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How I Passed the CFA Level 1 Exam [+95th Percentile Scorer?] - YouTube
Channel: Brandon Hill - Bizness Professionals
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this right here is the bread and butter
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of the entire system and i guarantee
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that i wouldn't have passed the exam if
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i didn't have this
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[Music]
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what's up everybody this is brandon hill
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and welcome back to my channel where we
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share content to help young
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professionals develop personally
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professionally and financially if you're
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here then i assume that you're curious
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about how you could pass the cfa level 1
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exam well today i'm going to teach you
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how i did it at the time that i'm
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filming this video the past three exams
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have had the lowest pass rates ever
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recorded i'm making this video because i
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believe that my study system and
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philosophy are unique to what's
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currently out there i took level one in
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august of 2021 which had a 26 pass rate
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thankfully i passed and on top of that i
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scored well above the 90th percentile
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possibly even around the 95th percentile
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but i can't say with certainty given how
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this information is presented
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additionally i cleared the 70 mark on
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all 10 of the topics that cfa level 1
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tests you on in this video i'll first
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talk about what makes the cfa test so
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hard then i'm going to tell you exactly
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what i did to pass the exam i'll talk
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about the total number of hours i
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studied how many hours per day i studied
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and finally i'll go over the tools and
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resources that i use during this process
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and i'll give you a walk through on how
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this all ties together and how you can
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implement this yourself links to these
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tools and resources will be down in the
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description so check that out after you
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watch the cfa level 1 exam covers a vast
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amount of material nothing goes too far
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deep into the weeds but the material
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sure stretches wide the volume of the
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material that you have to consume
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combined with the fact that you're
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studying is self-directed is what makes
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the exam difficult so why do candidates
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get knocked off track the first reason
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is that they don't have a schedule or a
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system
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or they might have a schedule or system
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but they don't have an effective one you
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need to be able to take notes and create
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flashcards quickly because there's going
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to be a high volume of them and the
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scheduling of your study time needs to
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be precise you have to pace yourself
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over this four to six month period and
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need to track when you study each lesson
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but more importantly to your scheduling
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you need to know when to review each
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lesson again and again until you've
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mastered it the second thing that knocks
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candidates off track is wasting time
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having to relearn material because
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you're using ineffective study methods
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highlighting your notes and textbooks
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and re-reading over and over are some of
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the more popular methods of study but
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they're actually among the least
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effective they are consuming and they
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aren't conducive to storing the cfa
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material in your long-term memory which
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is what you'll need on the exam now that
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you know about the difficulties of the
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exam let me tell you how i passed i
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started studying leisurely about six
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months out from my exam day the first
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several weeks involved a lot of trial
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and error trying to figure out what was
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the best way to tackle the large amount
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of material that i would have to know
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after about a month i landed on a
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routine that looked promising i created
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an effective and efficient system for
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note-taking flashcard creation and
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optimized scheduling of study sessions i
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call it the lean cfa study system
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because it's based on the idea of lean
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manufacturing or lean production which
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is an approach where you work
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relentlessly to eliminate waste from a
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process the waste in the cfa studying
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process
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is wasted time wasted effort and overall
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wasted resources i created my own
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scheduling spreadsheet so i knew how to
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pace myself with learning each of the
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153 lessons under the 57 readings but
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even more importantly than knowing when
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to study each lesson for the first time
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i created the spreadsheet so it would
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tell me when i had to review the lesson
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for the second time the third time the
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fourth time and so forth until i
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mastered every single lesson the
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backbone of the spreadsheet is spaced
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repetition which has been researched
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validated and mentioned in numerous
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books and articles overall this system
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trimmed the fat off of the cfa level 1
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studying process
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and it freed up a massive amount of time
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for myself that i was able to use to
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work on practice problems quiz myself
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and take practice exams my note-taking
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and flash card creation was extremely
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fast extremely organized and it was
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always accessible using notion for
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note-taking and anki for flashcard
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creation is far superior in terms of
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time than handwriting your notes and
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flashcards i'd estimate that this alone
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saved me 50 hours overall additionally
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once my notes and my flashcards were
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created my cfa revision spreadsheet kept
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me on track and eliminated all worry and
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ambiguity on what i had to study on any
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given day every lesson within every
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reading within every topic was reviewed
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at the optimal time thanks to the
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formulas that are built into the
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spreadsheet and by the way you could
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access the spreadsheet through the
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resource links in the description and
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finally my system saved me time because
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it utilized effective study methods this
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made each of my learning and study
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sessions more efficient and it helped
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prevent the amount of material that i
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forgot thus reducing the amount of time
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that i wasted having to relearn material
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i stuck to my schedule and did what it
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told me to do when i would study a
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lesson i would test myself with flash
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cards and i also practiced the practice
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questions that kaplan offered kaplan's
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qbank has around four thousand practice
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questions i think and i ended up
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completing three thousand of them and if
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there was a practice question that i
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really thought i ought to know i would
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add that to my flash card deck on anki
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in regards to mock exams i ended up
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taking four total before my test i took
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one per week during my last month of
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studying when i showed up on exam day
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though i did feel prepared in terms of
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timing i told you that i started
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studying about six months out from my
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exam day for total hours studied
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everyone's familiar with the recommended
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amount of 300 hours i ended up studying
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about 400 hours and i believe that i was
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able to study that high amount of hours
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because i broke down my study sessions
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into chunks throughout the day for
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example doing three one-hour study
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sessions is a lot easier to complete
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than one three-hour study session your
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willpower won't deplete as fast as well
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as your focus and attention keep in mind
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that these 400 hours were 400 efficient
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hours as well it isn't necessarily about
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the number of hours you put in but it's
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more about the number of productive
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hours you put in let's talk about how
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many hours i studied per day and it
