There is SO much information in these CFAI texts, and I’m aiming to have Books 1 and 2 done by the end of August Books 3 and 4 done by the end of September Books 5 and 6 done by the end of November I’m already into Quant and I’ve been expose to a lot of this stuff before (Finance Major, so I’ve basically seen everything on this test,) but not the extent of how these books detail the information My question is, for those who have read the CFAI texts, did they read them cover to cover or what? Also, how close do the practice problems resemble the real exam? Should I head to the dark side and buy schwesser? Thank you so much, love this forum!
sounds like a pretty good plan, as long as you’re done all your readings and start doing practice problems about a month before the exam i read the books cover to cover, finished my june readings in may, and did practice problems for about a month. my background was not in finance and i passed with flying colors - i credit that to the fact that i did about 6,000 practice problems in preparation i feel that while the CFA books have good questions, there aren’t enough of them to prepare well for the exam… so i got schweser qbank and an old stalla qbank and did a couple of thousand problems in preparation… but if you feel like you have a pretty good grasp on the material using only the 1000 or so CFAI questions then you might be able to clear it with just that, especially considering your background… to answer your other question, the mock/sample exams are pretty close to what the actual exam is like, schweser not so much – the exams tend to be a little bit more conceptual and sometimes more obscure/less straightforward
Thank you for the response. Yea after my study sessions I’ve been flipping through the texts and just doing impromptu problems and have been getting a lot of stuff right so I’m confident in my ability, but worried that I’m missing something. And in regards to my background, I work in the treasury of a fortune 500 as an analyst and routinely do corporate finance stuff in regards to project valuation (NPV, IRR, etc etc…) I kind of feel like these books are so thorough that if you dont have a finance degree you can do them cover to cover and pass. But my degree kind of supplements the text… IDK - failing this is not an option so I just want to make sure I have all my bases covered. I’m making great progress already (23/27 on ethics on my first shot with the CFAI questions) Thanks.
used CFAI books and flashcards the last week and passed. the CFAI books are well written, at least from my vantage pt.
I suggest you spend two years reading the CFAI books, then buy q bank and spend a year doing that. Then, you should be ready to take all the exams in a row and pass each one. hahaha
Seems like a good plan, but you probably need to finish before the end of November otherwise you will only have a week to review. Personally, I had some difficutly getting through the CFAI text for quant. I find the topic really dry and the books sometimes go off on tangents and I got a bit lost as to what was really important. I went to the Schweser book and watched the videos for the second half of quant and it was very helpful. I still need to spend time memorizing formulas and drilling practice problems to shore it up, but I’m reasonably comfortable with it. For econ, it was quite tempting to just read Schweser given how thin that book is compared to CFAI text, but I have a love affair with economics so I went with the CFAI book, and I am really enjoying it. If only the whole test was economics! I figure I better enjoy it while I can though because I have a very thin accounting background so I see some rough times ahead…
quant CFAI was the worse. the worse.
I did just the books and the samples on the CFAI site and that was good enough for me. I don’t have a finance background. Agree, that quant was pretty bad. Sometimes I felt like they asked questions about stuff that was in the book, but didn’t seem to get much attention. It was like they quizzed the footnotes sometimes. The CFAI has lamented the over-reliance on Schweser and Stalla several times, so I assumed this was their way of trying to shank the notes-only crowd.
I enjoyed the CFAI texts. they always referenced previous sections so it was very well put together. Had i given myself the 4-6 weeks to review the material, i wouldve passed for sure. there was nothing on the exam that caught me off guard, it was the lack of practice that really screwed me. I only had time to review ethics, and guess what, i got over 70 on it. everything else was right in the middle. I cant afford the qbank so im hoping some of you guys will be asking a few questions here and there to help me jog my memory coming november.