Hi there. I’m a Level I candidate for June. I am reviewing the Kaplan Schweser books and also taking a CFA review course at University of Missouri St. Louis. Currently I am just about to finish the 5th and final book (literally 3 days is the most I have left): Fixed Income, Derivatives, and Alternative Investments. I have already done several practice tests and am failing in key areas which I will mention. Currently my ethics score is borderline passing, my quant, corporate finance, and portfolio management scores should all be borderline to passing once I go back through the books and review. Where I’m having trouble is financial reporting, fixed income, derivatives, and equity investments. I passed fixed income in one test session, failed it miserably several other times. Equity investments is a section I’m particularly having a hard time with although I’ve only gone through it one time. In two days I should be done with all the books, then it begins with going back through everything and reviewing up until the exam date. Do I have enough time to get my passing scores up…how would you recommend dealing with fixed income and financial reporting and equity investments and derivatives in the time I’ve got. I am having trouble in all of those sections.
Schweser Qbank. Answer as many questions as possible, you have to get used to the way the CFAI will test your knowledge. Re-read the material, I read the Schweser notes 4 times. Answer more questions. If answering the questions isn’t helping you memorize the formulas, then you will need flashcards, do them everyday until you know them all, then keep doing them. What you will find out about the CFA is there is no shortcut, you must put in the time and effort. That being said, four hours a day is all you need, you can definitely pass. Did I mention answering questions?
+1 Schweser QBank. Start with the topics that are most heavily tested in Level 1 and make sure you nail them. Don’t fall into the tendency to do questions related to topics you like or are a bit stronger in (unless they are the most heaviliy tested sessions.)
The Levels most test on Level I are FRA (20%) Ethics (15%) Quant (12%) = 47% of the exam + Econ / Equity / Fixed Income are good for another 30%. I"m not suggesting that you blow of Corporate Finance, Portfolio Mangement, Derivatives or Alt investments but in the spirit of allocating a scare resource (your time) not knowing any one of these subjects as well as you’d like likely won’t make or break you.
You’re in reasonably good shape. I didn’t even finish the level 1 reading until the 2nd or 3rd week in May when I sat for th exam. You’re going to be busy, but you’ll be impressed with how much you can cover in May, especially when push comes to shove