SFTMA Study Group (San Francisco
Treasury Management Association)
I heard about the SFMTA study group for this testing session via an email I received and I decided to join
the study group for various reasons.
Mostly I was hoping it would keep me focused and help me track my
studying. The study group is on Tuesdays
and runs for an hour and a half approximately.
The breakdown of the study group is 1) presentation on a certain chapter
by group participants and 2) review questions on each chapter. The course does not cover all the chapters in
the book, but just focuses on the chapters with the largest number of questions [editor's not: see page 3 of the CTP Exam Prep Guide]
according to historical past tests. I’ve
been reviewing the chapters in sequential order and therefore I am behind on the
chapters that we go over during the study group, but I still listen in on the
sessions as they give a great overview and when I get to a chapter on my own
that we’ve gone over during the study group, I use the materials from the study
group for review and reference notes. I
wonder if it would’ve been more beneficial to pace myself with the study group
and review the other chapters on my own.
This will be something I will definitely think about if I have to take
the exam a second time.
Usually two group participants
work together to create an overview of the particular chapter they are
assigned. They then present the main
point of the chapter via phone conference and the presentation is posted to a
yahoo site so that all the members can follow along during the
presentation. As many of the CTP
chapters cover a large amount of material the presentations can often be over
40 pages of PowerPoint. The
presentations from the previous study groups are used as the basis of the
current study groups presentations. That
is, only edits or additional slides have to be added, but the main presentation
is already created for most chapters.
Part I of each session consists of going over chapter
questions. These questions have been
gathered and prepared by the study session hosts, Janet and Mark. They have gathered these questions from
various sources over the years. The
questions are not always necessarily in the CTP exam format, but are meant to
test key concepts of the chapter. The
questions are posted prior to the study group and we do our best to answer them
individually. During the study session
we then go through each question and discuss the answers. What is also extremely beneficial is that the
answers are also posted to the yahoo site so even if you were unable to answer
a question or if you were confused about an answer you can reference the answer
key at a later date.
My current study group began its weekly study sessions in
mid September and meets almost weekly (some weeks are skipped due to holidays, etc)
and will end during the first week of December.*
This is a good timeline as you will need to cover the additional
chapters on your own not covered during the study sessions and also review the
material that you’ve studied.
The other benefit of the study session is being able to get
feedback from others who are also studying on 1) study techniques 2) areas of
difficulty that they are encountering and also 3) feedback from others who have
been unsuccessful when taking the exam previously.
*editor's note: This candidate tested during the Dec 2011/ Jan 2010 testing window. These blogs were submitted as she prepared for the exam.]
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