I started 2 weeks ago. Skipped Ethics, as that is something I will do right at the end - in April/May. Have finished the quant section, except Technical Analysis. Waiting for my curriculum to arrive to see if anything’s been changed in that topic. Will start Econs this week. Does anybody know where to get sort of a question bank topic-wise? I feel like doing lots and lots of questions on quant.
Do you already have a good background with ethics and how it pertains to the investment industry? If you don’t, you *may* want to actually give it more of your attention seeing as how most people say it takes the longest to get through. I haven’t received my curriculum just yet, so I can’t comment on this from a personal perspective. I think I’m going to quickly glance over some things when I do get the books but don’t see myself starting to study until maybe december or january (maybe even later) since I’ve probably seen a lot of similar material in certifications I recently completed in toronto. I also work best under pressure. If i start now I’ll probably end up daydreaming about getting hammered and naked women 95% of the time, which wouldn’t be all that efficient ;).
Glaze over ethics at your own peril. I would not leave it until the end. Give it at least a solid read-through before the other stuff and then focus on it once again during the final stretch.
two mates of mine who passed last year suggested that I do ethics right at the end. anyway, if this is what you guys say, I think i’ll give ethics a read bit by bit when nature calls. anyway, i have no finance background/experience. intend to go through the material twice before the exam, and thus the early start. have been studying financial accounting and analysis and use of financial statements textbooks on the side to get my accounting basics right before i hit book 3. have been devoting on an average 1.5 hours on 3 out of 5 weekdays and 6 hours on each day on the weekend. am paying for the exam out of my pocket so want to make sure i clear it (and which acts as a motivation and prohibits me from thinking about naked girls while i’m at my desk). i am still looking for a question bank that has been arranged by topic. so that after i finish a topic or a study session, i can do 5000 questions !
I just got my material from CFAI. Something I wish was on this site was an objective initial post called, “How to pass Level 1.” Here is what I am going to do, please critique. 1. Read CFAI text cover to cover. 2. Practic Q&A with schweser’s question bank. 3. Take notes as needed from CFAI text. 4. Take 4 CFAI practice exams in April. For those of you who have taken Level 1, does this look like enough? What are some other material/study notes/cds/videos/etc that one ‘should’ use to effectively use their time to study and pass the exam?
KLH, how long did you wait before you received your material? Its been a week now and they haven’t shipped the notes to me. Anyway, I have known people (at least 5) who cleared (levels 1 and 2) at first attempt just by reading the Schweser notes and doing 4-5 sample exams. I heard the CFAI text is huge and complex. But i’ll wait till I get my material to decide whether to continue with Schweser or switch to CFAI. Obviously, for the topics that have been changed (econs where international econs and forex have been removed from level 1 and FSA) I will refer to CFAI text only. Unsure if cds/videos are of any help. Depends on whether you can grasp faster by listening or by reading.
It took a long time to get the material shipped. 3 weeks I think. I felt real anxious likewise waiting for it. I have heard Schweser is the better material to read as well. How much does that cost? I am going to try and read the CFAI material only and do the best I can with that if possible. Are you saying you’re going to read the 2007 Schweser Study notes and then use the CFAI text for econ/FSA only?
My materials took about 3 days to arrive (TX) but I ordered them the first week they were available. I went thoroughly through ethics with a plan to revisit again. I kind of got bogged down in quant and I am thinking about saving some of it until I get the Schweser notes, as most people suggest those are sufficient in and of themselves for most sections. I have been on stall for the last couple of weeks as I have been in the process of moving.
Through Ethics and trying to wrap up FSA. It is a beast. Immediately after reading a section, concept checkers and most questions are very managable. However, after moving on to different sections I have trouble remembering prior readings. As so many people have posted before, it’s going to take repitition of practice questions to lock in FSA.
“anyway, i have no finance background/experience. intend to go through the material twice before the exam, and thus the early start. have been studying financial accounting and analysis and use of financial statements textbooks on the side to get my accounting basics right before i hit book 3. have been devoting on an average 1.5 hours on 3 out of 5 weekdays and 6 hours on each day on the weekend. am paying for the exam out of my pocket so want to make sure i clear it (and which acts as a motivation and prohibits me from thinking about naked girls while i’m at my desk).” Anybody know the over/under for burnout? I’d say sometime around February. At this rate you’re going to be putting in 15 hours/week (give or take an hour) and 60 hrs a month. You started right around Sept. 1st…so, that gives you 9 months. Now, if my math is correct, that is approx. 540 hours. Going over the entire material second time around after studying 12 hours per weekend for 3-4 months will not be easy…i’d re-think your gameplan, but goodluck.
From various posts I’ve read, it seems that it takes right around 5 months JUST to read through the text alone. But people make the mistake of not realizing that if they read through in it’s entirety, you lose your focus on just reading the material mentioned in the LOS. I suppose this approach srengthens your understand and builds a better foundation for retaining the knowledge, and as someone who is reading finance material for the first time, it might actually be a good approach…though it seems many without a finance background seem to get by with schweser alone, so it really depends on how much time you want to devote to studying for it all. I’m wondering if CFAI will make more of an effort to screw people over, now that everyone has received the texts, as if to say “Here, we’re giving you the damn material, don’t go screwing around with study notes or you’re going to pay for it.” So the fact that we all get the curriculum kind of scares me a bit.
