If you have followed the program and completed all of the individual curriculum readings by now, you deserve a massive pat on the back! However with the content from 67 individual readings sailing around in your head, it is no surprise if you are feeling a bit anxious as to whether or not you can remember all of the material. Don’t worry too much, as when prompted in the actual exam setting, you are likely to surprise yourself recalling all sorts of obscure details from the curriculum, that you can’t consciously retrieve right now.
Let’s look at a few general pieces of advice for the last month of revision before getting more specific about this week’s to do list:
Don’t attempt to re-read the curriculum:
This is going to sound a little bit harsh, but you should really have finished reading the curriculum now. The last month leading up to the test should be centered on question practice. You should only really go back to the readings in a targeted way to briefly refresh on concepts that cause you trouble in your question practice. No rule without exceptions, and we are going to read select bits of the ethics reading again (more details to follow below).
Do practice a lot of questions:
There really isn’t a golden standard for how many questions and mock exams you need to go through before you are ready to face the level 1 test. However if you are able to answer all of the end of chapter questions from the underlying readings, without fail, you are definitely on the right track. Mock exams vary in quality and the level of difficulty. Scoring above 70% on a single mock exam (while encouraging) is therefore no guarantee that you will be able to handle the test. The CFA Institute provides no specific guidance on the % score needed to pass the exam, and the actual test could easily be more difficult than your practice exams.
Keep at it:
Even if you feel comfortable that you will be able to pass the test, It makes sense to continue solving questions at full tilt until the very day before the exam. You have already made such a big effort to get to this stage, and you will be really disappointed if you end up marginally short of the pass mark on exam day because you geared down just before the finish line.
Replicate Exam Conditions:
It is immensely valuable having experienced the conditions that you are going to be facing on exam day in advance. Many candidates will walk into the exam setting with only a theoretical idea about how the exam is going to progress. It is something entirely different if you have tried it on your own body. Having already experienced the situation helps with subtle differences like setting the correct exam pace, and dealing with the fatigue that will invariably set in during the afternoon session. Recreating a close match to the actual exam conditions while you are doing the mock exams, is therefore a very effective way to improve your chances.
The week to come:
We are going to spend the next 3 weeks working our way through the end of chapter questions and LOS statements once more. There are 579 LOS statements and nearly 1400 end of chapter questions to revise, so we have got plenty of material to keep us entertained, without having to rely on other sources. Every Saturday and the entire last week leading up to the exam is dedicated to mock exams.
As mentioned above, the only exception to the “abstinence” from reading curriculum content in the last month is Ethics. Remember all of the examples in reading 2? Well whether you remember them or not, it is not a bad idea to read them one more time. There are 178 examples, so make sure that you cover seven examples a day for the rest of the program (this will allow you to get through all of the examples before 1 June), and if you have time read them twice. It is likely that a large proportion of the estimated 36 ethics questions on the exam will be based on examples similar to the ones described in reading 2. So a solid understanding of these provides one of the most favorable trade-offs between effort and likely impact on the exam outcome.
Did you save all of the question lists from each individual reading along the way? If so you have got an invaluable resource for the revision process as they will help you identify and skip the questions that you managed to answer with ease as you progressed through the curriculum. There is no point wasting your limited revision time on these questions. During the upcoming week we are going to work through the 423 end of chapter questions and 194 LOS in the first 2 curriculum books. If you have stored the question lists, the 423 questions may be reduced to 300 or even 200, it should be pretty clear why that may help you save time.
Once you have answered the questions make sure that you pay attention to the explanations to the end of chapter questions in the curriculum books. This is the most important aspect of the revision process, especially for those questions that you got wrong. If you are pressed for time (like most candidates) skip the explanations for the questions that you got right, but read the explanations for the questions that you got wrong twice and slowly for maximum comprehension. Studying these explanations in detail constitutes the most efficient use of your time at this stage, as the process will isolate many of the insights that you are still struggling with and that could thus provide a marginal improvement to your exam score, now that you have understood them. Once you have revised the end of chapter questions, create a new shorter list of the questions that you are still struggling with work your way through this reduced list of tricky questions. If there are any challenging questions left after the second iteration rinse and repeat until you are able to answer every single one correctly.
The LOS represents “the specific knowledge, skills and abilities” (wording by the CFA Institute) that you are expected to acquire as a candidate. It is therefore useful to answer the LOS for each reading as you progress through your revision of the curriculum. Revising your answers to the LOS is slightly less straightforward though, as the curriculum books do not provide guideline answers. Your best bet is to read the chapter summaries provided for most readings (outside of the ethics topic area). The mere process of answering the LOS should help pinpoint areas of weakness at this stage. List the LOS that you are completely clueless about (hopefully that is not going to be many at this stage), and if you have got the time dip back in and read small passages targeted to the individual LOS, sometimes the answers can be found in the chapter summaries as well (These are provided for most readings except within ethics).