I've just purchased materials for these courses, and wondering if this is the "standard" approach to completing the 8 subjects, to do these two together. I noticed that it says CT1 Assumes knowledge of CT3? Should i be okay with CT1? Also Would it be a good idea to go through the whole CT1 course before opening the CT2 package? (Im planning on enroling in the september exams). Thanks
hi Devon Em ct1 should be fine without ct3 there isnt much of a crossover . If you are reasonably good at math then ct1 should be fine as a first exam there is alot of sums of series , interpolation , and formulas by the dozen . ct2 on the other hand has no math , its financial reporting ( cash flow , balance sheets basically everything I dont want to do in an exam ) and finance so description of all the types of assets ( shares , stocks etc ) . if I was you I would open both sets of notes , read completely ct2 and work slowly through ct1 . My study method is to start exam papers as quickly as possible and I also like to know a bit at least about every part of the courses as early as possible . I actually studied ct2 first then moved onto ct3 then ct1 , but for my first exams I will be taking ct1 and ct3 together ( also ct6) , but I dont think it really would of mattered what order I had of studied them . That could be due to having a degree in math . math wise ct1 is much easier than ct3 anyways , well thats my 2 cents but I havent passed an exam yet so my advice could be worthless.
CT1 and CT3 are the examinations with the greatest proportion of academic knowledge in relation to professional knowledge, with CT7 not far behind. In comparison CT2 tackles a lot of real financial issues and can be seen as an introduction to CA1. It does not involve much mathematics, but does call for a lot of financial understanding. However, most of the content of CT2 is not highly difficult in itself. I did CT7 before CT2 to develop my financial knowledge. CT1 and CT3 are often taken together, in which case the requirement for taking CT1 to have a knowledge of CT3 should not be a problem.
The Institute's student handbook (page 45) doesn't list CT3 as a necessary prerequisite for CT1. Also, the syllabuses for CT1 and CT3 don't make any references to each other. However, the last chapter of CT1, which is on stochastic interest rate models, does assume a basic knowledge of probability (mostly just using the definitions of expected value and variance). If you've not studied probability before, or your knowledge is a little rusty, it might be worth following ActEd's advice and getting hold of an A-level textbook. Fortunately, the rest of CT1 seems to be independent of CT3 (I think), so you should be fine here.
