Hello everyone, I am new to AnalystForum, and I have read some of your posts and I think it’s cool that there is a website like this that allows people with common interests to share their thoughts. I took the December '09 exam, but I don’t think I did very well on it. Anyway, I am planning to take Level 1 in June again, but since I can’t register for it and get the curriculum until the Dec. 09 results are posted… I was wondering if I could start studying for it with the '09 books. I also have the Stalla materials for '09. What do you think? Any advice? Thank you!
think of it this way is the CAPM going to change from 2009 to 2010? is the concept of supply and demand going to change from 2009 to 2010? is the way you calculate probability going to change from 2009 to 2010? i hope you catch my drift…
I used '08 notes to study for the '09 exam. Nothing really had changed except the addition of the cantango/backwardation material. One thing that might change year by year are the accounting regs.
I used the June 2010 material (Schweser) to study for the December 09 exam (purchased the wrong books by accident). I think the material has remained largely unchanged. Studying from the June 2010 material I did pretty well on the December 09 exam so I doubt that there’s a huge syllabus change.
I am also studying for June 2010 exam from 09 books and because we don’t have much choice, we should study until we enroll and get the books from CFAI. Good luck with June exam Nadya
same with me, studying for 2010 june exam from 2009 material from Scheweser :). (got hold from friend)
It’s obviously not ideal to use previous years material, but you can get by if you have to. The key for using the previous years Stalla/Schweser is to go to their websites or search on this forum for the list of changes in the curriculum from year to year. Obviously, the new stuff will not be in the old Study Notes. This is where it’s imperative that you actually open the new CFAI books that you must have and look for those topics and learn them well. The last thing you want to do is to miss out on a question because the subject of the question is new this year and not in your old material. Stalla/Schweser generally do a good job and you can get by relying heavily on those sources, but in my opinion, you should be casually skimming through the CFAI books and doing their End of Chapter questions anyway, always on the lookout for anything not covered by your study notes, whether you have the new Stalla/Schweser or stuff from a year ago. If you see anything that you’re not familiar with from your material, learn it. You should be good to go. But if you are lucky enough to have your company pay for it, it’s always smart to just get the new stuff. I passed Levels 1 and 3 with the previous year Schweser. I actually had the new stuff for Level 2. So it’s very possible to do.
Hey, Regarding you prep with Schweser notes – did you have the feeling, during the exam, that some of the content was nowhere to be found in the notes, or no surprises at all?! Cheers
I don’t ever think I saw a section in any of the exams that wasn’t at least addressed in Schweser. The issue can sometimes (although rarely) be the depth to which Schweser covers the subject. The example most often used is the 2007 Level 2 exam, where an entire item set (6 questions) was dedicated to the Treynor-Black model which Schweser covered in maybe 2 paragraphs. If you read the LOS though, you probably would have never thought CFAI would ask questions about it in such detail, which is why I never blamed Schweser for that one. This is a prime example of why people should be skimming through the CFAI books just looking for stuff they could test you on (especially calcs) that you never saw in Schweser. I’m not telling you to read the whole books, but if there was an End of Chapter question in the CFAI book and the subject of that question was later covered on the exam, but maybe Schweser didn’t beat it to death in their notes. Who’s fault is it for not knowing how to do the problem? I tend to feel like it falls more on the candidate. Use Schweser. Hundreds, hell…thousands of people have passed Level 1 and beyond using only Schweser. But to answer the question, yes, there have been surprises in the past using non CFAI material.
The one thign that wont change in 2010 is the concepts. So brush up on all of that, but watch out for any modifications in some LOS, addition/deletion of some LOS, and maybe some new topics will be added. However you can safely use 2009 books to strengthen what you already know about the essentials like ethics, gips, tvm, how derivatives work, ratios etc.