Economics has too much content and is taking a lot of time

It is taking me more than 1 day to finish a reading. Any advice on how to deal with Economics? I have been taking some notes but is it better to stop that and just read the end of chapter summaries or secret sauce?

And why did International Economics come back in Level 1 after spending few years in Level 2

94 LOS for just 10% of the exam!

Believe me if you study it hard its a good 10% that you could take completely…Especially when FRA exists

I just passed level 1 this June and fail this section only. I spent more time on sections like financial reporting, fixed income, porfolio management, etc. I did not read the CFA textbooks much but mainly the secret sauce.

For level1 economics, try using Analystnotes which is very good for economics! Concise short and you get to know what you want… You are right, you cant spend more than 10% amount of time on Economics!

And Analystnotes are free, you get a pop up but who cares :slight_smile:

Economics are easy points to grab. Dont try to understand every detail, focus on main concepts and main formulas.

If you switch to summary or s.sauce you will be missing too much, and you won;t be able to grab those easy points…

10 % is not small when every point counts, there will be subjects you are not so good at and stress and so little time for so many questions… i wouldn’t skip any topic

I don’t think anyone should ever advocate skipping or skimming sections. Devote the normal time that you would with other sections (Time to cover material and review until you have a level of comfort). Secret sauce is not a good substitute for any chapters. Use it as it should be used as a quick review tool. I think best use for secret sauce is to read through whole book after going over material or review a study session after having gone through all the material.

I have a bachelor and masters in Econ and still find the Level 1 Econ material hard. It does have a lot of weight in the exam, so do take it seriously! I don’t think reading the summaries is enough, although you could try reading the Schweser notes which are more consise than the CFA curriculum notes. In my opinion, Secret Sauce should only be used for revision (last month or so).

I spent around 10 days finishing Schweser notes in Econ. I found it disgusting becoz it contains so much information and sometimes it even tries to summarize some pretty difficult concepts into one page. However, if you look closer to the notes, you will notice that there are exam focus in Econ, i.e., not every topic is equally important. So in my opinion, spend more time focusing on the important topics and don’t waste time digging into the difficult topics.

it is a long way from focusing on the important topics and reading only the end of chapter summaries

After having spent two years in this program, friends I can safely say that we should never try to “classify” topics as important or unimportant. Please dont make that mistake.

Its ok (just about ok IMHO) to mark something as important and put in more efforts on that topic. But dont classify something as unimportant, it doesnt work. Ask anybody who wrote L2 this year about the quants paper and this belief (dont classify) in us was confirmed!

Rather, mark things as difficult/mastered and concentrate more on the ones which are difficult for you. Hope this helps and All the very best!

I got over 70 on this section. So here is my advice, relate everything to a charts. For example, the MC, TC and VC chart, if you know how to draw it, this will help you understand and skim through alot of the material. Charts are the key, draw them and deduct from them, it will make your life easier.

@ Priya

If you dont mind me asking, where did you study?

which topics did your programs skip?

I’m not trying to be intrusive. I didn’t go to a great school or anything. I also found the econ difficult. I wasn’t a econ major though, I’m just wondering what gets covered in other econ programs.