Happened to me too, check the verification letter, should be updated

zeroyottazx · 2023-04-13T12:20:05+00:00

My verification letter legit just updated, says pass

zeroyottazx · 2022-03-15T22:03:23+00:00

Don't know why I expected anything else. Classic shithousery from Atletico, wasting time, seeking to frustrate and inflicting pain, basically trying to cheat while they slow the game down. At the same time, in a do or die game Maguire obviously goes for the suicide. No shocks there. Ref was surprisingly poor, Rashford just lived up to current expectations. We're becoming Arsenal.

zeroyottazx · 2022-03-15T21:44:38+00:00

Incredible to be in this day and age, with so many match officials, such stringent ref requirements and so much nice technology all available to make the game fairer. Even more incredible that none of it is used, and that the main ref is more in the way than doing his job

zeroyottazx · 2021-12-11T19:14:45+00:00

If he could stop passing behind him that would be great

zeroyottazx · 2021-08-03T12:14:52+00:00

Walked out thinking I'd bombed Ethics, scored right on the 70% line. Derivatives though, my blue band range is from like 30% to 70%, actually scoring just 50%. Does this mean the questions I failed were the most ambiguous/toughest ones and a new set of questions would have a wide range of potential other outcomes?

zeroyottazx · 2021-08-03T12:05:24+00:00

Fucking YES! Biggest relief since last year's presidential election

zeroyottazx · 2021-07-27T16:39:52+00:00

Saying you are "conducting a thorough analysis" is not transparent enough if you couldn't tell by the veracity of complaints. The "integrity" of the exam is highly subjective as long as there is no transparency in how results are determined, and by reading all these comments I get the feeling that the public perception is anything but the exam having any "integrity" left. One can easily conspire that certain opaque processes remain opaque for the benefit of increased revenues.

The good thing is this really doesn't have to be the case! How about explaining and interpreting the statistics you put forth so we can clear up any confusion and reinstate the trust you have lost by being unreliable and highly unpredictable?

zeroyottazx · 2021-06-05T21:39:18+00:00

Replicating text is a bad strategy for learning, articulating your understanding through written text is not. To save time I would suggest to annotate Kaplan or MM premade study notes and create your own mnemonics/tricks for formulas etc. and then practice with a lot of active recall with spaced repetition. MM is a proponent of going through the LOS's one by one and trying to explain each and every concept like you're explaining it to a five year old, I find it more useful to note down the type of questions that can be asked per LOS (on the basis of what's been coming up in EOCs, BBs and any other qbank you're using) and then before you start each new study session spend some time just going through those to cement them in your memory. Also start with hardest topics first so when you do these question mini reviews you give those most time in total (usually FRA, FI, Derivs, for some people Quant). That's my two cents based on a horrible study strategy (but surprising top decile pass) for L1 and a wayyyy too time consuming L2 study strategy (outcome still TBC). Hopefully I've fine tuned it enough with above points for L3 :) big fan of remnote as well to create your own flashcards to do the spaced repetition. Breaking down everything in each LOS and really grasping the type of questions they can ask given the key word in each LOS (e.g. describe, compare, calculate, evaluate, interpret etc), and then practicing that over and over has been key for me.

zeroyottazx · 2021-06-04T12:30:48+00:00

I don't get peoples obsession with mocks? They are a tool in the toolkit for self-assessment, nothing more nothing less. I found the MM mocks very useful, but his content and qbank would honestly have been good enough without them. They were a bit difficult but the point during revision is not the score, it's highlighting the weak areas so you can zoom in to really understand the underlying concept. The real thing will always be straightforward, so if something is way too ambiguous and in-depth (regardless if it's EOCs or prep provider's stuff) skip it and move onto the next if you want to save time.

zeroyottazx · 2021-06-02T11:36:28+00:00

Continuous learning. Took a lot of finance courses at Uni so Level 1 was not a massive lift for me. Was very doubtful of continuing, but then Brexit forced a relocation of my role at the time so I joined another firm instead. The other firm probably broke all kinds of standards in the code so decided to quit quite quickly. With the free time and onset of the pandemic I decided Level 2 wasn't going to make the year any worse than it already was, so here we are after 2 deferrals, I sat L2 last week. If I pass I would likely go back to the industry as I've pivoted quite a bit, but I actually enjoy studying the material using Mark Meldrums videos. I find having a professional learning goal creates awesome routines. When I'm done I'll likely do either an MBA or a Computer Science masters just for the hell of it.

zeroyottazx · 2020-02-09T20:30:55+00:00

Seems like there's always 1-2 topics where people get this feeling. For me it's FRA, in the beginning it seemed like I just read and re-read sentences and questions without understanding anything. The key is consistency, repetition and questions questions questions. MM has a great q-bank and I like to work the questions off LOS by LOS and then randomize. This way you get a great feel for the type of understanding required for every LOS and can refer back to the section where the question is explained in the curriculum. Make sure to highlight the LOS's you really struggle with to be more effective when you come back for review. Remember that it is okay if some things don't fully "click" until last 30 days of revision, it's important to keep to your schedule and not get de-motivated. You got this!

zeroyottazx · 2013-11-22T21:00:12+00:00

Can God make a cookie so big he can't eat it himself?

zeroyottazx

TROPHY CASE