Path to the CFA (Part 3)

There were 10 topics for the CFA Level I in year 2008:
I.Ethical and Professional Standards ("Ethics")
II.Quantitative Methods ("Quants")
III.Economics ("Econs")
IV.Financial Reporting Analysis ("FRA")
V.Corporate Finance ("CF")
VI.Analysis of Equity Investments ("Equity")
VII.Analysis of Debt Investments ("Debt")
VIII.Analysis of Derivatives ("Derivatives")
IX.Analysis of Alternative Investments ("Alternative Investments")
X.Portfolio Management ("PM")


The above topics were basicly similar to those subjects that I learnt in my degree program except Ethical and Professional Standards, Derivatives and Alternative Investments. I also noticed Ethics, FRA and Equity this 3 topics were weighted quite a high percentage, so they were the deal breaker that I need to score well (to score more than >70%) in order to my chance of passing Level I. Subjects rank 2nd priority to score well would be CF, Equity and Debt.


When I registered for Level I in Feb 2008, I first started to read on Ethical and professional standards. I was only able to finish reading Ethics in July 2008, and I spent a month travelling and watching Olympic Games in August, so I left another 3 months to study the remaining 9 topics. 


I started my day in reading at 7.30am everyday, take a lunch break at 12.30pm, continue to read at 1.30pm to 5.30pm, then another break until 8pm and I went to sleep at 11.00pm. So I studied around 10 to 12 hours everyday, including weekend.


My strategy of studying Level I was to read through all the 10 topics twice, completed the exercises inside the books. As the questions from the real exam would be tested in the format that similar to the exercises from the books, it was vital for me to understand those exercises thoroughly. I did not read any extra books from other non-CFA Institute such as Schweser and Kaplan. In my opinion, the 6-thick-CFA Curriculum books had already occupied of my time. In addition, the exercises of the books from those non-CFA Institute are not standard, they were either too hard or too easy and not tested in the way presented in the real exam.


Even though I had learnt most of the level I topics through my study in the degree program, I still found it was hard for me to understand certain topics such as Quant, Derivatives and PM. As I self-studied for the Level I, the only guidance I could get was from the web. So I google searched a lot and get the answers or more explaination from investopedia or other investment forums. 


There are 2 forums which are very good in guiding me in my study in CFA:
http://bbs.cfaspace.com/
http://www.analystforum.com/
The 1st link is a chinese website whereby the 2nd link is in English.


I had completed reading all topics of Level I 2 weeks before the exam, then only I login to the CFA website to download sample exam questions. However, I did quite badly on the sample questions, indeed I only got 40% of the questions right. At that moment I was panic as I realised I was not well prepared for the exam. I put more effort in reading those topics of which I had scored poorly in the sample test. 


1 week later, I login to the CFA website again and did the mob exam with time measure of 3 hours for 120 questions in order to train my time management in the exam, and this time I still not able to get an overall results of 70%, so I failed again. However, this time I felt relief as I was scoring approximate 60% which was showing I was improving this time. It could be because I was gradually adopting to the way of the test. So my advice to CFA candidates that you should complete the sample and mob exam questions from the CFA website so to get yourself adopt to the testing environment.


The CFA exam is hold on Sunday of the 1st week in June or December. I was taking the exam in December 2010, so the exam date fell on 5 December 2010. The examination venue was at the Sunway Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur. As the exam date was coming soon so the more pressure I could feel. I stopped to study 3 days before the exam, and I went to watch movie, swimming and worked out to relief the pressure. I saw quite a number of candidates skipped the 1-hour lunch break after the morning exam session so they could have more time to study on the exam that day, to my opinion I don't think that would make any difference of reading more for the 2nd half of the exam? I would rather go to eat a meal so to prepare and relax myself with more energy for the afternoon session.


I had booked a motel room nearby the exam location to stay there 1 day before the exam date, and I went to check out the location of exam hall to make sure that I would not miss and come late for the exam. The night before the exam I slept 12 hours before the exam but too bad the motel's room is not well insulative and I was woke up few times by the noise from the neighbour rooms...>_


The exam started on 9am, but candidates were required to register their attendance 1 hour before the commencement of the exam, so I reached at the registration site at 8am. Before I went into the exam hall, I noticed one fellow was being stopped by a proctor because the fellow was trying to bring in the unapproved Casio Financial Calculator into the exam. What a poor fellow, he must be too lazy to read the testing policies. According to the testing policies of the CFA Program, only 2 types of financial calculator are allowed to be used in the exam, i.e. Texas Instruments BA II Plus (including BA II Plus Professional) and Hewlett Packard 12C (including the HP 12C Platinum, 12C 25th anniversary edition, and 12C 30th anniversary edition) 
http://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprogram/exams/Pages/policies.aspx


I felt freaking cool when I was inside the hall. Luckily I did bring a jacket to keep myself warm. I was very nervous, so I tried to calm down by telling myself in my mind that the end result was either I make it through or never. The morning session of the exam last for 3 hours and ended at 12pm, I barely had enough time to answer all 120 questions. After that I took an hour of for lunch and napped for 10 minutes. The afternoon session continued at 2pm but candidates need to report at the registration site at 1pm. Another 120 item set questions, but it was a little bit easier than the morning session so I was able to complete all these questions in 3 hours. The afternoon session ended at 5pm so I felt so relief, finally it was over!