Jalmy matey, its interesting how u statisticize (don’t know if its even a word) every aspect of life when you study for cfa. i seriously had not done the analysis before embarking but all i knew was that the objective of goin through it the first time was not to memorize stuff, but to get the concepts. since i have no finance background, i have to get a hang of accounting and other stuff. anyway, 540 hours do sound a lot. for a non-finance person, i heard 400 hours should be enough. KJH, yes, i am reading from 2007 schweser notes till my curriculum arrives. even i’ve heard that schweser is a lot easier to read and understand. only econs and fsa topics have changed since 2007, so i am going to use schweser for the rest. i got the 2007 schweser notes free off the net. someone’s uploaded the torrent file that you can download from.
I started reading the material Aug. 15 (Shweser…but I read the CFAI ethics notes) and I am halfway through Book 3. I do all the concept checkers and read slowly, making sure I understand each topic before moving on…although I do not perform any tests after each book (which Ive heard some people do). Before beginning to read the material I wanted to create a plan to follow - so I calculated the average # of pages needed read every day such that I had ALL of Nov. to take practice exams. 15 was the amount, which isn’t difficult if I do 30-40 on saturday and Sunday (gives me a break on Friday night). I find that creating this plan keeps me focused and knowledeable of how I am progressing. As of today, I am ahead of schedule and I still workout/lift 3-4 times a week and my job takes up atleast 50 hrs a week (albeit its not overly stressful - which explains why I can post during the workday). Trust me, I was flying through the hours originally but you will soon find out that after wasting your weekend week after week, well, you will start to get tired…especailly if you put in >12 a weekend starting now (even more so if you’re working more than 60 hours a week) Just my two cents. Now I’ll shut up.
I just signed up for the June 2008 exam and waiting for my Schweser materials, which should be here early next week. Is everyone with a finance background planning on skimming through the CFAI texts and just focusing on the Schweser notes?
Finance & Accounting is not an alien to me co’z I have a econ & finance undergrad partnered with the nature of my job but yet some of the topics in the CFA are either intermediate or alien to me. As for my study habit or plan, I will totally focus on the CFA text mainly in the theories, principles, applications through examples, variable relationships and for the methematical part, I will use schweser. For now, I’m already through with FSA, Quants, Fixed Income, Equity, and I will start reading the derivative part next week.
I ordered my CFAI texts the first week they were available. I went through Schweser’s Ethics notes and have read through all of the Quant in the CFAI texts. My plan is to complete a study session and then go back and do practice problems and make notes of any weak areas. Then go through Schweser’s notes to make sure I understand everything. I have given myself until April so I can take a few practice exams and tinker with Qbank. I made an excel spreadsheet and it shows it will take me 118 hours of reading to go through the CFA texts. I think Quant reading is tough to get through along with FSA…
I started studying for the June 2008 a couple of days ago… I’m about 120 pages into the first book (doing GIPS now) Anyone here from a non-financial background? I have a math degree but I’ve taken a wide array of courses dealing with econ (fairly advanced level) financial statement analysis (basic level) and investment math (basic level) over the course of my undergrad… I’m completely in the dark as to the last 8 study sessions. Do you think that I stand a pretty fair chance of passing or will it will be excruciatingly difficult for me considering I have no formal training on the wide majority of subjects? Thanks and good luck to all.
Hey, Ya I’m in the same boat. Undergrad in biology, and I’m worried about the same issues. I think time management and whether your interested in the material from the perspective of something “new” will come into play. With a undergrad in math, I think you’ll do fine, all CFA asks for is basic accounting and econ. Good luck!
Hiya, everyone. I’m thinking of doing the cfa L1 and have been searching over various threads here to get advice on a few things before I take the leap! Hope someone can help me with a few things… If I order the schweser 2007 books can I use them for june 08 or dec08 exams or do they change drastically!? If you guys could go back to when you started, how many hours would you seriously put in a week reading/revising etc? I wanna work out if I will have the time. Which part would you say is most difficult? Im hearing ethics is tricky but I get panicky over numbers! And also, manavsachdeva do you have the URL for the free notes you mentioned for schweser 2007 ??? Hope someone can help !
phew ! did quant from schweser, and ethics from cfai text. i believe ethics is mostly common sense. even before reading the text i attempted some questions and got 80% right. am halfway through book 2 of cfai text - econs. its the first time i’m doing econs (am a mechanical engineer) and i must say i’m enjoying it. but its all about understanding the graphs and remembering them, cuz most questions are based on the graphs. i like the cfai text as its very descreptive and written for ppl with no background in econ/finance. but it is highly time consuming. EH304 - Schweser 2007 notes are available as torrent files online. install an agent and look up google for schweser torrent files and download them.