I am considering CAIA L1 in September; so plenty of time to dedicate to it even if I am working. Which are the best books to buy? Are there available mock exams and stuff like for the CFA anywhere? Thanks!
I used Schweser Books for both Lvl 1 and Lvl 2 found schweser books more than enough for lvl 1 which was, to be honest, quite easy lvl 2 is abit more difficult in terms of the essay writing but i found digging deep into the schweser flashcards were enough for me to pass that part of the exam. Scored top marks in all areas for both exams but i do have 3 years of Hedge Fund experience and over a year of Market Risk experience on the trading floor so i think my experience may have helped abit.
Get the frickin curriculum materials from the CAIA; they’re very interesting and not long enough that it makes sense to bother with using summaries from a third party.
Thank you. If the curriculum materials are not too dispersive and fairly spot on I would do that. Plus I have 4 years of hedge fund experience, so nothing would be too new to me. how about mock exams, questions and so on? where can i get them from?
I got the ebook from amazon on my ipad…
giorgio10, there are 100 practice questions for Level I on the CAIA website. If you’ve studied the material you shouldn’t really need any, but those 100 should give you some comfort. Level I is not a difficult exam, or at least it wasn’t in September when I took it. It is significantly easier than any of the CFA exams in my opinion.
I did also get the curriculum books as well as schweser materials since they were paid for by my previous employers. I will second the opinion on that it is interesting, but if one was to ask me about passing the exam then i would not hesitate in recommending schweser since it provides books, qbanks, flashcards and practise exams. If one is short on money or if the company is only paying for one and not the other than i would recommend schweser. If money is not obstacle, then get both.
Thank you tfyim. Money and time doesn’t seem to be a problem right now. So the strategy would be: reading the curriculum and then using schweser for practice questions?
For me, I focused alot of my time on the schweser books and its respective materials and used the curriculum books as a reference on things that were not explained very well. (for lvl 1, this was rarely needed) hence, i read the curriculum as an occassional read. What i found with the curriculum books are that information can be scattered in different sections of the book. What schweser books did to me was to focus the information (summaries it may be) under the learning objectives/aims which can be found below http://caia.org/sites/default/files/documents/studyguides/mar_2011_level_i_study_guide_2010-10-06.pdf the schweser practise questions are good at lvl 1 but as mentioned by Captain before, the CAIA website also provides a good 100 questions for your review. I cannot see any harm in getting both since more practises can only drive you towards perfection.