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Hi all:
I found this article on the Internet and hope this helps everybody:
Study effort
It is almost February end, and some candidates may be wondering how to optimize the rest of their study effort. Using an analogy from golf, think of Quant as the fairway because there are many LOSs which have a 10% weight on the exam for two sessions. Even though the fairway is defined clearly, there is less control over the ball. On the other hand, FSA has fewer LOSs and 28% weight with Corp Fin. This is like the short game where the golfer has a lot of control. While it is difficult to predict which LOS will be tested in Quant, FAS LOSs cannot be gamed in terms of probability. For the fairway, find your best irons - a 1 wood, a 3 wood and a 3 iron. In other words, know the basic concepts well. For FSA, practice every possible shot, i.e., know the LOSs well. It is the short game that wins golf, and the same is true of CFA Level 1.
Answering exam questions
You may come across questions on the exam whose correct answer differs from what you think is reasonable or plausible based on your experience and knowledge. If you remember the answer based on the CFAI readings, you should always give that answer over any other possibility. CFA exam graders are looking for the model answer based on assigned Level 1 readings. Resist the temptation to rely upon answers based on how you may do things in your job.
Save time on the exam
You will be rushed for time on the exam. The exam is a test of speed and accuracy. If there is a short cut to a problem, go for it. For example, when classifying a lease as an operating or capital lease, it has to satisfy one of four conditions, not all. Start with the easiest condition and work your way down. As soon as a condition is met stop further analysis. If a question asks you to verify a specific condition, follow the instruction.
Overcoming the high odds of failing
The steady decline in the pass rate for level 1 is an indicator of a lack of understanding of the CFA curriculum concepts and material on the average candidates' part. This conclusion should not come as a surprise to most. Every exam question has only four choices, so this should make things easy, right? No, the effect is exactly the opposite. Multiple choice questions eliminate potential points for partially correct answers. It is a swim or sink scenario. The steady decline also suggests that some candidates may be more willing to rely on guesswork when answering questions on the exam. In my experience based on mock tests given over several years, candidates who randomly answer multiple choice questions, tend to score no better than 25-30% on average, exactly what the one-in-four correct choice would predict.
In order to keep the hang-man away on the results day, study the concepts thoroughly, understand them well and try to develop as many inter-linkages between them as you can. Go over difficult LOSs several times. Do as many different kinds of problems (numbers are not important, their diversity is) as is humanly possible given the demands on your time, and DO NOT rely on a guessing game strategy for the exam. The right answer is always before your eyes, but the big question is: Which one? Unfortunately there are no short cuts. As they say, there is no free lunch either, but the CFA exam may seem to extract a steeper price than some are willing to pay. They bring down the average pass rate for the entire group. There is a silver lining though: if you have worked hard and have been disciplined in your study, the overall pass rate is irrelevant for you. Your conditional probability of passing is much higher given your effort. Work on what is under your control and forget about the overall pass rate. Maintain your sanity!
Time management
Candidates often complain that there is not enough time to answer all the questions on the exam to their satisfaction. Time crunch on the exam is deliberate. While the exam is designed to be a test of knowledge and thinking ability, it is also designed to do so in a very controlled manner - where speed and accuracy are the key to doing well overall.
A candidate should spend only the allocated time on a question. Some questions are easier than others, but they are all weighted the same. One should go for the easy points first. If a candidate has exhausted the 1.5 minute per question standard time at Level 1, (s)he should move on to the next question, after marking that question for later review. There will be some questions which will save time. Bank that saved time. After the first pass of the exam, come back to questions marked for review and spend the banked 5 or 10 minutes on such questions, starting with those questions where the return is high in terms of time spent. This time management strategy will keep the panic level low, and give the candidate an opportunity to answer the easy questions first on which he or she can score the maximum points.
Thinking outside the box
While many learning outcome statements are very narrowly focused, their sharp focus can be misleading. The CFA curriculum is not like any other academic curriculum. It draws from several areas and synthesizes that knowledge. Very few university and college programs do that. The reason for an attempt at this synthesis is how the real world functions. There are no boundaries and clear cut boxes to categorize knowledge in the real world. Decisions often need to be made on incomplete information under split second timing (specially for portfolio managers, traders and arbitrageurs). Success in the real world often depends on one's ability to take seemingly unconnected things and find a common cause or an underlying relationship. Some people call it intuition, some call it knowledge, and others may call it experience. Whatever be the nomenclature, while the CFA Institute (CFAI) wants you to know what is inside the box (hence the emphasis on LOSs), it wants you to think outside the box, to borrow from a common cliche. While this approach is more readily apparent at Levels 2 and 3, it is also prevalent as an undercurrent at Level 1. So, when you study for the Level 1 exam, keep this in mind - the CFA exam is a real world exam where things are not very well defined and you have to pull in all (knowledge) resources to prove that you have attained a level of proficiency that the CFAI wants you to achieve.
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