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really changed over the six months for
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the first few months i probably studied
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one to two hours a day pretty
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nonchalantly once i was about three
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months out for my exam day i began my
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deliberate practice and study and i
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would go for probably two to three hours
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a day once i was one month out from the
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exam i tried to study as much as my
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schedule could fit some days that was
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two hours some days that was seven or
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eight hours
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but on average during that last month
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i'd say that i studied four to five
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hours a day now that you have the story
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of how i passed i'll share the tools and
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resources that i used in my system like
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most candidates out there i had the cfa
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institute material and platform that you
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get when you register
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and i also utilize a third-party test
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prep provider i used kaplan's essentials
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package which was the most minimal and
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cheapest package that they offered and i
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really think that this is all that you
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need i use kaplan's online textbooks to
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take my notes and learn the topics and i
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use their platform for practice problems
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and to create quizzes for myself the
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kaplan package offers four mock exams
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and i ended up taking three of them with
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the cfa institute materials and platform
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i hardly used them because kaplan was
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the main thing that i lived in every day
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i never read any of the cfa institute's
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textbook material i didn't really work
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on any of their practice problems except
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for the ethics section i wanted to study
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ethics problems as much as i could so i
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did use the cfa institute's ethics
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practice questions and finally the cfa
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institute offers one mock exam and i did
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take that exam notion is a lifesaver
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when it comes to note-taking
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organization and accessibility wikipedia
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describes notion as an application that
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provides components such as notes
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databases
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kanban boards wikis calendars and
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reminders notion is what i use to take
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notes and organize those notes i didn't
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hand write any of my notes i know there
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are plenty of studies out there that
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show
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that you remember things better when you
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write them out by hand but there's this
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trade-off between writing things down
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and being able to quickly take notes on
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the vast amount of material the time you
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save by not handwriting your notes can
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be used later for effective study and
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memorization methods the feature on
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notion that i used for all of my
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note-taking was the toggle feature with
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the toggle feature i took notes using
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active recall which is an effective
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studying method where you quiz yourself
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and you have to generate an answer while
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reading i'd basically think of a
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question that i could ask myself then
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i'd create a toggle and supply the
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answer underneath the answer would be a
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copy and paste from the online kaplan
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textbook or i would type the answer in
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my own words and i frequently use the
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snipping tool on my computer for
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screenshots of graphics and formulas
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this note-taking structure of toggle
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questions and answers sets you up nicely
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for when you have to create your
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flashcards on anki all the toggles will
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be copy and pasted into anki and become
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your flashcards that you study so let's
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talk about anki now anki is a program
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online or on your desktop that allows
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you to create flashcards you aren't just
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limited to creating basic flashcards
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with words on the front and words on the
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back anki has a lot of options where you
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could customize your flashcards you
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could add text you could add fill in the
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blanks you could format the text you
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could add photos and you could do a
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whole lot just to create comprehensive
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helpful flashcards anki's features are
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great but its capability to organize
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your flashcards is just as amazing i had
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parent decks for each of the 10 topics
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within each topic i had decks for all 57
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readings and within all 57 readings i
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had 153 decks for each lesson the
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separation and organization
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is essential for the system you could
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study things at a high level such as one
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of the 10 topics or you could just study
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one single lesson and really focus on
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that and master it the next tool i used
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was my favorite this right here is the
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bread and butter of the entire system
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and i guarantee that i wouldn't have
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passed the exam if i didn't have this
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the biggest contributor to my success
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and my sanity was my cfa revision
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spreadsheet that i created the
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spreadsheet would track which lessons i
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studied
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then i would give myself a grade from 1
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to 10 on how well i knew everything in
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that lesson based on that 1 to 10 rating
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the spreadsheet would automatically
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schedule the next time i had to review
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that lesson if i rated myself a 2 for
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example the next time i would study that
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lesson would be two days later if i
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rated it an eight i would have to review
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that lesson 11 days after my initial
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time studying it and this is spaced
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repetition the topics that i was pretty
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proficient in were studied less
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frequently and other topics that i
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struggled with were studied more
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frequently this sheet is the backbone of
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the entire study system it keeps
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everything optimized and on track you'll
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never find yourself wasting time
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thinking about what you have to study in
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the top left here you enter a few inputs
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at the start of your studies you enter
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your test date then on any given day you
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enter the current date this here will
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tell you how many days you have left
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until your exam also
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entering today's date triggers these
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formulas over here to tell you which
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topics you have to study on that day
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over here
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for your first initial learning of each
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of the 153 lessons
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you could enter here how many you want
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to learn each day and i'd recommend
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learning one to two lessons each day if
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you enter a one or two the sheet will
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tell you the date that you will finish
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learning each lesson for the first time
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and you want to complete learning all of
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them for the first time probably one
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month before your exam because at that
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point you'll have seen every lesson once
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you'll have time to review those lessons
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and you'll have time to take practice
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exams if you want this spreadsheet you
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can download it i know this video is
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just an overview of what i did so i
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created a skillshare course that goes
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more in depth for every single component
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of this system it'll go deeper into how
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to use the cfa revision spreadsheet
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notion for note-taking and anki for
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flashcards i'll go over the background
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of the effective study methods that are
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used and what makes them so great and
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finally i'll share how you can increase
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your chances of success by utilizing
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certain productivity techniques and ways
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to keep your mind and body primed for
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cognitive performance and there it is
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everybody that's how i passed the cfa
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level 1 exam i'm excited to see
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what the reaction is to the system i'm
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hoping that candidates could use this to
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their benefit until then i'll get
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working on the next video for you
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see you then
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