3.5 weeks and CFA L1?

CFA Level I
#1

Hey everyone,

Hope everyone is studying away and getting ready for the L1 exam. Well I wanted to ask if anyone has had an experience similar to mine and if they passed CFA. I am very nervous about taking the exam because of the lack of studying I have done.

So, I started studying for CFA around May 6th. Currently I am through FRA and Economics. I should be through Fixed Income and Equity by Wednesday. I am hoping to finish all the material by Friday so I can use Friday evening - Monday night on practice questions. Then I will use the remaining 3 days (will not study next Friday) to just memorize formulas. I greatly under-estimated this exam. I thought with about a month and half of prep I could have it down, but it does not seem that way.

A little background about myself. I graduated with a BS in Engineering and then went to medical school. I was not too fond of Medical School so I left and now working in a financial services company as a Technology Business Analyst. I hope to move more into the finance aspect (research or asset management) after CFA L2. If I fail this June one, I will sign up for december and make sure I actually study.

I remember when I took my MCATs I basically spent one month just studying about 20 hours a week and got 97 percentile. Not sure how CFA L1 coorelates to degree of MCAT (I personally feel MCATs are harder because longer passages for reading/interpreting).

But just wanted to see what experiences people on here had for taking CFA L1 with minimal background in finance and just a month of studying.

I will definitely have to post back here in mid July to tell you how my experience went.

#2

I know a guy who did pass the CFA doing only 6 weeks preparation for each. However, he was studying crazy hours. He was finishing work at 5pm and studying until 4am, sleeping only 3 hours before work.

Good luck to you in the exam.

#3

If you can memorize tons of information and keep it all in your head, then it’s possible

None of the material is theoretical , and it is plain English, you don’t need a financial background to pass these tests

#4

I feel like it will be a very difficult challenge, you likely will be able to do well in quantative heavy sections but I feel like it is not enough time to master FRA especially if you do not have an accounting background or experience in the field. You might as well give it your best and sit the exam though and worst case you will be better prepared for December.

#5

It the MCATs are harder (as you say) and it only took you 80 hours to prepare for that, then I’m sure you’ll do really well on level 1.

#6

Well I will say the depth of material is vast. MCATs has a lot of information but I also studied for it in four of undergrad by taking Pre-medical classes with my engineering courses. So essentially studying for MCATs was a refresher.

However, I finished FRA and did some questons from q-bank and was scoring 75%+. Not sure if these questions are just easy that is why. I feel FRA came easy to me because I grew up around businesses since my dad/uncle owns them and I have grown up looking at balance sheets and income statements. My dad from when I was young introduced me to information on corporate taxes and such so I know at least the basics on depreciation and such.

Economics I skimmed through because I took microeconomics class in Undergrad. I also tend to memorize a lot of things quickly. Guess a trait I picked up while in pre-med classes. Let’s see how it goes. Though I do really appreciate the positive responses I got. Will definitely update you guys post-exam. I don’t think I will let myself get down over not knowing all the material because I had a lot of other circumstances in March and April that threw my studying off.

#7

You don’t work for COUNTRY of State Farm do you??? You job title smells of those two places!

#8

nope. not an insurance company. a big bank.