Right now I am in full swing of "study every moment I possibly can". It has been a little different having 6 months to study this time around as opposed to two months, but I think I have handled it ok. I definitely paced myself for the first four months, just building the foundation, but not wanting to either peak or exhaust myself too early. Starting at about 8 weeks out I put a little more intensity into it, and then at about 6 weeks to go the kick really kicked in to the point where I spend every spare hour I can on the material. So, I am back to where I was a year ago, studying every moment possible. I have to say I like the feeling of accomplishment of making progress and the intensity of just pushing and pushing, but I've definitely had my "I just don't get this stuff" days as well. I find no matter how badly the day goes, when I get up the next morning I am positive and ready to go again. Of course, sometimes the next day is rough as well...
At this point I feel like I am making good progress and should be in good shape by exam day. I feel like I will have strong enough grasp of the material as I have studied it and as it has been presented to me. From what I have read online, the exam can be pretty tricky and can involve some questions that are curveballs - something like a concept you know, but you have to figure out what a few things mean first, or that a few things cancel out, etc. This is going to sound a little bit silly to say, but the math on these exams isn't exactly my strong suit. I wasn't a math major, and while I certainly have some mathematical aptitude, there is a lot of things that I just don't know when it comes to certain math tricks. I still have to think pretty hard about taking a derivative, and I don't really know things like adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing an exponential and the quadratic equation. I will brush up on those before the exam, but my fear is that I won't naturally recognize situations where those skills will be useful.
One item I purchased that has been a big help is the Actuarial Brew study questions. AB has a package of 656 questions, and the answers are classified by difficulty and generally spelled out very well. I found that in working the ASM and TIA problems, neither problem set did I feel was really helping me learn, but the AB problems have really filled that void. By studying the answers provided and knowing how difficult they rate the question, I find I am able to figure out what else I have to learn how to do and where that falls on the scale of difficulty. Having a set of problems I really liked working on is something I really took for granted in P and FM. In P I used the SOA problems, and in FM I used the TIA problems along with the SOA problems. With both of those problem sets, I felt like I could break down and attack the various topics and study the solutions along with the source material to master new knowledge. I really wasn't feeling that way about any problem set for MFE until I found the AB problems. For $45 or so these are a great value!
Ok, 25 days to go. Right now it is hard to rate my confidence in passing. My confidence that I will reach maximum preparedness is 90%, but I am a little wary of the exam itself, so on a 1-10 scale I'd rate my chances of passing at about a 5.5.
