Hey guys…
So I really want to know what you guys are doing to motivate yourself into keeping up with your readings and questions??
I find it incredibly hard to study EVERY single day for some reason. It’s as if I am studying 4 hours one day, 2 hours the next two, and then I end up taking 2 days off with absolutely NO studying done.
Am I the only one who’s struggling or are there others facing the same dilemma? 
Well, are you on track?
Well… not really. I had planned finishing economics in 2 days but I’ve still got 140 pages worth of reading and questions to do … !!!
Economics in two days !? lol you are very ambitious ! I stay motivated through the passion I have for the subjects. There are certains topics that are more boring than others. but overall I feel it’s a great read, not only for my professional life, but also personal life.
lol whoops. Just realized what I said came out wrong.
Just to rephrase: it took me a total of 8 days to go through 100 pages of the econ book. I had planned on finishing all 240 pages in 10 days (2 days left) but that seems too unrealistic now. It might take me about 20 days to finish econ at this rate T_T
The worst thing tho is that I’ve had 3 days (out of the 8) with zero studies done!!! I don’t know how people study EVERY SINGLE day. It’s pretty tiresome
I only studied M-F until the last month of the test. It’s important to find what works for you. How much of this stuff have you seen/studied before?
I’d say… I’ve seen/studied about 80% of the material (not counting ethics of course) during my undergrad. I still want to leave 1.5 months near the end to do a lot of questions and mock exams.
You think I can go through all topics by mid-October?
Depends how fast you work. I studied for 4 months and had roughly 1.5 - 2 months worth of time to do questions and then mock exams. But I also read and work fast. For example, I finished both morning and afternoon sessions of CFA Level 1 in about 40 minutes each session. My speed allows me some leisure time, but if you are a more maticulous person then you may need to study more frequently.
40 minutes each?!? That’s impressive.
Are there some quick and easy tips you can give us all level I exam takers? Also, did you track the number of hours you’ve put in for the level I exam?
My advice is that dont think reading the notes is so important, by the time you finish you will only retain about 30% of what you read. The best wat to learn is to do practice problems. One thing i did to keep refreshing is that i lowered by 1 hour reading time so I could do 60 to 80 qbank questions of everything that i had read up until then.
Yea, but on test day you think to yourself “oops, must’ve failed” because you took the test, checked your answers, and still no one else has finished. I told all my friends that either I or the guy sitting in front of me failed. Because each time leaving the test, I saw his answers and they were 100% different lol
I advise using Qbank, it is very helpful. The LOS quizes after each reading and then chapter tests at the end of the book with periodic tests covering everything studied. I didn’t do EOC questions until the week before (due to not having many months to prepare, wanted to get the reading done as fast as possible), when I did them all (except Econ, lost my econ within the first couple weeks in a hotel room somewhere in New Orleans) right before the test it was a really good refresher. I swear on the actual exam, I had saw some of those questions before either in the CFAI Text or QBank.
I’m all about studying “smart” and research shows that test/recall is the best way to learn material. Read it just to get familiar with it, then take test after test on the material until it sticks. I used QBank and example test questions posted on the internet. And questions posted on this forum - if I didn’t know the answer to someone’s post, I looked it up and made sure I could explain it to someone else.
Thanks! Your responses are very helpful and motivating! 
Haha, not sure if you’re being serious or not, but your post made me laugh…
Besides, I’m not a big fan of rap music
To stay motivated I also never forget the reasons why I actually entered the program. IF you cannot study everyday, just make sure that you compensate by studying a bit more the other day. If you feel tired or do not feel like studying, it becomes much more difficult to actually retain the things that you have read. So better to take break sometimes and increase study time as the exam approaches.
Even if the test result depends on it? Just remember, to push it to the limit:
Haha geez, does everyone on here listen to rap??
hi everyone. pls help… i am plaaning june 2013 level 1 exam…but my background is engineering in cs, and i have no such friend intersted in cfa, i have very confused about preparation and study notes…pls help guys… my maill id is pankajnjain@yahoo.com and this same id is on fb… i want to start prep and i dont have any notes, how should i start?? what notes shuld i buy and from where… plz guys help me…
I personally consider myself no background (e.g. unrelated undergrad, etc) and passed the exam in last June. I found that reading those CFAI textbooks was really boring. So, I ended up just watching Schweser Videos reading secret source, and working with Qbank. I only did a few chapters of EOC questions and they are not that relevant to the real test. With about two months of study, I passed the level 1 exam even I did not get everything above 70%. Spend more time on FRA and ethics. That is. My two cents.
EddieChen, I hope you have a different study plan for level 2
thank you very much…
can u please tell me what about the cfa minimum passing marks…