My approach - studies

I didn't keep a record of how much time I spent studying each module. However, I believe that my effort typically ranged between 80 and 120 hours. This is significantly less that the official recommendation of 200 hours.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I believe I have some advantages which not all other students may enjoy. I would therefore caution anyone from assuming this amout of effort will be sufficient for them. I'm sure there are some who have managed with much less time than me - but my impression based on the feedback I've received from other students is that the number of 200 hours is aggressive on average.

I divide my studies into two phases. My objective in the first phase is comprehension of the materials. In the second phase I prepare for the exam. In this post I focus on the first.

In the first phase, I am less concerned with how well I do on the exam. In some cases I do not feel the materials were very closely aligned with the exam and this discrepancy was apparent to me early in my studies. Nonetheless, I actually wanted to learn something so I tried my best to begin with a solid understanding of the course text.

I read through this text in two cycles. In the first I merely attempted to get my head around the main themes. I always worked off a print-out of the course text (never the black books) and I would highlight all the keywords and keypoints. Usually I skipped the end-of-module questions and some of the embedded case studies (if I thought I had grasped the concept already).

In the second cycle I actively tried to summarise the text. I am providing my summaries to the student community and I hope that they will be helpful to some. However, I must emphasise that I found much more benefit in writing these summaries than in reading them. There is great value in actively trying to formulate the thoughts expressed in the text rather than simply skimming over them. My point is that I would advise all students to write their own summaries in addition to (or instead of) using other students' notes.

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