Failed twice

CFA Level I
#1

Good morning/evening

Could you please give me your ideas! I failed twice, first time Dec 2013 I got band 4 and second time June 2014 band 9. For the first time;

  • I only read 1 Schewser book and Ethics from CFA book
  • Saw all videos from Fitchlearning
  • Did some Qbanks questions
  • Did 3 mocks just to see how well I did but I didn’t see the answers or explanations

And for the second exam

  • I read all the scheweser books once
  • watch videos from several sources
  • Attended intensive review course
  • Did almost 3000 Qbank questions
  • 3 CFA mocks and debrief 1

In my second attempt I got between 50 and 70 percent in all sections excpet alt. and Equity less than 50 percent

I only want to pass level 1 because my job require me to do so ! Level one is hell for me, too much information that my mind can’t keep them all! So I don’t think now of taking level 2 and 3 at all . I am saying that because I know some people will say if you can’t pass level one easily what you will do in level 2 and 3 !

I need your suggestions, what shall I do ! shall I read the books again and then do the questions or just do questions. Also I won’t be able to start study AT ALL until September. Do you think it is enough from September till December to pass or should I register for June!?

Thank you.

#2

Go for December :slight_smile: and focus on solving Qbank, CFAI EOC and mocks

#3

your second attempt was pretty thorough, I would say do more practice problems and less time spent on reading overall

#4

-Do all the CFAI eoc questions and review the concepts you’re not familar with.

-Buy the 6 full length Schweser practice exams, do all 36 hours of questions and review all of your answers regardless of whether or not they are correct.

#5

I’d say go for December. The material is fresh on your mind, and you can just keep going like you never stopped.

The real problems will be - if you pass in December, do you go for L2 in June 2015, or wait until 2016?

And if you fail L1 a third time, I’d advise you to stop throwing your money away.

#6

I would say you need to do more practice exam, and don’t just do it for the sake of knowing your current performance. You will get nothing if you don’t review it.

I’d say i messed up the reading part, i read the same material as you, all schewesser, and i didn’t even finish ethics from the CFAI. But i compensated it with 7mock exam before the actual exam. and i was also doing my MBA in finance which makes it a lot easier as the material complement each other.

Good Luck on your next attempt

#7

As a Level 1 Candidate, I can’t really comment on the exam itself. Well, not yet anyways. But, if you did approximately 3000 Q-Bank Questions, one has to wonder how well you actually grasped the concepts at hand? If for example you got a question right, could you explain why it was right? And if a question was wrong, did you learn and completely understand why you got it wrong?

And @FredrickF is probably right - a few more mock exams couldn’t hurt!

#8

Do the assigned readings – read once–don’t bother taking notes or highlighting as it’s too much material. You will retain a lot, more that you realize, when you take the exam. Look at end of chapter problems and get answer books for texts and look them over. Then do the outline stuff like you have. You will probaly do much better.

#9

I think your first attempt was not a serious attempt but the second was very thorough.Seeing your break up and band 9 you must be at higher end of 50-70 bracket.Please remember MPS has been generally estimated to be near 70% so you have to aim grater then 70%.From amount of effort you have put it seems you are not properly analyzing the questions you are doing wrong on a mock or qbank my advice would be

  1. go through shwesar and make your own notes.keep adding points to them after you do a test and find something you have not covered or done wrong

2)do all grey box and EOC of CFAI books

  1. Attempt as many mocks as you can and analyze the mistakes.Only this will create the additional value for you.I dont think time will be an issue at level 1
#10

Study harder. Be more focused, you can nail these exams that way, people go through these exams in 18 months, you can too if you write in December. Just tell yourself its not forever, get through it.

Here’s your strat, plan and simple: read cirriculum, do EOCs, refresh using Qbank, nail 6 mocks. Pass.

#11

During my preparation for both level 1 and level 2, I believe I learned most from understanding why I got mock questions wrong. Since there is a 33% unbiased chance of getting a right answer, you also need to make sure that your process of getting a right answer and the explanation for the correct answer provided by CFA are alligned.

#12

Go for it again! December will not set you back any further than if you had passed in June.

Read the CFAI text IN FULL this time. Then do as many practice questions as possible. You should already hav a firm grasp on the material so reading the CFAI text will be no issue.

No shortcuts, no problems.

#13

Focus on the heavy weight topics and make sure you know them back to front i.e. FRA, ethics and quant. If you get +70 in all three you stand a good chance of passing. Do as many eocs, qbank and cfa + schweser mocks as possible.

#14

+1000

I have never understood why a person would take a mock exam, then not read the explanations to find out why they were wrong on questions.

#15

I do not think you should read the books all over again and you should definitely re-take this exam in December.

Although you don’t know what you missed on the actual exam, after taking the exam twice you should have a pretty good idea of what you know and don’t know. I would do the following:

  • go through Qbank to brush up on the topics
  • go through the EOC questions multiple times in the CFA books and hit the CFA sample questions
  • re-take and review many mock exams (5-8)

I would read only topics that you don’t know, need a refresher on, or feel you didn’t get a good explanation of the answers from Schweser/CFA.

Other people have mentioned this but I cannot stress enough that you HAVE to go over every problem from the mocks right or wrong.

  • If you got it wrong, you need to know why…go back and figure it out. Read the explanations
  • And if you got it right, did you guess? If so, understand why the answer is correct
  • If the explanation gives you 3 reasons why the answer was right, but you only knew 1 reason, you need to understand the other 2. Chances are you could get a question later on another mock or the actual exam, that you may need to know those 2 other reasons.

Be thorough…reading through the books, doing the questions and going through videos is a big part, but understanding why you are missing the questions is crucial. That is what is going to get you that passing score.

Good luck!

#16

You’re not studying hard enough. Read the Schweser books once? For L2, I read the CFAI text three times…on top of Q’s…

#17

Thank you.

#18

Thanks, I already registered for December :slight_smile:

#19

I will do that. Thanks :slight_smile:

#20

I have the Schw. Mock exam books but I didn’t do any for June exam, I will do all the mocks and review all the answers ! and start doing CFAI EOC questions this time. Thanks for advice :slight_smile: