Hi, I’m on chapter 8 of volume 1 and it is December 18. Am I doing okay progress wise for the June 16 exam? I’ve been studying for 3 weeks for about 1.5 hours a day. The quantity of information is a bit overwhelming and I’m still starting out…
Most people start in Jan-Feb so you are way ahead.
Whether you doing okay depends on your study plan, mate. If you are going to study 1,5 hours till june think it is not enough. (170 days left to exam x 1,5 hours give only 255 hours overall). If you don`t have good economic background you should aim to more than 400+ hours to feel confident on exam
Best wishes to you.
That’s true. Can you recommend any good study plans considering I work 9-5?
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Try to study before work when your brain is well rested. Then study every free minute during the day.
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After each study session make sure that you get a “big picture” and then do a quizzes (score at least 80-90%, that figure guarantee that you get great portion of material).
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Make a flashcards (e.g. via Anki (http://alexvermeer.com/anki-essentials/)) with critical concepts (like a formulae, definitions etc.).
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Make sure that you read curriculum at least 2 times.
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Read the Ethics from official CFAI curriculum (focus on examples and big picture).
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If you study from third party provider don`t forget about EOC questions from CFAI curriculum and topic tests from candidate resources your CFAI cabinet.
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Read the whole curriculum at least 2 month before exam. It`s time to do mocks and fit your gaps through curriculum. Use official mock, and another mocks from different third party providers (it is crucial to diversify!!! IMHO 3-4 sources will be good). Do at least 5 full mocks (the more the better),
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Repeat all the time important topics like FSA, Ethics. You should have brilliant understanding about those topics.
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Don`t avoid Derivatives, AI and even GIPS ( those readings relatively short and think about additional several questions answered correct pull you from band 10 to pass category)
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On the exam day don`t forget wristwatches and additional calc (if you use TI 2 plus) or additional battery (for TI 2 plus prof). I recommend prof version.
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Sleep well before exam. If you expected to face with insomnia night before exam you could don`t sleep entire night from thursday to friday), it helps you to sleep early on friday.
P.S. You could find personal CFA study plan template here: http://www.300hours.com/articles/300-hours-rough-guide-to-a-solid-cfa-study-plan#.VnP1ctKLTZ4
P.P.S. You may also faced with difficult topics to understand. Just know there is no difficult topics, there is have bad explanations. I recommend to have different sources of material, but don`t too immerse in detail and strictly follow your study plan (which have to took into account additional time, say 5-10% more time, for extraordinary events)
Best wishes to you.
- A very high level study plan is to try to get 10-15 hours in per week and then to ramp up more in April and May
- April probably a more consistent 15 hours and May is as many hours as you can take (but generally in the 15-25 hour range)
- Leave about 4-8 weeks to review the material before exam day. When I say review, I mean you should have a pretty good handle on the stuff already. Don’t turn the review into a situation where you don’t know a multitude of important topics in the curriculum. That was a mistake I made. You want to understand most of the material and be building off the fundamentals you learned from the grind you are going through now
- Again, it’s not really about the hours, but more about your study plan, what you are getting out of the material, intelligence level, finance/accounting/econ background before opening the books, reading comprehension, test taking ability and probably a few more. I would agree though with Valentine – if you studied for about 400 hours, there is a good chance you are putting yourself in a position to succeed, whether the curriculum seems easy or difficult for you
- Make the hours count, understand the concepts (explain them in your own words) do lots of problems and understand what you did wrong (and if you guessed right, understand the real answers behind those questions too)
- Just don’t get caught up in that passive reading stuff (Reading the book once, then reading it again and over and over again ) get into the material, make mistakes, challenge yourself … it’s the only way you will truly learn it. The exam is more conceptual than you might think, if they throw a wrench in the process on a problem, understand the concepts so you can navigate through it
- I like studying in the morning on the weekdays before I go to work, but that may not work of everyone. 1) I am a morning person; 2) I force the curriculum to be a top priority for me, since it’s the first thing I deal with before life happens (work, family, fitness etc…). 3) I haven’t gone through the mental grind of work all day, so my mind is fresh and I seem to understand concepts easier
- Generally I study 5 times per week (3 weekday, 2 weekend) 4-6 hours during the week, 6-10 hours on the weekend. Six or seven days/per week is too much CFA; I don’t want to burn myself out and 3-4 days doesn’t feel like enough consistent reps for me to feel as sharp as I would like
Hope this helps.
You’ve started at a great time. 1.5 hours is enough for now, but you will need to do more in time. Practice questions and Mocks are the keys. The CFA EOC’s and perhaps Schweser QBank is great. As TE600 said, don’t get caught up in the passive reading. Read yes, but test yourself as soon as you can to measure your performance and retain the knowledge.
For 1,5 hours I cannot do anything. When I just open curriculum and start reading or start doing practicing, almost 3-4 hours gone very quickly.
Hi a little off topic… but the exam is on the 4th of June not 16th!
Just making sure you dont confuse the dates… even for prep.
All the best!
Read the section “How to Use the CFA program Curriculum”. The CFA institute recommends 15 to 20 hours for each study session. For planning purposes, I would recommend making a schedule based on 20 hours and also 25 hours, 25 hours for a margin of safety. 20 hours would get you 18 x 20 = 360 and 18 x 25 = 450 hours. That doesn’t include the 4 to 6 weeks that you need for review. 6 x 20 = 120 hours and 6 x 25 = 150 hours. So the planning requirement is 480 to 570 hours. If you do less than that for exam 1 and passed, you probably relied on your 4 year finance degree and/or work experience. For most successful candidaties, Level 2 and 3 will require those 480 to 570 hours in total. My work experience was in project management/scheduling for a DOW 30 company. Most schedules don’t work, they take more time than originally planned. Taking the CFA exam is 50% Finance and 50% time management. Most academic experiences don’t prepare you for the CFA exam challenge!!!
Warrenb1
Reading and studying is great. However, don’t underestimate the importance of practice. For Level 1, doing massive #'s of practice problems will be beneficial. Aside from the obvious benefits, it will increase your speed. You have 90 seconds per question, so if you’re not well practiced so that procedures, formulas, and concepts roll right from your brain to the paper, you’ll have time issues. Good examples of this are the bond premium amortization and the lease schedule. If you’ve done them a bunch of times, you won’t have a problem. If you don’t, you’ll burn a lot of time.
These are great tips, thank you all. I have one question/observation…
However hard I try, I cannot do more than 50 pages a day, I feel my power to comprehend readings goes low after some point. Any tip for distrupting myself to do more than that? My goal is 100 pages a day. Let’s say that I stydy mostly on weekends. I have a pretty demaning job during weekdays, but I try to have a healthy overall life routine. I am alredy behind my study schedule… I am committed to catch up, any advice is welcome. I am using CFA material provided by the institute.
Thanks, I also agree that 100 is too much. I tried again and cannot do it. I just need to find a way to do 30p per workday.
Dear Benmar, you should not forget dedicate time for practice questions in your study plan. If you read every day 30 pages or 100 pages (seriously doubt coz it is lot enough) but do not practice (take a quiz, do eoc questions) your study is not enough effective. And there is a problem, some sessions are hard enough than other and need to additional time to rethink. Best practice to study is do not get forth until you clearly get the material. But mount readed pages only (in your study plan) may lead to does not meet the deadline. Also you should dedicate time to your review (second (or even third) reading entire (or most questionable seesions) curriculum or third party review).
Hope it helps to create your effective study plan.
Dear Valentine,
Spasibo dla tvoj otvjet. 
I take Practice questions after each reading and topic practice questions online after I do a topic? Is that what you are referring to? Is this enough at this stage? I plan on doing mock exams and maybe buy Schweser Qbank later…
Thank you!
Definetly sure. Do practice questions and the more the better (especially ethics and fra). Practice after each study sessions or after topic it`s up to you, but you should aware that your topic/session score should be at least 85%, it will guarantee that you understand material. After you learn FRA and Ethics - practice for these repeatedly until exam (say do 20+ questions for each topic every week). If you do not want to spend a lot of money for Schweser Qbank, look at AnalystNotes. A worthy competitor of Schweser i think. Best regards!
I am in the range of 50-95% with regard to practice questions…obviously need to increase understanding in some areas…
Thank you!