Is reading the CFAI curriculum becoming a requirement now?

I took the exam this past Saturday and there were questions that are only found inside CFAI text (at least 10+ questions). You really have to go through the CFAI text with a fine toothed comb to find the answers. I relied on Schweser but I think the concepts tested are becoming more obscure and you wouldn’t know the answer if you didn’t read the CFAI text. Any thoughts?

I think that’s true. I read every single page of the CFAI material…but no human being can be expected to remember concepts that are mentioned in half a sentence in ~3000 pages of material, no? My guess is they don’t want too many people having CFAs so they are making the tests incredibly difficult. Not because they are mean but because they have to, to keep the number of Charterholders down. I can’t even answer a few of the questions with the books now in front of me. I think it would be more fair to make the READING material even more difficult and then test people on that. Look at the pass rates from 10 or 20 years ago and compare them to today…I also think they test you on some things that are not in the book, or at least, you wouldn’t know the answer just by reading the books

I have just taken the L3 exam, and I would say it is becoming more and more advisable to look at the CFAI curriculum. which means that it will not be advisable to start stuying 3 months ahead, but rather 7-9 months.

After taking the exam all I can say is you’ll be pretty screwed if you don’t use anything but the CFAI material. I took the December level I and that you could still use schweser and any other third party provider…but this summer one wow…the way the worded some of the questions was just …

Anyways, use the CFAI material.

I agree with you guys. I just don’t know how you can fit studying everything from the CFAI books in your time.

I also did use CFAI for several occasions because doing the CFAI EOCs after having studied only from Schweser always revealed some blank parts and I also agree that CFAI material is really well explaining. But it’s so time consuming that I find it impossible (for an average person - for a human) to read all of it.

Do CFAI and read fast!

I can read a detective story fast but cannot CFA.

I started that way but had to give up, take Schweser and just return to the curriculum for EOC, most of the blue boxes (which are grey) and occasional combing through for concepts, questions, misunderstandings.

But if the name of the game is you cannot do w/o being able to study the entire CFAI material than this title is not for me.

I agree Moosey. You couldn’t pay me enough to read the CFAI books. However, I don’t think it’s really necessary just yet. It’s just that you need to know the Schweser material inside out so that you can afford to miss the questions that are only covered by CFAI

All I know is that I’ve been a technical analyst for 5+ years, and out of the x amount of questions on TA…one of them was not anywhere on Schweser. Thankfully due to my trading experience however, I knew the answer.

You add nothing of value to any conversation you partake in. Please stop posting.

CFAI is all I read. I ignored Kaplan etc. Only did their mock exams.

I hate how you have to pay for the books though, meanwhile you have the online version included in the fee. They should give you the option to pick which one you want. I didn’t use the online version at all… waste of money.

Do you?

The same type of “retard” that is waiting to find out if they just went 3/3 in 18 months - that type of retard.

As a candidate you are likely putting lots of time into studying to take a once a year shot at a test that the majority fail. We are forced to pay for the curriculum, but that does not mean that it is the only way to study. Those of us who hold down full-time career jobs and/or families have to budget our time accordingly. I can not honestly see the value added in spending an extra 100 to 200 hours reading just to cover the verbiage in the official curriculum. Yes, if you use a third party provider you are cutting corners and will get tripped up here and there on each exam (expect it) but doing this either makes properly prepping for the exam doable in a tight schedule or allows one to use the time saved by not reading the official curriculum to drill note cards or further review material which more than makes up for a few CFAI “got you Schweser user” questions.

After sitting for my third CFA exam now I can say that the further you go in the program the more important the revision/review/note card/practice test portion of your study schedule becomes. I had to re-read the curriculum for levels 1 and 2, for level 3 I had to re-re-read the curriculum. I would not have had the time to complete a proper study effort had I been doing this with the official curriculum and given its length I can not realistically expect to have gotten it all to stay in my head with a lower number of passes than I had to use for Schweser.

Everyone is different and learns differently but for God’s sake put a price tag on your time and effort that you are putting into this. I am willing to spend the extra scratch to buy the Schweser notes because I think my probability of passing goes up big time in approaching the exam this way.

Please don’t be a “retard” and value your study time at $0 – the cost of the curriculum is a sunk cost and does not mean that you can not still “save” time/money by using the Schweser notes…

I think for L1 (which is not that hard compared to 2 and 3), scheweser is enough to pass.

Not sure why everyone is so in love w/ Schweser. I tried it and found that I couldn’t even answer the EOCs. Midway through L2 studying, I threw my Schweser books in the trash and started skimming the CFA books and felt much better prepared. For the long winded poster above that doesn’t like all the CFA ‘verbiage’ and has such problems managing his time, you can skim CFA and you’ll be in better shape than reading Schweser word for word.

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Used to be, which is what this thread is getting at.

L1 this past Saturday was more difficult than usual and it had a lot of CFAI detail level questions not typically found in Schweser.

Most probably should be especially if you know Schweser inside out and you have that extra something (logic? or above average intelligence? or just maximal concentration? good competing type?).

I am just reviewing form the CFAI books all those parts I remember I was astonished to be asked on the exam, and I felt were never explained to me in my studybook (Schweser).

And I’m finding all these in the CFAI book black and white explained, even with plausible examples. I just never read those pages. I read others.

So because Schweser provides “notes” I think they are doing an excellent job in shrinking the material and even simplifying the language (for me as non native speaker this means a lot) and you are actually able to get a good grap of the whole topic, and probably would do wonderfully on an oral exam (when I was at University 20 years ago we had only oral exams in my country).

But to answer all these questions you either have to study the CFAI or you have to have the witts to think a concept further, draw better conclusions, be able to look at a question from a tottally different angle, recognize the real question even if the terms used are not what you have learned…

correct. yes, it is a lot of verbiage, but it is well-written verbiage which thoroughly explains concepts. re-reading CFAI, one will recognize the less important parts and skip them. from a CFA INstitute perspective, I believe it does not make sense to reward students that never open the CFAI books. what message would this send to people which cannot afford to buy Schweser - yes, these people exist and the western world is not the center of the world. hence I believe that from an ethical perspective it would be right if CFAI Institute structures the exam to contain portions of curriculum not covered by Schweser. after all, it is not CFA Institute’s problem if providers focus on brevity as a mater of their product design.

I’m with Jayman on this one. As far as i’m concerned, the CFA books are merely a reference for when i do not understand a concept well enough, and for the EOC problems. At least for level one, it would be a much more effective use of time to study from the schweser notes and focus on solving more practice questions/exams, than spending an extra month or two finishing up the entire CFAi curriculum to get those 7 extra points that were on the exam but not covered by schweser; particularly for those of us with limited time. Besides, If you’re intelligent enough, some of them can be deduced with a bit of extra thought

The good thing about the CFAI boks is that they will always be there as a reference for when you’re interested in learning more about a certain topic for the sake of gaining knowledge, rather than a looming exam

Passed level 1 and 2 first try with only using Schweser and CFAI Mock. Level 3 I read Schweser, did EOC Q’s from CFAI twice, the past 7 years AM exams, all 6 Schweser exams, and 3 CFAI PM Mocks. The reading portion of studying is a base for the required knowledge and should be finished as fast as possible. IMO, bulk of studying should be back-loaded with as many practice problems/tests as possible.