2024 CFA Level I Exam: CFA Discussion Topic: HOW DO I SLAY ECONOMICS?

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Topic: HOW DO I SLAY ECONOMICS?

Author	Topic: HOW DO I SLAY ECONOMICS?
crosanelli @2019-06-19 04:15:20	Econs was one of the two culprits that made me fail Dec 2016. While I acknowledged that I didn't cover the second good enough , I covered the entire Econs syllabus, yet scored below 50. My major headache was micro, e.g remembering where a line intercepts a particular curve in the exam. what is the best approach to this subject?
kath13 @2019-07-06 06:33:48	Yeah lots of people hyped up Econ would be difficult on the actual exam and different to what you learn at uni. But really it was no different to what pops up on exams at uni. I managed to score over 70%, with a reasonable amount of effort. Yes, one of my two undergraduate majors was Econ, but I still think the curriculum and Wiley study notes and videos in particular do a great job covering the concepts. With Econ I personally find that if you understand the material and can explain it on a whiteboard to someone else, you should be in pretty good shape for most questions on exam day. A possible issue is that when you read a text all you see is the end-product of a bunch of graphs/formulas. Then trying to memorize this without understanding could lead to some strife. However, seeing the gradual build up of concepts (from the most basic to the more complex) in videos in live time helps me to better understand and retain the material. So a approach (may or may not be the best) -> watch videos -> pause and reconstruct what you see on your own; ask why that line has to intersect the curve at that point ; build sound economic intuition/reasoning; the more simple logical associations you can make in your learning, the easier econ becomes -> Actively test your understanding with CFAI "blue box", "end-of-chapter" and "topic area" test. All the best with your preparation !

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Topic: HOW DO I SLAY ECONOMICS?

crosanelli
@2019-06-19 04:15:20

Econs was one of the two culprits that made me fail Dec 2016. While I acknowledged that I didn't cover the second good enough , I covered the entire Econs syllabus, yet scored below 50. My major headache was micro, e.g remembering where a line intercepts a particular curve in the exam.

what is the best approach to this subject?

kath13
@2019-07-06 06:33:48

Yeah lots of people hyped up Econ would be difficult on the actual exam and different to what you learn at uni. But really it was no different to what pops up on exams at uni. I managed to score over 70%, with a reasonable amount of effort. Yes, one of my two undergraduate majors was Econ, but I still think the curriculum and Wiley study notes and videos in particular do a great job covering the concepts.

With Econ I personally find that if you understand the material and can explain it on a whiteboard to someone else, you should be in pretty good shape for most questions on exam day.

A possible issue is that when you read a text all you see is the end-product of a bunch of graphs/formulas. Then trying to memorize this without understanding could lead to some strife. However, seeing the gradual build up of concepts (from the most basic to the more complex) in videos in live time helps me to better understand and retain the material.

So a approach (may or may not be the best)

-> watch videos

-> pause and reconstruct what you see on your own; ask why that line has to intersect the curve at that point ; build sound economic intuition/reasoning; the more simple logical associations you can make in your learning, the easier econ becomes

-> Actively test your understanding with CFAI "blue box", "end-of-chapter" and "topic area" test.

All the best with your preparation !

CFA Discussion Topic: HOW DO I SLAY ECONOMICS?

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I passed! I did not get a chance to tell you before the exam - but your site was excellent. I will definitely take it next year for Level II.

CFA Discussion Topic: HOW DO I SLAY ECONOMICS?

Tamara Schultz