My timeline and chances of passing

CFA Level I
#1

I am taking the CFA level 1 for the first time this December. So far, I clocked over 252 hours and Im close to finishing my first reading. I know I am slow, I take lots of notes, and I score pretty well (65+) on the EOC schweser questions. I have 2 sections of fixed income, derivatives, alternatives and ethics left. Right now, I am putting in about 35-40 hours a week. Ideally at the end of this week, I should be finished with all my reading n begin reviewing the material before taking a mock. But that doesnt appear to be possible. Instead I will be finishing up by early/end of next week.

Do you guys think 3 weeks of review is enough? What should my plan of attack be? I only have the schweser book, and practice exam.

Thanks!

#2

How many mock exams have you done? What is your background in finance/accounting, where do you work?

My goals if I am you until test day:

1.) Finish fixed income, derivatives, alternatives in the next 4 days… Even if that means studying 12 hours a day. Finish all CFAI Eoc’s for these chapters too.

2.) Immediately begin taking mock exams. You will need at least 4-5 under your belt by test day to feel confidence in slaying the monster on exam day. Reviewing missed problems here is key, and understanding why.

3.) Beef up in ethics, hard. CFAI material, leave it by your bedside. Read it every night for an hour before you goto bed.

4.) Beef up in heavy topic weighted areas accounting, equity, fixed income, ethics and constantly be revising missed questions in mocks for certain areas.

5.) Review all practice exams, questions posted by CFA on their website. These problems are invaluable because they are written by CFA question writers, not Schweser.

6.) My basic advice to you is to ignore Economics, to some degree. Beef up in this section by just knowing core concepts, reviewing notes, and missed questions on mocks.

7.) Rest up the day before test, have all your stuff together and a plan for the entire exam day. Make sure to bring your lunch and have a nice rest in between sessions, because it is mentally taxing. Try not to review too hard on the break. Don’t loose confidence, even if you feel like you are getting crushed, maybe you’re guessing good that day.

#3

Hi,

I do not agree with what madesofspades said on point 5). If you have a look on the Mock exams provided by the CFA, you will notice that they are (more or less) the same as them from 2013, 2012,…

Just an example, I saw a question where they asked to calculate the Fisher Index. There is no LOS in 2015 curriculum where it is stated, you should be able to calculate the Fisher, Paasche,… index.

The mock exam provided by the CFA are just a copy paste from older mock exams just a bit rearranged.

Apart from this, you can also see that CFA mock exams are much easier than those from Schweser Notes.

#4

thank you all.

I just realize my topic was posted twice, Im new here so I am not sure what happened. I plan on finishing everything by Friday. I just finished fixed income today. There are 3 sections for derivatives and 1 section of AI. I finished the 1st section of derivatives and then the wording became confusing so I skipped the 2nd and 3rd section. Now, I am almost done with Alternative investments.

Do I need to worry about calculations for derivatives (it doesnt mention it on any LOS) ? or can I just read it and get the general idea?

Thank You all very much.

#5

Can u pls tell me how many topicwise practice exams are there in the candidate resources posted by cfa website ?