More than 250 hours for Level I ?

Dear members,

I’ve been looking at this forum for a few days, and I discovered a few useful tips that I started applying, but even then I find myself struggling to keep up with the schedule for level 1. I work 9AM to 8PM, so I come in early around 6:45 to put in a good 2 hours before the day starts, I use flashcards and Schweser notes and I have access to the full Qbank and exam practices. The CFA website recommends 250 hours of study before taking the test and at least 2 weeks of exam practice just before the exam, so I added a margin, and came up with a 300-hours study plan and an entire month of review before June 2, including a week off work just before the exam.

I put all that in an excel file in which I write down my daily hours and my progress, and the result is that I must work 1:30 hours every day to reach the 300hrs mark by the beginning of May (I started in October). The excel file uses a today function to tell me where I stand, and I’m on track for the hours.

However, I added another sheet in which I divided the whole material in 18 blocks of equal size (see breakdown below) and so, I should be completing these blocks in: 300/18 hours, roughly 16 ½ hours, and I’m not even close to completing these chapters on time.

At first, I may have used time-consuming study techniques, such as watching the Schweser videos AND reading the schweser notes + answering EOC, but it led me to complete quantitative methods readings 5 to 8 in over 34 hours instead of the 16.6 hours on my schedule. Now that I know the videos are a waste of time, and I stick to the Schweser notes, flashcards and EOC, but even when being very conservative in writing down my hours, I’m still a little above the 16.6 hours mark. Do you guys think it’s normal? Or does it get easier/faster later? I’m following the CFA curriculum, and I am currently studying Economics reading 16.

Also, I was wondering whether it would be more efficient to keep all the subjects fresh (i.e. taking practice exams regularly on the subjects already studied) or to just study it, make sure I understand it, and freshen it up in the last month?

How did you guys do it? Those who passed level one, did you study more than the 250 hours? I’m concerned I may be studying the wrong way: if I try and master everything and keep it current, I think by the end of the program I’ll have spent way more time on keeping things fresh than on learning new stuff. Any advice?

Topic: Ethical and Professional Standards, Readings 1-4

Topic: Quantitative Methods, Readings 5-8

Topic: Quantitative Methods, Readings 9-12

Topic: Economics, Readings 13-20

Topics: Economics, Readings 21-28

Topics: Economics, Readings 29-32

Topics: Financial Statement Analysis, Readings 38-39

Topics: Financial Statement Analysis, Readings 33-37

Topics: Financial Statement Analysis, Readings 40-43

Topics: Financial Statement Analysis, Readings 44-46

Topics: Corporate Finance, Readings 47-51

Topics: Portfolio Management, Readings 52-54

Topics: Equity Investments, Readings 55-58

Topics: Equity Investments, Readings 59-64

Topics: Fixed Income Investments, Readings 65-69

Topics: Fixed Income Investments, Readings 70-72

Topics: Derivate Investments, Readings 73-78

Topics: Alternative Investments, Readings 79

I’m more worried about splitting up my readings into number of days than number of hours. I also only have about 2 hours a day to study, but I can catch up on weekends if I fall behind where I want to be. My plan is to read the Schweser notes, do the EOC questions from the CFAI book, and once a week do questions from the QBank from all of the topics I’ve covered so far. I made a Google calendar with my schedule and assigned more time to sections that I have less of a background in (I minored in math and econ, so I’ll spend less time on the quant and econ sections than on the finance sections which I have no knowledge of). As for the online videos, I think I’ll watch them when there’s a topic that I’m struggling with. I’m planning on getting through the material in 4 months, and then having 1 month to review and take all of the practice tests. I want to take the CFAI practice test the weekend before the exam, and during the last week, reread the ethics section and use QBank each day.

the length of your post is a clue to me. if you spend that much time for a simple query, i wonder how much time you spend learning about time value of money… it’s not how many hours you spend, it’s how your spend them that matters

I agree, but also think that it’s important to map out a study schedule for yourself. Being well organized with with your time will help you get through everything efficiently.

totally agree with lemiman…" it’s not how many hours you spend, it’s how your spend them that matters" Good Luck everyone… hope we all make it in june 2012

dont know why it posted same comment twice… so just deleted one

+2

Your Quality time is required. I would suggest go with some study material. Schweser is excellent for Level I. If you have finance background then start with the areas you feel confident about. Its just a matter of making a routine. I have seen people who studied 2 hours a day and passed the exam. like I said its more about your quality time than ‘no. of hours’. While you are reading organize yourself by underlying and highlighting important points. Don’t move forward unless you’ve understood what you’ve read. Try reading in chunks. For instance in 20 mins. slot. Once you gather the pace it would become easy for you to study. Use Schweser Qbank for practicing. Forget about the exam its in June 2012. Better converge your energies in understanding what you are reading and managing yourself up. You are not the only person who’ll pass the exam by working 11 hours a day. Good Luck!

