Spaced review for the CFA exam: keeping what you have already learned
By the time you reach the last topic on the curriculum, the first one has been months ago. Candidates notice this as a sinking feeling in their first full mock: material they knew well in the spring has quietly gone. That is not a failure of effort. It is what memory does to things that are not used.
Forgetting is predictable
Memory for something learned once fades fast at first and then more slowly. Each time you successfully recall it, it fades more slowly the next time. This is one of the oldest and most repeated findings about how people learn, and it has two practical consequences.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Answering a question on duration makes you retrieve the idea, and retrieval is what strengthens it. Reading your notes on duration again feels productive and does much less.
- Timing matters. Review something the day after you learned it and you spend time on what you still knew. Leave it for months and you are learning it again from scratch. The most efficient moment is in between: just as it is starting to slip.
What that looks like in a study week
- Keep a slice of every session for review, not only new material. In the last month before the exam, make it the larger slice.
- Review by answering questions, not by re-reading. A few questions on an outcome tell you whether it is still there and strengthen it in the same minute.
- Space the reviews out as they succeed. An outcome you recalled easily can wait longer next time; one you struggled with should come back sooner.
- Put formulas on cards and treat them the same way. A formula you can derive under pressure in week one can be gone by week twelve if you never write it out.
Doing it without a spreadsheet
Tracking when every one of several hundred learning outcomes is due is too much bookkeeping to do by hand, which is why most candidates do not do it. Charta keeps a retention estimate for each outcome you have practised, and brings each one back for review at about the point you would otherwise lose it, alongside your planned new material.
If you want to start with the formulas, the free formula sheet has every formula for your level with each symbol defined, which makes it a good set of cards to review from.