First and foremost, congrats to everyone who passed their respective level this year. I ordered books from CFAI and books from Schweser for the 2019 level III exam. I have every intention to start early to allow multiple passings through the books. The question is this, which set of books would you suggest to read through first? Schweser or CFAI?
I only read Schweser and thought they were solid. I would start there and if you have problems with specific topics you can dive into the CFAI books for more practice/detail
Thanks for the feedback!
Agreed with KC, the only bit of warning I’d give is I do think there is such a thing as “starting too early”… if you’ve done it in the past for L1 and L2 and were successful, then by all means disregard… but if you’re doing it for the first time around just because you think it’ll be more effective, I’d probably caution you against that and just start as you would if you were taking, say, L2 again.
I think its easier to read Kaplan first. to get a sense of what the topics are.
I read the Kaplan study guides 3x cover to cover. then read the CFA text books twice cover to cover.
( this obviously takes more than a year.)
I’m always surprised by how much people claim to read on this forum… it sounds exhausting! I’ve never read the CFAI’s curriculum cover to cover, and only in L3 did I read anything cover to cover (once) and it was Kaplan of all things.
3x Kaplan and 2x CFAI books? Holy heck batman! Did you live in your bat cave that entire yr?
LOL. Thats a horrible, horrible advice.
You guys crack me up. Do you have any life outside of the CFA program? I mean like work, social life, personal life, downtime? Read the prep content and dive into the CFAI text for more details and practice questions.
They retook the exam and read the CFAI books once on each retake. Reading the books twice in one year is insane. Use that time to mock and review.
I always relied on the CFAI books. 90%-95% of my reading was of the CFAI books and anything I wasn’t comfortable with I used Wiley, Youtube and Google.
Edit: and AF
I always started with Schweser Secret Sauce. Level 1 because I was starting late, Level 2 because I put off starting and Level 3 because I had tried to study with the regular Schweser books but couldn’t handle it. Why do in 10 or 15 words what you can do it 2? If I need to slow down to read those 2 words, I will, but adding 8-13 words in between to force me to slow down just doesn’t work for me. And I can pull up examples as needed (e.g., some of the FRA or Fx stuff on Level 2), but mostly it’s better for me to understand the concept and do problems to confirm I understand specifically how things work. Examples give you the answers without forcing you to figure it out yourself. As one of my HS teachers said, “Math is not a spectator sport”.
Hats off to those who read everything or even read multiple times. I couldn’t handle that. I’d go “back” to other materials as needed, but that wasn’t a lot (except for certain topics that Schweser doesn’t put in Secret Sauce like Ethics and GIPS if I recall correctly)
Potential problem is that that doesn’t typically come out until February so you have too hit the studying hard when you get it if you take that approach.
hey, I passed. simply saying how I studied.
if you want to pass without reading the books…then good luck.
me too.was responding to the original post as quoted not anyone else.
I guess I get confused on all of the “how should I study?/what should I do” questions on AF. Everyone learns in their own way. How can somebody else give you advice on how to study?
I HAD to go through all of the CFAI material because I needed to understand everything before I got to the condensed version. OCD? Overboard? Probably. But that’s how I learn and I know that. Nobody on this forum told me.
i may be wrong, but two of the biggest hurdles in this exam is finding your best studying “style” and discipline.
people may just be looking for ideas of what worked for others as a starting point. I would guess that many candidates are new to self study because most schools spoon feed material through lectures and quizzes and what not. CFA exams are like taking a huge final with no intermediate checkpoints other than what you do through self study/review.
but I get your point that each person needs to figure out what works best for them.
Except for Ethics, I read the CFAI books sequentially (Ethics last) and then notes (same sequence).
Read the CFAI books, no reason to read the third party providers altered version of the real thing. I think there’s this misconception that the CFAI books are too technical and maybe there’s some truth to that for L2 because I used Schweser and it worked but I found CFAI L3 books very thorough and understandable. There’s a formula to pass this thing; read the actual curriculum and work the blue boxes do not skip these!! And hit the Essay practice exams like no tomorrow and absolutely don’t wait to finish reading to start , do these essays from the beginning upon completing each book. I also hit as many problems on the Institutes site and they add things in from time to time that are not in the book so be sure to check for additional sections as well as erratas. This was my method . Failed last year with Schweser and I did a crash course then this year went with Level Up boot camp and finally got to the finish line.
Why read both?
IMO, the exam is based on th CFAI, and with a written essay you really want to grasp the wording of the CFAI, not Schweser. To be fair, Level 3 is well written in the CFAI textbooks. Unlike L2 and L1 with a lot of numerical content, I did find Level 3 CFAI books easy to read an well structured.
I would read CFAI, and I would use Schweser to practice EOC, their mocks, etc…
I am a bit on the same page here. I you really have a lot of time then go ahead and read everything multiple times. BUT:
I watched Mark Meldrum’s videos on fast forward (1.25x or 1.5x depending on the difficulty on the topic) and only referred to the CFAI text when I really was struggeling with a topic and needed a second perspective. Did this starting in January or February based on a weekly study plan. Started two weeks before the exam with the practice questions of CFAI website. Unfortunately did not have the time to do a single AM exam before the exam. Was probably around 200h. Passed by a margin.
Would I recommend anyone following the same approach. Probably no. But starting right after the exam and reading everything twice and doing like 15 practice exams. Man, that sounds excrutiating. That would totally kill me and I could never keep that up for a year. Just too much good stuff to do other than CFA.
The truth must be somewhere in the middle and everyone must know what type of person he is, how fast he is in grasping the content and how much he can take before he is fed up with all the learning.
One review is enough. Dont waste time re-reading over and over. Its inefficient use of already tight time with your job etc.
One read through and then straight onto questions questions questions questions.
I did not read any books at any level. For 2 and 3 I solely watched the IFT videos and wrote some notes around his points, then when I finished that subject I went onto EOC, Topic Tests.
I read through the Schweser, didn’t touch CFAI at all, and did fine.