Hello everyone! I am Lianrongbao
Welcome back to my channel!
In today's video, I want to share with you how I passed the CFA Level III exam
The Level III exam consists of constructive responses (essays)
and item sets which are the same as they were in Level II
you will be provided with a short vignette
and you will complete 6-7 questions
The CFA Level III exam is only held once a year
This is a simple introduction to the Level III exam
Personally, I think the Level III exam is the most challenging level
There are 3 reasons
The first is after being tortured by the Level I & II exam
I really wanted to pass the Level III exam on my first attempt
It was horrible to think about the possibility of failing and having to retake it
so I was under a lot of pressure
The second reason is, the morning session consists of constructive responses
and this is a brand new exam format
unlike multiple choice questions, in which you might guess the correct answer
for the essay portion, you are on your own
if you don't know the knowledge tested, you probably will miss the whole question
The third reason is because of the competition
If the Level I exam is a piece of cake
you've already experienced the difficulty of the Level II exam
For the Level III exam, you are competing with the candidates who've already passed the Level II exam
and the passing rate for the Level III exam is only 50%
so it is very competitve
when I went to take the test
I saw lots of experienced professionals
I imagined they would treat this test very seriously
so don't underestimate the difficulty of the Level III exam
It may seem that there is not a lot of material
however all the knowledge is greatly connected
and the knowledge is tested in great depth
so please prepare for the exam well
In today's video
I will talk about the materials I used
my study plan
and some personal reflections at the end
Let's start!
I mainly used 3 categories of materials
The first category is Kaplan Schweser Notes and quick sheet
Secondly I used CFAI official curriculum
topic tests and mock exams
I also used the previous years AM session exam papers
You can download them on CFA website
Third category of materials I used are online resources
For example, YouTube and AnlaystForum
If you run into any questions
you can search the posts on that forum
or you could post your questions
there are lots of people on this forum that will help you
so please take advantage of that
There is a topic called GIPS in the Level III curriculum that gave me big headache
I thought reading the books was too boring
so I went on YouTube to search GIPS related videos
There is a CFA instructor named Marc Lefebvre
He has great videos on this topic
so when you are tired of reading
you can watch some exam related videos on YouTube
Next up, I want to talk about my study plan
I started studying for the exam around November
I read through the Notes first
The Notes for Level III have less content compared to Level I and II
that's because Level III has eliminated 3 readings
Quantitative method, Financial Reporting&Analysis, and Corporate Finance
These 3 topics are not tested
even though it has less content, each topics in the Level III exam are deeply connected
and it is tested in depth and detailed
Personally I think it is not good enough just reading the Notes
I didn't read any official curriculum when I studied for the Level I exam
I read roughly 30%-40% of the official curriculum when I studied for the Level II
For the level III exam, I read about 70% of the official curriclum
after reading Notes, I would do the after chapter questions immediately
I finished reading all the Notes around Feburary
and i had an overview of the curriculum
then I started doing practice questions
The online topic tests and mock exams that CFA Institute provides are only for the PM session
You need to download the practice questions yourself on the CFA website for the morning essay session
Normally every night I did 3-4 practice questions for the morning sessions
or 3-4 topic tests
I would study the answer keys and explanations on the questions that I did wrong
I also read the related session in the curriculum
then I made note cards
I think this is the key to success,
after doing questions,for the ones that you missed,
first study the explanations
then go back and read the related sessions in the curriculum
I timed myself when doing the practice questions
I highly recommended doing that
when I did practice questions at home, time was never an issue
but on the exam day
I almost could not finish all the questions in the morning session
This is my study plan
In summary, read the Kaplan Schweser Notes first
to get an overview of the curriculum
then start doing practice questions
study the answers as well as related sessions in the official curriculum for the questions you miss and make note cards
Next I want to share some personal reflections
The first point I want to mention relates to the morning session
Like I mentioned earlier, when I did practice questions at home, time was never an issue
but on the exam day, I barely finished all the questions
If you want to do good in the morning session
you should at least finish all the questions and don't leave any blank
If you can't finish
leaving 1 or 2 small questions blank is OK
but definitely no more than that
if you leave the question blank, you don't even have a chance
so my first advice to you is to time yourself when doing practice questions
train yourself to finish all the questions in the time allotted
especially for the morning session, time management is the key to success
You can download the past 5 years morning session test papers online
doing more practice questions is also helpful
when you answer the essay questions, be sure to only write down the bullet points
don't think if you write a lot they will give you more points
even though you write a lot, they will still grade your answers with bullet points
and it is a big waste of time writing long paragraphs
for international students, including myself
even though this is an English written exam, they will not deduct your points if you make grammar mistakes
so if you answer the question with bullet points, your answer will be rewarded
My next advice is making good use of CFAI official curriculum
only reading schwser notes is far from enough
The notes omitted too many details
I felt like the more I studied, the more things that I didn't know
because the knowledge tested in Level III has much greater depth and detail
It is not enough just knowing A, B and C
You need to also know the sub A, sub B and sub C
and the relationship between AB, AC and BC
reading the examples from the official curriculum is very beneficial as well
as well as those blue box questions
those are great study materials
What I want to talk about next is related to my personal experience
I felt like I didn't do well in the morning session on the test day
there were some unexpected questions
and I barely finished
But I was very confident in doing the afternoon session
so my third piece of advice is don't give up
if you felt like you did not do good in the morning session, please focus on the afternoon session
because that will help you win some points
and you wil find out that it is relaxing to do multiple choice questions after doing essay questions
so the afternoon session is easier compared to the morning
and don't easily give up on it
that's all for today's video
if you have any exam related questions
please leave a comment down below
thanks for watching and see you next time, bye!