Month in Review

I don't know whay but I haven't been keeping up with my posts as well as I should have. I have moved along pretty well with the prep and I actually want to talk about it. First of all, let me say that I have finished the learning phase of the program. I have gone over the review for PM and for ethics and they were rough. Actually PM wasn't too bad, but it was a long session and I essentially had to learn it because it was new last year and I didn't learn it then. Anyway, I didn't get to go over as many study problems as I would have liked. I felt pretty strong, but I am not as strong as I would like to be. Then came ethics. Ethics has always been pretty hard for me, but I was able to spend a lot of time focusing down on the details and was able to get two thirds of the item sets correct. I will never feel strong about ethics though. That area more than any other on the exam depends on thinking. Just about every other question outside of ethics involves remembering a concept or calculating numbers from a formula. I naturally feel more comfortable with that type of thing. The proverbial 'common sense' thing? If I wanted to use common sense I'd be a doctor.

This is the time for final review. The exam is on June 6th. The previous week I reserve for pretty much trying to burn all the equations into my brain. That means the previous four weeks are to review the entire cirriculum. 20 weekdays to review 18 study sessions. Last week I reviewed corporate finance and statement analysis because that is my comfort zone. They will not be able to get many questions from session 5 through 9 past me. That's why I reviewed them first. This week is equity and fixed income analysis. These are also good areas for me. Conceptual questions on credit spreads at the end of fixed income will be hard if asked (and at least one will be). However equity is real strong for me and the rest of fixed income should be solid as well. This weekend I will take a practice exam and then spend next week on derivatives and PM. I will do my best to keep a update on the blog.

Finally, my motivation has been pretty good overall. I haven't been able to study too well this past weekend but that is because between mother's day for my mom and wife, I didn't want to force them to leave me alone for 2 hours a day. Regardless, I'm going to be able to make it up tomorrow and I am starting to really look forward to next month. I can admit that I still haven't mentally recovered last years exam, but I can honestly say that I am more prepared than I was last June. I am marginally better in ethics and am fully prepard in alternative assets and mostly prepared for PM. I am also better in fixed income and feel much better about quants. Of course I felt pretty good about quants and econ last year, but that is the past. Right now I am looking a month into the future.