I posted this under the general section, however I realized I now have access to post under CFA level 1! I will copy over what I wrote. Please provide me with any pointers if possible.
Hello everyone. I should be posting this under CFA level 1, but I did not have an option to start a thread under that sub section? I’m bran new to this forum and I’m still trying to figure out how it works.
I’m writing my Level 1 CFA this June. I’m not going to buy the Schwesher books, wrather I’m going to study my 6 text books prior to the exam.
I was wondering which text books I need to spend the MOST time on. I have struggled the last month getting through quantitative methods because I found it got boring! I want to learn more about investment analysis, economy, derivaties ETC * those are what I’m most interested in * I’ve decided to skip page 373 - 600 ( remaining Quantitative methods section ) and opt to go back to this and study in a few months. Thus allowign me to move right not technical analysys, then within a few days I should be done text 1 and I can pick up text book 2 ( economy )
Can you please shed some light on this and give me some pointers?
I don’t have a university back ground. I was in school for music, * played the tennor saxophone * My industry knowledge lies from doing my IFIC course / CSC / Branch managers course / Compliance officer course I have 7 years working in the banking undustry, 5 of which I was a mutual fund advisor / planner.
Thanks so much guys!
Also, I have had difficulty finding practice questions / practice exams. Are there any places I can find these without spending 300 dollars for Schwesher?
For my 2c worth, I would make the following comments:
At Level 1, it doesn’t really matter too much if you skip around the sections to keep things interesting. They don’t need to be studied in sequence and do pretty much “standalone” from other sections. You will find by the end of the entire CBOK, you have largely “forgotten” most of what you have studies anyway (at least for the standard required for the exam) on your first run through, irrespective of the order you study them in. It is only once revised (and internalised from practice questions) that you feel ready for the exam (see more below on practice questions).
At Level I (and Level II for that matter), I found that I needed to spend the most time on FRA as it was somewhat foriegn to me and my experience was largely in the Equity and Derivatives areas. Naturally, what you have same base knowledge in will appear easier and therefore your focus may be required in other areas based on your background knowledge.
As it would appear that you have neither university nor workplace experience in this material, you may unfortunately have to apply yourself in all areas of the CBOK to get to an examinable level on all topics. I can guarantee that on many occassions throughout the 3 Levels, you will feel completely “out of your depth” in certain topics, but I would say that all learnings in this work are able to be mastered (even without any prior experience) and if anything it will just take a little longer so keep this in mind during your lead up to the exam. After reading through a few times, doing many practice questions and sourcing further understanding from fellow students (either personally or on websites like this one) you will get to the level necessary to pass.
Always keep in mind the weighting given to each section for the exam, especially so at Level I. There will be exactly the proportion of questions on the exam as is noted in the exam breakdown on Level I on the CFAI website. While I have never encouraged someone to “leave” the lower weighted areas (as they are all worth points to you), you do need to not overextend your final study sessions leading up to the exam being perfect on low weighted areas while being underdone on the higher weighted ones.
This final point you may not want to hear, but if there was one strong recommendation I would make it would be to somehow source the Schweser QBank for Level I. The greatest confidence improvement you will feel with this material is when you can answer these at a high scoring level and they literally have thousands of questions which are written in close to exam style format. This is true at all 3 Levels again, but at none moreso than at Level I. You may find that you still don’t totally understand the material in a given section, but if you can score at a sufficiently high level on all sections in the QBank exams (i.e. greater than 70%) you will be a very very good chance of passing the exam.
Hope this helps, but please let me know if you need any clarification on the points above.
thank you so much for all of the information! This was an extreme help. I will purchase the Shwesher Q-bank questions next month and add them into my weekly study routine. I’ve already developed renewed faith in my studies as the Technical Analysis peace quite intrigues me. I was getting very bored looking at probability, statistics under the quanitative methods section.
