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- Topic: The One Thing You Should Remember for the CFA Level I Exam
| Author | Topic: The One Thing You Should Remember for the CFA Level I Exam |
|---|---|
| streetwise @2019-03-03 15:57:19 |
When the exam looms near, hopefully you've done all the prep you've planned and set out to do. As the last few days tick by, some of your focus should also shift to some of the non-study aspects of the CFA exams. Like what to bring. How to get to the test centre. And how you should approach the exams. Specifically for this post, the Level I exams. I'm going to tell you the one thing that you absolutely have to keep in mind during your Level I exam. Now that you've studied as much as you can, this piece of advice is the largest factor to influencing your score, and thus your passing chances. Here it is: The Level I exam is all about time. If you've done your homework, and practiced a few practice exams, I'm sure you'll know what I'm talking about. The Level I exam has 240 questions in total, to be done in 6 hours (360 minutes). This gives you 90 seconds per question, from reading the question to marking it in your answer sheet. That's not a lot of time. This makes 'Time' the key villain in Level I. (In Level II it's 'Breadth' and Level III, 'Essay'). If time has never been an issue for you, I'd keep tabs all the same. If you've always been struggling for time, you need to be strict with yourself and grab as many easy points as you can early. Grab Points Using the 3-Sweep Approach Know yourself and how you answer questions. Learn how to anticipate and estimate how long you'll spend on a question when you first read it. You should be able size a question up and see if you'd be able to answer it quickly, or you'll need a few minutes to do calculations, or rack your brains. I'd recommend approaching the exam using three 'sweeps', covering the three kinds of questions in the exam: Sweep #1: The Straight-to-the-Points For your first sweep, you should go through all the questions in a quick-fire round. I normally go through them in order, as I believe that I may confuse myself and leave out questions if I jump around. With a very short deadline per question, assess each question and answer the 'easy' ones. For the ones that you know you a lot more time to either think or calculate, simply mark them out and move on. You should try to answer at least two-thirds of the questions in the first sweep. Sweep #2: The Ones Playing Hard-to-Get For your next sweep, attack the questions that you know you'd need some time to work on. Check yourself on time at this point, and based on the time left decide how much time should you roughly spend on each question. Try and address all the questions left, unless you literally haven't a clue. Sweep #3: The Unattainables The final sweep. This should be a quick round, if anything. Hopefully after the first two sweeps there isn't many questions left, but if they are, they're either: Questions you just don't know anything about Questions that you couldn't do in time in Sweep #2 (e.g. too complex, or you suspect you're doing it wrong) Look at each of these questions, and pick an answer. If you want to have another go at trying to get an answer, be quick about it. But make sure you choose one, and choose quickly. To check, or not to check? I strongly believe in making enough time to check your answers. This has always been my strategy for all my CFA exams, and I believe it served me well. Two main reasons for this: I think that finishing all answers early is key to putting your worries about not finishing to rest, then your brain can calm down and you'd be in a better state of mind to check for mistakes. Leaving a question and rereading it later also helps get a fresh look into it and you'll be able to spot earlier mistakes much more easily than if you were checking as you go. |
