I’m cramming and I’m stronger on some sections than others. VERY WEAK on Econ, for example. Is it possible to still pass if I do decently on the other parts but flunk out on Econ and Derivatives?
Theoretically, yes.
I’m planning to skip econ derivatives and alternative investments and plan to pass. Mind you I have a strong grasp on econ from school and manage to score on average 70+ for econ. My general knowledge of derivatives seems to get me through that section with 50+ on average. So take my opinion for what it’s worth. If it were a toss up between reviewing three big sections and reading those two smaller ones I would go with the review.
If your strong on the other sections, one would think between now and exam time you could pack in at least a day or two to review those sections in qbank or EOC to try and bring those scores up incrementally. I cannot understand the mentality behind skipping any section. I understand time constraints and weak and strong areas, but there is still plenty of time to grasp those areas while revising the larger ones. Focus on the higher weighted topics, but when doing review, throw in 10 - 20 questions from those topics. If you get them all wrong, just make sure you understand why by reviewing them and any associated examples carefully afterwards.
You may pass, but you’ll only make it impossible to pass LII where those sections are much more difficult / more heavily weighted and this time you’ll lack the assumed prerequisites and become one of those perennial failers that eventually drops the program. Better to just do it right.
and BlackSwan comes down with the hammer. haha obviously looking at the weights, you can calculate for yourself what you need to pass, and yes indeed you can blow 2 non-core sections and get by. While many people all want to pass up derivs, it’s actually a very black and white section. You know the formula or not. There’s no gray area like with Ethics where it looks like it could be 2 different answers.
IMO, don’t skip Econ. Of any of the sections I think it is one of the easier ones to do well on. Most of the formulas are very simple and the questions are generally more black and white than FRA or Equity/FI.
If you are following schweser then the chapter end summaries are enough to get 70 above in economics. I did derivatives & economics from shweser chapter end summaries and from finquiz smart summaries in 10 days and scored above 70. Don’t skip them as it could be counterproductive. Straight away lines are asked in economics and quite easy to tackle them.
You know, just in the United States the total notional value of outstanding derivatives is about $200,000,000,000,000. That’s a pretty big number. Maybe it’s twice that number globally. How can you really call yourself a financial professional when you don’t know derivatives at least at the level required on CFA L1? If it was up to me, derivatives would have a weight in the CFA program that corresponded to their importance in the global economy (of course CFAI doesn’t want to make the exam significantly more quuantitative and expanding derivatives would do that). Back in 2008, the entire world was blowing up on credit derivatives and you could reasonably get through the entire program and not know the first thing about credit derivatives. It’s really important to have the level of understanding of derivatives required by CFA L1 so you don’t look stupid in your career.
no