Am I over-reading and over-studying?

Hello,

Recently just graduated with a BS in Economics from an average state university. I have never taken a finance class, and I took one intro to financial accounting course in college, but the course was too easy and focused excessively on debits and credits rather than big picture ideas (“how is the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement connected together?”)

I’ve been studying Level I every weekday for the past two months. So far I have read FRA and now I’m reading Equity and Fixed Income (halfway done). Also read Ethics and Quantitative Methods during last winter’s break but only made a study guide and flashcards, no practice problems.

Also, I made 250 flashcards alone for FRA. Also made ~120 cards for Fixed Income, and not even finished with that section yet. I don’t know if I am over-reading or over-studying. But when I do I learn a lot. Basically my strategy so far has been to read the CFAi curriculum books, highlight, then make a study guide based off of highlighted sections and then flash cards based off of the study guide. But it is very time consuming and overwhelming. But when I study the flash cards, I do really well on CFAi EOC , Blue box problems, and analystnotes.com problems.

Starting to think my strategy is much too time consuming, although it has been working. I also get confused easily and have to often re-read or slow read the tougher sections that I have absolutely no education in (for example, Fixed Income valuation and Asset backed securities).

Should I continue to study the way I have been doing, but run the risk of running out of time to cover all of the books, or should I simplify/condense but run the risk of not being in depth enough, and thus not do well on practice problems or practice tests?

I got a book called “The Direct Path to the CFA” but it seems like she does the same strategy as I do (read, study guide, flash cards), except she moves faster and condenses a bit more. I read very slow b/c I type the study guide as I read and also due to my non-finance background.

Not sure what would be the best strategy because either way I run the risks mentioned above.

First off, if you can afford it, I’d recommend using a prep provider like Kaplan or Wiley if you need help condensing the amount of reading you need to do.

Regarding the overstudying, it’s hard to say. At the end of the day, if you’re scoring well (i.e., >70%) on end-of-chapter problems, topic tests, blue box problems, etc. then what you’re doing is WORKING. If you’re scoring poorly, then you might have something to address (e.g., how you are studying). If you’ve have limited exposure to some of the sections in your undergraduate coursework, I think it is to be expected that you would need to spend a lot of time going through the material in greater detail than someone who has had some exposure to it before.

Best of luck! Hope this has been of some help.

I’m pretty much financially broke. Analystnotes is the only one I could really afford.

Honestly, I’d avoid prep providers. They’re overpriced and don’t give you any information that’ll be on the exam that isn’t in the curriculum you have from CFAI. In addition, they often botch topics or present them purely in a memorization format that isn’t suitable for true learning. If you waste more money to have someone lecture (read the notes with a bit of extra context), that might stick better, but “only for a nominal fee” on top of what you paid for the books… I think you are doing the right thing by trying to learn the material rather than superficially recognize it and answer questions. If you notice areas you can be more efficient in your studying then certainly improve that aspect.

I’ve known people in real life and seen many people on this forum use prep providers or CFAI curriculum, and it seems to be the case that those who use the prep provider products retake the exam or have less of an understanding of the material than those who use the official curriculum. I don’t have hard data on that, so make of it what you will. I’ve seen plenty of people do well and pitch in meaningful discussion on the boards from the knowledge they obtain and ideas they synthesize from the official curriculum. Granted, the curriculum does have it’s issues, plenty of them, but it’s far better done than the prep companies.

Are you writing in December (sorry if I missed it, I just skimmed your post)? If so, there’s still a bit of time but it will go by quickly. Make a schedule based on your current strategy that will allow for adequate review time etc. and then adhere to it. If you find you can’t meet those deadlines, revise by either increasing the time you spend studying or decreasing the coverage of the content (possibly through using a prep provider, making less flashcards, being more condense in note taking, etc.).

There is a lot to cover, and if you find you have to reread certain parts there’s a good chance that you’ll have to go back to those areas a third or fourth time, especially once you start to cover other material. So factor that into your schedule.

Enjoy the process and best of luck.