Your Quality time is required. I would suggest go with some study material. Schweser is excellent for Level I. If you have finance background then start with the areas you feel confident about. Its just a matter of making a routine. I have seen people who studied 2 hours a day and passed the exam. like I said its more about your quality time than ‘no. of hours’. While you are reading organize yourself by underlying and highlighting important points. Don’t move forward unless you’ve understood what you’ve read. Try reading in chunks. For instance in 20 mins. slot. Once you gather the pace it would become easy for you to study. Use Schweser Qbank for practicing. Forget about the exam its in June 2012. Better converge your energies in understanding what you are reading and managing yourself up. You are not the only person who’ll pass the exam by working 11 hours a day. Good Luck!

Your Quality time is required. I would suggest go with some study material. Schweser is excellent for Level I. If you have finance background then start with the areas you feel confident about. Its just a matter of making a routine. I have seen people who studied 2 hours a day and passed the exam. like I said its more about your quality time than ‘no. of hours’. While you are reading organize yourself by underlying and highlighting important points. Don’t move forward unless you’ve understood what you’ve read. Try reading in chunks. For instance in 20 mins. slot. Once you gather the pace it would become easy for you to study. Use Schweser Qbank for practicing. Forget about the exam its in June 2012. Better converge your energies in understanding what you are reading and managing yourself up. You are not the only person who’ll pass the exam by working 11 hours a day. Good Luck!

Those 250-300 hour things are based on surveys of successful candidates. There are no gurantees that if you spend that amount of time you will pass and in fact many people spend that amount of time and fail. Frankly, spending 34 hours on quantitative readings 5 - 8 is not very encouraging. That pretty much means you had no clue on this stuff before you started studying which would not be typical of a person who passes the exam (I probably spent a total of 45 minutes studying quantitative stuff for all three levels of the exams). Given all the study aids out there and the length of the CFAI materials you could spend thousands of hours studying for these exams. You have to figure out how to use the materials to augment what you already know to pass the exams. If you don’t know anything, you are going to have to put in lots of hours to pass the exams - likely more than 300 unless you are a quick study. If you were a music major in college and don’t know the difference between a stock and a bond, it is very likely that you will have to do lots of remedial education before you can master the CFA curriculum and pass thee exams.

Don’t pay any attention to the hours shown by the CFAI. For the level 1 I dedicated around 700 hours, and I don’t think they were too many. For me, it was necessary as I didn’t have much financial background (I studied economics), and I prefered to approach the exam at gradual pase.

Thanks for all the comments guys! Nah I do have a finance background and knew all the quant stuff beforehand, I just spent a lot of time reading the whole cfai book, watching the useless videos and doing every possible question about it: I wasted my time trying to know it by heart and following the curriculum… The rest goes much faster, but my point was 250 hours is not realistic if you’re serious about going over all the material and knowing it inside out on exam day… So I think 600-700 hours is more realistic, including all the mocks / last month review. What do you think?

that’s a perfectionistic approach, which is not bad in itself. you don’t need to be perfect to pass. however, if you strive for perfection, the exam could be much easier for you and maybe even set you up nicely for your level II studies.

perfectionist study is not hard for Level 1, but forget about it at Level 2. But seriously, once you pass, no one gives a damn what your scores were.

I think pacing yourself and setting a schedule and sticking to it is the most important thing you can do. My study material is coming today and I’m nervously excited to get started!

…and they’ve just been delivered

And at the other end of the spectruum, people have successfully passed L1 on a week of study time. I had a bike race I needed to train for on May 9th of the year I took it in June. I missed 1 workday. Did better on the exam than I did in the bike race (crashed out of the bike race). Of course, I had just put in all the time in my previous years learning most of that stuff.

I believe that a very high proportion of reasonably-intelligent candidates with some finance background that devotes 300 “real” hours of study time to a level will pass. A “pass” requires the candidate to get approximately 2 out of every 3 questions correct. But if the goal is to “know the curriculum inside out”, then this is a much much higher bar, and a candidate could easily spend 700+++ hours. Note however that even instructors that have been teaching one CFA level for years don’t know “everything” about that curriculum. There is just a vast amount of content, and tons of nooks and crannies.

If you overstudy and spend too much time on every detail instead of focusing on the core concepts that are most likely to be tested, then you’re probably not going to do as well…