But I've decided that I'm going to take the CFP exam again. The next time it's offered is March but I am not going to attempt to take it that soon due to my heavy workload. I will likely sit for the July exam, or wait until the November exam (or both).
I hate the idea of giving up on anything and even though I didn't get the results I so desperately wanted, doesn't mean that I cannot and should not keep going. If I have learned anything in life it's that things don't come easy. My worst fear did come true, I studied my asss off and still wasn't successful, but I know that I CAN be. Just wanted to share that I've decided to keep forging ahead with this goal.
Re: I may just be crazy...
3/12 5 mi -- 49:22 Pace: 9:52
5/1 Half Marathon -- 2:11:22 Pace: 10:01
5/22 10k -- 56:29 Pace: 9:00
5/24 3.6 -- 29:03 Pace: 8:18
7/10 15k -- 1:44:46 injured Pace: 11:14
10/29 5k -- 28:24 Pace: 9:04
I knew giving up wasn't your style, Achase!
Can you find out your results to see which areas you need to improve on the most? Perhaps you didn't pass only by a small margin, and you can focus your studies on the areas you missed the most questions on.
This is exactly what I was thinking too! Good for you for moving forward and looking to the next exam!
Good for you!!! I think this is a great way to proceed so you don't "lose" all of the studying you already did.
It might help to study on general standardized test taking skills as well because it sounds like you really know your stuff!
They do give you a graph that shows which areas I was deficient. I actually passed in three of the seven areas. However, every test is different so it's difficult to say how the next one will go. I do know I really need to concentrate on retirement planning and employee benefits and investment planning since those areas are heavily weighted and I was deficient in them.
I am sorry to learn that you did not pass your exam. Do the study guides come with a bazillion study questions?
Yes, but I went through them all-haha! I have to get some new ones since I exhausted the old ones.
Excited to hear this! Takes balls to face something after being defeated and your attitude is awesome. Get it girl!
1) Very glad to hear this news!
2) I know that you work for a financial firm of some sort from previous posts/blogs; is there anyway you could look for some real-life experience in your concentration areas? I know that for me when I put things into real practice, it helps me get the concept a little bit more.
Well I live a lot of it every day. I'm trying to look into ways to relate everything I'm learning to a real life event or something more tangible. It's a study tactic that's meant to help commit things to long-term rather than just memorizing.
When I was taking my professional licensing exam, someone gave me the best advice on how to study that made a world of difference. Most people in my profession spend a lot of money on review courses etc. I didn?t attend a single review course and I did not study the subject matter/material either. Considering that you have taken the exam, you already know the subject matter pretty well. What someone taught me to do is to focus a majority of my energy and time on the sample questions and not in reviewing subject matter since chances are that you know a good chunk of the subject matter. They way to go about the study questions was to only answer/review questions by subject matter.
For Instance if Question one is about retirement planning and question 2 was about employee benefits, I would go through all 200 questions and skip all questions that did not have anything to do with retirement planning. Once I was done with that subject matter then I would go to question two about employee benefits and again skip all questions in the sample set that have nothing to do with retirement planning etc. What this does is that it will help arrange/sort the subject matter in your brain by categories which make it easier to remember and also in reviewing the questions; you will narrowly be able to identify your areas of weakness in the subcategory. Also, when reviewing the questions if you identified a concept is an area of weakness, you get to go back and review that concept and then finish the sample questions etc.
This is all I did and I passed my exams the first time around. I have given this technique to a few friends also taking licensing and certification exams in different industries and they have all passed the first time around and the ones that had failed the first time around before this strategy stated that they wish they had done this the first time around. Hope this is helpful. And hopefully it makes sense. Goo d Luck and you can do it!!!
To add on to this, sometimes you will find a piece of information later on in the exam that will help you answer a previous question...and it will be easier to recognize that if you're doing them by subject matter, rather than in order.