For those who are in the workforce and passed L1, please share on how you guys made it. I retook L1 and failed again with results much worse that my first attempt…Strange because i completely did not touch the books (wife had a miscarriage) for the first attempt and yet my results were much better…
I thought ethics was quite easy but i scored <50 
So guys please share the secret recipe of passing such as materials used and time allocated etc…
What are your working hours mate ??
Mine will be 9-6 with roughly a 45 minute commute each direction. Any tips would be great! I did not pass with band 9. I also scored band 9 for the December 2016 exam.
alright. mine were similar. so if your re-taking the exam in December, i’d suggest you get started right away as a lot of stuff from this attempt would still be fresh in your mind. now if Ethics is your weakness, start with it and finish off the entire portion. Now ensure you put in at least 3 hours every single day without fail and go in for a 6-7 hour grind on saturday and sunday. once your done with the entire portion, come back and read ethics and even FRA. ensure you do ethics and FRA at least 4-5 times.
Make no compromise on your grind and you will succeed. Thats my f**king guarantee.
Let me know in case you need more insight.
Always here to help
Well, I have a friend who passed this time with only watching videos and doing mocks. And he has full time job and also doing part time mba at the same time. He made it, but it was very close to fail…
what materials you used?
Sorry to hear about your exam result, it must be frustrating!
I study full time and failed in December 2016 (Band 10 - :@), but managed to pass this time around. Thought I’d share my attempt at studying for both attempts to see if it helps at all.
First time around my work paid for Fitch evening classes, which were great but as I’m sure others will attest to, it’s quite hard to concentrate to the teacher when you have just finished a long work day. Luckily this package also came with online content, to which I watched most of the videos (often repeating the content in the lectures), and I then booked a week off work to do practice papers the week before the exam. I did terribly on the papers and lo and behold, failed the exam, albeit close.
Second time around it was more difficult to study as you often find yourself saying “I know that”, “Can skip that” and forget that you did in fact fail in the first place. Deciding to take a different tactic, I bought Schweser notes second hand and went about a new routine. Read the Schweser chapter, refreshing my brain but not really taking notes, and then doing the questions at the end, as well as then doing the questions at the end of the corresponding section in the main books. I did that through all of the topics and chapters, usually staying after work for a couple of hours to finish a section.
Luckily it worked and I passed! - Guess what I’m saying is you may not need to go over all the content in detail, but don’t be fooled in to thinking that you know stuff that you don’t and glossing over it. Therefore reading Schweser may be the ideal refresher before focusing on doing as many questions as you can. It’s regurgitated on here a lot, but doing lots of questions at the end of each topic really is the only way to get ready for the exam.
I used the Kaplan Schweser Notes and used the Qbank a ton if I was having trouble with a particular section. Really, the only CFAI book I used was for the ethics portion, and I read that several times over. I also watched Mark Meldrum’s videos on Youtube. I passed on the first attempt, but I signed up last September, so I put some serious study time in. I don’t know the hours, but it was a lot.
Most importantly, It was really helpful for me to get out of the house and find some quiet time without distractions. Tough after a long day, but set a couple hours aside. Make sure your family is onboard and understanding of the time commitment. Good luck!
I scored >70% in 9 topics for the June level 1 exam. My recommendation is to start ASAP - I started in November for the June 2017 exam. Try to get in at least 2 hours of study time, preferably 3 hours, BEFORE work. Wake up early, go to bed early. Make sure you understand the material, cramming everything will not work. Weekends preferably the entire day with short breaks in between. I would do 2 hour study sessions with half an hour break in between for approximately 8 hours of study time per day during the weekend. If you feel stressed, go take a walk (I would go for tea breaks), and come back refreshed and hit the books again. If you suffer burnout, take a day off, then get back at it. Rinse and Repeat.
I think I did 8 mocks before the exam. The first few tests I took my time, but I did check how long I took, after that proper timed sessions. Do not take the mocks lightly, these will get you prepared with exam style questions, and the exam will be easier due to this.
Persistence and dedication, that’s the key.
Starting in January, two hours a night Monday through Friday, four hours on Saturday, four hours on Sunday.
I worked in the analytics group at PIMCO; I’ll leave it to your imagination what my work hours were like.
At this point, if you are that close to a pass. I would put most of my time in doing practice questions or mock exams. I will encourage you to spend time on mastering the Ethnics section because it appears on all 3 levels of the exam. You may have heard people passed the level 1 exam with minimum effort, but I personally have not heard too much stories about passing level 2 or 3 with low effort. If you have a weak foundation, you can probably see that the time that you going to spend for the future levels is going to be much more.
I would rather see people passing than rushing. Many people including myself, would think if I could pass the Dec exam, I can immediately go for the level 2 exam in June. I finally realized that’s a trap because the amount of time between Dec and June is not sufficient for people who got family or work obligation. As many others mentioned, there is no quick way. The only way is to plan ahead and do it as early as you could. Good luck.
i worked 8-30 to 6 on good days and maybe an hour or so more on others. If you can do 1 - 1.5 hours on week days and 10 hours on weekend you should be ok.
Dont get too caught up reviewing material and make sure you do enough practice problems (CFAI EOCs, and CFAI Topic Tests). My suggestion is to just get through the material once, then review and redo CFAI EOCs for a second time, then start mock tests. The sooner you can do mock tests you sooner you know what shape your in. Obviously make sure your good with the main areas (Ethics, FRA, Quant, etc). Ethics especially, the more problems the better. One thing that helped is reading the last sentence of scenarios and first sentence of the solution (IMO the most info is here) of the ethics blue box questions in CFAI book.
2-3 hours after work
8 hours on weekends
its a grind and you have to sacrifice other things for sure.
its a full time job pretty much
9-6?