What additional material should I buy (if any)?

Dear Forum,

First of all thanks for having me. I am somebody with a bachelors in accounting and a master in financial management who is currently working as a bpm SAP finance consultant. I graduated almost two years ago.

I am currently studying for the CFA level I exam in June, I have just finished Ethics and Quant and am now at about p70 in financial reporting and analysis. Currently I am only using the CFAI books, I was wondering if I am going fast enough ( I combine this with my full time job, I try to do about 3 readings a week ) and whether or not I should get some additional material? Also I keep reading mock exams are very important, should I get any, if so which provider would you recommend?

Thanks for your advice

Just using the cfai text is going to be v.time consuming. 3000+ pages. Consider using a third party. I found mark meldrum to be excellent.

Oh, and leave Ethics till last.

Especially for Level 1, I would get the Schweser materials. Much faster reading. Once in a while you hear someone say there was one problem on the exam that they think wasn’t covered by Schweser. Because you can’t discuss actual exam problems, this is hard to verify.

However, you will frequently find people who only used the Institute’s materials who ran out of time.

Personally, I would get the SchweserNotes or Schweser Essential. Depending on your commute, you might want to get the audio or video from Schweser too.

I have used Schweser notes for level 1 and only looked at the EOCs and mocks from the material provided by CFAI. This strategy has served me well and I am employing it again for L2.

I used IFT videos, they were a shortcut for me to get what curriculum was saying. along with this i used their Qbank as well. That’s all the additional material i used ( basically the only material that i used).

Did any of you who used third party materials, such as Schweser notes, feel that you were under prepared for the next level?

IFT = nearest curriculum based material provider with section for CFAI example. Direct to the point. Get this if you have little time. They offer crash course as well.

Schwesser = I believe number 1 third party provider. Most passers used this 3PP. I can say that if you have enough time, go get this as an alternative to CFAI.