I’ll be registering shortly for the level 1 December exam and wanted some opinions as I try to decide what to purchase. Based on what I’ve read on here and elsewhere, I think I’m going to use the Schweser notes as my main study guide and supplement with the CFA ebook as necessary.
I was considering purchasing the Kaplan Qbank, as I’ve used it before for the Series 65 and liked it, but from what I’ve read it seems some people think the Qbank questions aren’t fully representative of what I’ll see on the exam. With that being said, would using the Schweser notes along with the CFA end of chapter questions be a better route? I’d rather not purchase the Qbank if it’s only moderately helpful.
I have used Schweser (without QBank) for L1 as well as the CFAI ebooks (only EOCs and mocks) and it has been fine. For L2 Schweser gave me free access to the QBank for a limited time and I really like it and used it regularly during my free preview. The questions from the L2 QBank are similar to the L2 EOC questions (don’t know about L1). I still do not plan on purchasing QBank, mostly because I will not have enough time to work through all the questions. From what I have seen I believe QBank can be beneficial if you are looking for additional questions.
Thanks for the response. Some of the comments I saw regarding the QBank were 3-4 years old so maybe it’s improved since then. Good point about the number of questions though. Good luck with prep.
I used IFT Videos and Qbank, and found the material very useful.
I just watched the videos and only referred to the notes for difficult topics only(which was very rare :p). I used to do the Qbank once i watched the video, in order to retain the concepts, and it helped.
I’ll share my experience. I passed CFA Level I in December 2016 with four months of studying.
Since I had a prior background in lots of the content, I began by reading the curriculum. That wasn’t a big mistake, but it was inefficient. Eventually, I turned to prep materials—I used the content at AdaptPrep. (I liked the content so much that I now am the Product Manager there). I considered Schweser, but it was too expensive. So quite honestly, I can’t speak to the quality of its Qbank, although it is probably the best-known provider.
I will say that to pass CFA Level I, you definitely need to practice on lots of questions. This is important simply because you’ll need to do well on the 240 multiple-choice questions given to you on the actual exam.