Level 1 Materials Advice

Hey,

I’m quite newbie in CFA. I made some investigation about some products and materials but have not decided yet so I have to open this topic again here.

Can anyone help me to chose which is better recently? Wiley - Schweser - Fitch or etc.

I also wanted to know can we download study materials (like guide books or worksheets) on wiley or schweser after subscribe?

Hey! I started a month ago. Tried Schwesser notes and videos. Not fascinated by the both. Chosen Wiley. As I’ve passed Ethics in my study plan and 30% of Quant I can say that I’m totally happy with their materials. Do it this way:

  1. Watch video. It gives a great start to a topic. Some themes could be learned with videos only.
  2. Read through notes. Mostly it’s necessary, not always, though.
  3. Solve test problems. Great way to test your understanding and check for weak areas.

By today, it works awesome for me. Appreciate Wiley for their professionalism and CFA as the curriculum is wide and thrilling. No jokes :slight_smile:

Looking for some insight into this as well. I’m studying with the standard materials but want to purchase a large chunk of practice problems. What website would have the best material at the best price if I’m just interested in practice problems?

With the “Until you pass guarantee” of wiley, what does it mean? you have unlimited access? or it has a preconditioned requirement?

As far as I understand if you fail Level 1 test say in 2016, You’ll receive the materials for 2017 for free.

As practice shows, for some classes, it’s better to read through notes carefully, for other, videos help to grasp them quickly.

The scarce of time is what makes you look for a most efficient way of learning.

I think it’s quite clear, the package you’re about to bought is available until you pass the level I. That’s mean if you fail that session (december) you’ll be able to use the online ressources for june 2017 and so on

Tex Winter: Not about the TYPEof offense or system that you run, it is about how well you EXECUTE the system that you do run. Both Schweser and Wiley have been recommended by different sources, pick one and run with it.

I used Wiley for Level 1, June 2016.

I’ll be using Schweser for Level 2 (assuming I pass level 1).

While Wiley’s online platform looks nice, I found it to be a little buggy at times (which was really frustrating on a couple of occassions).

Also their q-bank is so terrible I stopped using it after about 100 questions. I had questions that referenced other nonexistent questions and some that showed the wrong answer as correct. The quality there was extremely lacking.

The included mocks were a little better than the q-bank. You can tell they spent more time forming the mock questions that the q-bank. I ended up buying a Schweser mock also which I found to be a bit more rigorous.

If you’re aleady using Wiley, don’t fret, the books are good, just don’t expect much from the q-bank.

If you haven’t purchased a 3rd party provider yet, I would recommend using Schweser over Wiley.

Edit: Why did I originally choose Wiley? Price. It was cheaper than Schweser. In hindsight, I wish I spent a bit extra & went Schweser.

I don’t remember on which forum i saw that but apparently for Lvl I --> schweser all the way but for lvl II and III wiley have advantage because it’s closer to the CFAI and level II and III whitout any reference to CFAI is pretty risky

From my past experience, here’s my opinion:

Level I: Schweser Package for Notes and QBank / Purchase Wiley 11trh Hour Guide ala carte

Level II: Wiley Package for Notes, Videos and 11th Hour Guide / Purchase Schweser Practice Exam Volumes and Online Mock ala carte

Side note: I also used the CFAI EOC’s, blue boxes, mock, topic tests & read ethics from CFAI texts… I’d assume everyone does this for all 3 levels.

Due to the bugs in the Wiley software that caused me issues (some that were never fully resolved) & the shockingly bad (worthless) q-bank, I have zero intention in returning to them for further levels other than maybe the books… I would 100% not bother with any of their other materials.

For Level II, Wiley definitely has things to work on, but they also have several strong elements, many of which come from content that was developed when it was Elan (which Wiley purchased in 2015). Some of the videos done by Basit and Peter Olinto in 2014 are still relevant (unless the CFAI significantly updates the curriculum) and are absolutely fantastic for a deeper and broader understanding of some of the material. Also, some of the study notes readings do a better job teaching some of the readings than the curriculum does (Pensions in FRA is a good example). The live classes have some value as well if you’re the type that learns better through live interaction. Bill (S2000Magician) did the classes this year and for those that I sat in on (or watched the recorded archive) I thought they were pretty good.

I’m no Wiley fanboy, but don’t discount their content too much based on your Level I experience. Their Level II package is quite good on the whole. But as I said above, you want to go to Schweser for practice mock exams. Wiley’s Level II mock exam delivery still needs a lot of work and they need to offer more mocks (Schweser offers 7 mocks while Wiley offer 3 max). FYI, Qbank style questions are useless for Level II (in my opinion). For those types of questions, you want to do the EOC practice in the curriculum, multiple times if possible.

I am probably being a little harsh due to my frustrations, but they’ve pretty much lost me from my past experiences.

I have heard the Peter Olinto videos are quite good, although I don’t plan on using any videos for the CFA. I may use a class for level 3. I’m more of a book guy. In saying that, I was happy with Wiley’s books. I found their content to be quite well explained.

My thoughts are that when someone goes for 3rd party prep, they usually going for some kind of package deal with add-ins like the q-bank, mocks, online dashboard & what not… in that sense, I can’t recommend Wiley at all.

There are so many debates on this 3rd party provider vs that 3rd party provider. Honestly, you’ll pass with any of them as long as you put in the effort.

Sounds extremely reasonable.