I have completed the first 18 of the 76 readings, having begun at the start of January and hoping to finish the first readings in mid-March. The ethics readings bogged me down, I was busy with other things, and I was out of town on business for part of last week. I couldn’t take any study materials with me, because I was with a colleague on the trip and couldn’t take the chance (however slight) that he would see that I was studying for the CFA exam, as I am an undercover CFA candidate (not related to my day job at all). I’m glad I’m able to breeze through the economics readings. I took both Micro and Macro economics in college, and my extensive reading of investment books and publications over the past 16 years has reinforced my economics knowledge. I know I’ll need to revisit ethics and also some of the statistical readings (particularly the later ones). I am taking notes as I go, and I write far less for each economics reading than I do for the other readings. I hope my informal background in accounting (since it’s an important part of value investing) helps me in the financial statement analysis section.
L1 Economics is an easy but lengthy read. It is difficult in that the bang for the buck LOS-wise is not that great.
So what if CFA is not related to your day job? Good for you that you can breeze through Econs like that. I finished Fixed Income and Equity first (two very interesting topics!) because Econs always makes me doze off. I can even honestly say that Ethics is a lot more interesting than Econs. Now that I’ve finished Equity, I wonder if I should jump into Econs anyway… or start with FSA.
i am breezing through the economics readings myself…but i guess i got over-confident on that…as by SS5 i am not scoring great with passmaster
DiehardValueInvestor Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > I’m glad I’m able to breeze through the economics > readings. I took both Micro and Macro economics > in college, and my extensive reading of investment > books and publications over the past 16 years has > reinforced my economics knowledge. > Dear DieHard It’s very special and kind of you to share with all of us that you are able to “breeze through the economics readings.” I also breezed through the economics readings at Level 1. I guess it helps that my dad is an economist, and I grew up on the stuff. Then I took some CFAI Sample Exams and Mock Exams, and I realized that I was responsible / accountable for EVERY little graph and table on every page of the Economics readings. At that point I stopped breezing through it, and started slowly dissecting every LOS and every graph and table, and that’s how I passed.
CFA.Rhythm Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > DiehardValueInvestor Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > > > > I’m glad I’m able to breeze through the > economics > > readings. I took both Micro and Macro > economics > > in college, and my extensive reading of > investment > > books and publications over the past 16 years > has > > reinforced my economics knowledge. > > > > Dear DieHard > > It’s very special and kind of you to share with > all of us that you are able to “breeze through the > economics readings.” > > I also breezed through the economics readings at > Level 1. I guess it helps that my dad is an > economist, and I grew up on the stuff. > > Then I took some CFAI Sample Exams and Mock Exams, > and I realized that I was responsible / > accountable for EVERY little graph and table on > every page of the Economics readings. > > At that point I stopped breezing through it, and > started slowly dissecting every LOS and every > graph and table, and that’s how I passed. +1 Breezing through and gaining an understanding of the material is a good way to fail this sucker. One of my undergrad concentrations was Econ and I had a 3.89 GPA in those courses (stupid Econometrics). That really didn’t matter as I still felt it necessary to go through the material with a great amount of depth. Understanding the material is not enough for any of the subject matter in this program. You’ve got to really know it in order to do well. For L1, I tried to devote approximately a week per study session (give or take a day or two being that some study sessions were extremely long) with about 4 weeks of review before the exam. Now I’m trying to do the same thing for L2. To each his own though. Good luck.
I feel this way as well. You can’t “simply breeze” through any section. Although that 10% is just hard to justify the time required for a mastery of economics. Either way, its no excuse for adequate preparation in this and other sections.