Weakest Links – Statistics and Probability

Gee…I am now at Reading 11. Sounds quick huh? It progresses faster than expected because I didn’t deep dive into Reading 9 and 10. Reading 10 is not too bad. Reading 8 and 9 are killers. Instead of spending too much time dwelling into Reading 8 and 9 (which I already did), I have decided to quickly move on to other topics and hopefully can start my favourite topic – Economics as soon as possible. My strategy is to at least go through all the big 6 books once and  come back to the ‘weak’ subjects later, hopefully some time in mid October. To recap the weakest links:

Reading 7: Skewness and Kurtosis – need to memorise formulas

Reading 8: WHOLE READING 8 – Probability Concepts – no good.

Reading 9: Common Probability Distributions – need to do the practice problems without referring to the text.

Reading 10: Sampling and Estimation – not too bad. Need to do the practice problems.

Probability – my weakness link, so far

As I have anticipated, stuff is getting tougher as I read more. I am in week 2 now and I am still on schedule. However, things have slowed down. I am a bit stuck at Reading 8: Probability Concepts. This is one of the topics that I am weak in. It’s not rocket science, but I just couldn’t get it right. Yesterday it took me almost 2 hours just to read and re-read the topic on The Total Probability Rule and I ended up having read less than 15 pages yesterday (my benchmark is 40 to 50).

Curriculum arrived

UPS is really reliable and fast. I tracked the curriculum parcel on UPS’s website yesterday morning and it had already arrived Singapore at 6.30am and it was already out for delivery at 8.30am. I told dad that the parcel would be delivered to my house soon and asked him to stay at home and wait for it. UPS never disappointed me and the stuff arrived at 3pm, in perfect condition.

Altogether there are 6 thick books and gee, they are heavy. I suddenly had cold feet after the first glance at the books and given the fact that I barely have 25 weeks to the D-day, it’s gonna be an uphill task.

But heck, I have already paid for it and like what I have been telling RT, the ROI of going for CFA is cool, I better give it my best shot.

Quoting Warren Buffet, ‘Rule #1, don’t lose money; Rule #2, don’t forget rule #1.’, failing the exam = losing money and time, therefore, passing the exam is a must to me and I have to stick to my ‘investment’ principle.

2008-12-07

7th December, 2008.

The date for CFA Level 1 exam this year.

Also the date for Singapore Marathon – and I realised that after I’ve registered the CFA exam.

Would I have turned back my decision if I had known about the marathon date this year? Well, probably not. From scheduling point of view, it doesn’t make sense for me to skip December’s exam and go for next year June’s one because should I have passed it in June, I will need to wait exactly for 1 year to take Level 2; whereas if I pass it in December this year, I will be eligible to take Level 2 next year June.

That saves me time and time is money.

Marathon is my passion but too bad I have to give Singapore Marathon this year a miss.