Hi,
Could someone shed some light on the amount of time as well as effort required for CFA L1? I’m done with both the parts of FRM.
Also what are the ideal resources for preparation?
Thanks
I liked CFA curriculum.
You will see some stuff repeated, but not very much. CFA covers a much wider range of material.
You should still put in the 300 hours at minimum. It will take you half of that or longer to simply read the material the first time through.
Things in L1 that you will have seen: - statistics (should be very straightforward for you) - derivatives (also should be fairly straightforward) - portfolio management
Things you will not have seen: - economics - financial reporting and analysis - alternative investments - corporate finance - equity valuation - some stuff on debt securities
Similar applies for L2 as well.
Thanks dwheats. That was helpful.
I’m a bit puzzled at the fact that inspite of FRM, we still need more or less the same amount of time as any other candidate.
What resources would you reccomened?
Also, is the exam structure, question style and approach to the exam similar to what we practiced with FRM?
Yea it’s mostly due to the breadth of topics covered.
CFA is a mile wide and an inch deep. FRM is an inch wide and a mile deep.
I think if you had done CFA before FRM, you would see more advantage to decreasing study time, but I don’t think the opposite is true.
I have heard schweser is good for CFA but I didn’t use 3rd party providers.
The exam format for L1 is similar to FRM but there are only 3 multiple choice options instead of FRM that has 4.
Similar to what I did for FRM, I would recommend tons of practice questions for CFA. Practice is the most important element to sucess with these exams.
Ah, make sense.
Will check out schweser. What did you use?
Any other resources besides Kaplan which are any good? CFAI readings? I keep reading about some sort of mocks in the CFA forum. Are these the practice exams from Kaplan or CFAI?
Just trying to get an idea of the ideal practice material I should work upon.
Also, is there some sort of broad schedule you’d reccomend? As in is review of the entire material within a month of the exam essential etc?
@cfa_student29 I primarily used Schweser. For concepts which weren’t clear, I used to refer to Jorion, or try looking up in the reference book mentioned.
I used CFAI material.
EOCs are end of chapter questions and will be available to you through the ebook even if you don’t purchase the hard copies.
I beleive mocks for L1 and L2 need to be purchased but I may be recalling incorrectly. They are online.
I would say study every day. Every free minute you have in fact. That’s what I did.
You sohuld aim to have the material read for the first time 1.5 months away from the exam. 1 month for practicequesteions and .5months for reveiwing topics you are not strong with.
Yeah but who are these mock tests providers? CFAI or kaplan or someone else?
Also your opinion on working with CFAI readings?
CFAI is what I was referring to but Kaplan also has mock exams as well.
My opinion is that CFAI readings are good and sufficient. They worked for me for L1 and L2 and we will see how it went for L3.
I have taken all the CFA exams, CAIA exams, and FRM level 1. Out of all of them I found the FRM exam the most difficult.
I think 300 hours is playing it safe for CFA 1. You can probably get by on between 200-250, especially if you have a good system that you used for FRM.
For CFA 1, you can get by with Schweser, Q bank, and using the CFAI EoCQs and mocks.
I passed all 3 cfa levels - and i found that just using the cfa books was fine.
just passed frm lvl 1 in may, and all i can really say is that if you passed frm l1, you got a good shot at all 3 levels of cfa in my opinion. i personally found frm 1 harder than any of the cfas.
that said, you still need to put in the prep, but the CFA End of chapter questions should suffice i think.