Hi,
I wrote the June Level 1 exam but I’m fairly confident that I didn’t pass. I found myself guessing on too many questions. I knew the basic concepts well enough but there were too many details and formulas that I didn’t memorize. I just didn’t go through the material quickly enough to cover everything in as much detail as I hoped. I was surprised at how long even the first pass through the material took.
For the June exam, I studied with the Schweser notes. I read the books, chapter by chapter, made notes for the important concepts and the formulas and did the practice questions at the end of each chapter. I started studying in January and by the time I got through the material, the exam was only three weeks away. I spent the last three weeks going over the Secret Sauce book, doing practice questions and a couple practice finals.
I thought that I did a reasonable job in preparing but, on exam day, it appeared like I hadn’t prepared enough. I work full time, 10 hours a day so I only had an hour a night at the most to devote to studying. My undergrad was in geology and I work for a mining company so I have no financial background whatsoever and all of the material was 100% new to me.
Anyways, I’m taking the rest of June off from studying then I want to get back into it and start preparing for the December exam. I’m hoping to get some help from everyone on the forums to prepare a study plan for the December exam. I’m planning on ordering the Schweser videos because I’ve always retained things better after hearing it rather than reading it and I’m also going to order the flash card set since that will save me a ton of time memorizing all the formulas and I’ll also order the other set of practice finals. I’m going to use the June 2012 notes again.
Once I receive the videos, I’ll aim to watch one lecture a night and take notes on the material presented. That alone will eat up approximately 90 days from today. That leaves 80 days left. I don’t think I would have time to go over the books again plus do practice questions. There’s just so much material that it’s tough to cover everything. Some suggestions on how to best allot my time would be great.
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hey man,
yeah i sat for the june 2012 level 1 exam as well. i’m not too sure how well i did even though i did finish with about 15-20 minutes before time was up but i am still uncertain about it. Therefore i’m going to start preparing, just like you, for the december exam now. Because i found that it takes quite a bit of time for them to grade exam so by the time I recieve my notification that I failed, I wouldn’t have enough time to adequately prepare for the december with the remaining time left. Better safe than sorry.
i found it to be a flip between economics and FSA to be the most difficult so i gues that will be where i focus my energy into.
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I don’t know if it’ll change anything, but I’ve seen a bunch of the Schweser videos and they would be best after you’ve given the content a good go. ie, read it during the day, do practice problems, then finish the day off by watching the video(s) for the appropriate LOS’s. Then at the end of the week do more practice problems to make sure you remembered anything. I’d liken the video’s to secret sauce+professor commentary (though I’ve never actually read ss, just what I’ve heard about it)
They’re definitely worth it though. I put them all on the ipad and watch them on the treadmill, train, lunch break, whenever I have some time but not enough to really get into the grit of it
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I keep hearing econ is brutal..after four years of regretting not majoring in finance/accounting I finally found some good in that decision!
That said, accounting is my killer.
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To the OP: If you want to go down the videos route a would highly recommend going with Elan over Schweser. Schwesers videos provide more of an overview, while Elan’s dive into the nitty gritty and are more useful from the learning perspective.
Also, there’s always a chance you could pass. Getting 2 questions right out of every 3 is very possible with a little bit of luck. All the best!
Because you do not have a financial background, I think it would be in your best interest to refer to the CFAI text books rather than relying on Schweser. The EOC questions are extremely relevant and much more representative of actual exam questions than Schweser QBank or even Schweser mock exams. (in my opinion)
My study plan consisted of:
1) Reading all CFAI text books and taking my own notes by hand
2) Completing blue box during and EOC questions after each reading and highlighting any that I had the least bit of trouble with
3) After a complete read-through, I went through the LOS in each reading, my notes, and any highlighted blue boxes and EOC’s that were theoretical and compiled a typed up 100-page note book of my own. I also made a formula sheet of my own. I found that the Elan and Schweser ones included way too many unnecessary formulas. I only included ones that were REQUIRED based on when the LOS stated that we would need to calculate something.
4) I re-did all highlighted questions until I could master them and also re-did ALL EOC questions for any reading that I found to be more challenging
5) I did a Schweser live Mock 3 weeks before the exam and then 4 more mocks (including the CFA and 3 Schweser) in the final 10 days before the exam. Any question that I got wrong or guessed on, I made sure to review the answer in detail and add it to my typed up note book.
6) I spent my last week reviewing mock exam errors, tricky EOC questions, and reading ETHICS and my typed notes over and over and over again.
The only questions on the exam that I felt uncertain about were some Ethics questions where I had to re-read the question over and over to find exactly what they were looking for. The other questions seemed very familiar to me likely because they were similarily worded with CFAI blue box and EOC questions. Having focused intensely on the CFAI curriculum, the exam seemed to go very smoothly.
Good luck!!
"It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money."
Albert Camus
Thanks guys,
I like the idea of making my own version of a condensed notes. I think that I will watch the video lectures and take notes while listening. After that, I’ll go through the book for the same chapter, LOS by LOS and make sure that I understand each LOS. Finally, I’ll do the EOC questions for each chapter.
With 67 chapters, if I start in a couple weeks, I’ll have an average of two days per chapter and still have time for a final revision and practice finals.
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The key if you are working full-time is getting in the big study sessions on the Weekends. I would typically crank out 5 hours on Saturday and Sunday to make up lost time during the week. Weekends you should be able to review multiple chapters which woulda put you well ahead of the timeline you previously mentioned.
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Econ is only what? 10%? I remember reading the econ material once and punting it. Choose your battles wisely.
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Yea man, don’t worry too much about Econ. It’s a lot of reading for little reward. It has the fewest possible points per LOS, too. If you can’t grasp something - move on, because there is a better chance of that single concept not appearing on the exam than in any other section. I hated Econ, personally, read through and practiced questions several times, and then moved on without stressing too much about how much I couldn’t retain. Whether or not this strategy has worked out is as yet unknown.
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Let me know how you got on with that strategy
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Testing yourself on the material has been resarched and shown to be the best way to learn. You need to acquire QBank and take tests on the material after every video. Then take tests on each section as you finish it. Test, test, test. I don’t know how I did on Level 1, but test/recall is just universally the best approach.
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i would like somenone to talk by email let’s say once a week keep track of our progress motivate each other and try to explain each other things we haven’t understood very well. Anyone interested? ana_georgiana90@yahoo.com