I recently read through the entire curriculum - it took a little over 300 hours. Since November, I have studied at a steady pace of 15 hours per week, but now I am prepared to double my efforts in April and May. After each reading, I worked through some practice problems (but not all) and made flash cards for important concepts. My formal education is in economics and statistics. With the exception of FRA, the entire curriculum feels like it is within my grasp. I will take a week of PTO in late April to address the FRA deficiency.
Strategy
I will devote at least 3 hours per day to practice problems and take at least one practice exam per week. I will spend an additional hour each day reviewing weak areas and / or committing formulas to memory. My review will begin with a comprehensive overview of the curriculum (857 Schweser Concept Checkers) and grow increasingly difficult until it peaks in mid-May with the official CFAI mock exam. Two weeks out, I will downshift and focus on addressing deficiencies and building confidence.
Schedule
Week 1 - Schweser Concept Checkers
Week 2 - Schweser Concept Checkers, Schweser Practice Exam 1
Week 3 - EOCs / Blue Box Examples, Schweser Practice Exam 2
Week 4 - EOCs / Blue Box Examples, Schweser Practice Exam 3
Week 5 - EOCs / Blue Box Examples, Schweser Practice Exam 4
Week 6 - Schweser EOC Self Tests, Schweser Official Mock Exam (on location)
Week 7 - QBank, CFAI Mock Exam
Week 8 - QBank, Schweser Practice Exams 5 & 6
Week 9 - QBank, Exam Day
Goal
An additional 300 hours of review in April & May; a Level 1 Pass in June (obviously)
This sounds like a good plan. The only caution I would throw out to you is that putting in an additional 300 hours in 2 months might lead to some burnout by mid/end of May. It obviously depends on the person, but that burnout can be more detrimental to your success on the exam than the additional hours put it will be a benefit. If you noitce you start burning out, I suggest cutting back on the planned 300 additional hours (which is approx avg of 5 per day to the exam). If you feel no burnout, then by all means do as much as you can. I jsut know from my experience, doing another 300 hours after already doing 300 hours, in a 2 month span would have made me go crazy.
Burnout is definitely a concern of mine, but I am reasonably confident that I can maintain this pace for two months. The end justifies the means, in my opinion.
This review plan worked well for me. I hope that some December candidates can find value in it. Everyone learns differently, but the key for me was attempting as many practice questions as possible. In actuality, I only put in 200 hours during the final two months (500 hours total). Two weeks out from exam day, I felt burned out and just shifted to “retention mode” by reviewing 1-2 hours per day. Good luck!
Thanks for sharing this. I am on the 2nd round and supposed to finish Quant this week before moving with CF and PM. I intend to be done with this round by the end of October so that I would have about 5 weeks for excercises and practice exams. My 2nd review for each studying session goes like this:
Re-read schweser notes
Do concep checkers
Read summary in CFAI books to make sure I don’t miss anything
Bluebox (sometimes I skip this , is it ok?) , EOC (try to finish all)
Qbank questions (I print out questions instead of working on the computer)
Since I do a lot of above stuffs for each session, I find my speed quite slow and worry that I cannot make it by the end of Oct. On the other hand, I will not be confident if I speed up or skip some of the above because working on excercises points me out mistakes and lession learnt.
I have a full time job and normally leave office around 6.30pm (I show up at 7h30, 2 hour lunch break) . I spend 3 hours on weekdays and 6 hours on weekends. Should I devote more time for weekend study? On weekend I go for gym and other sports cuz I don’t think keeping the brain working all the time will be a good a idea :(.
So far I am done with FRA, almost done with Quant, read 30 pages of Ethics each week (I didn’t study ethics in 1st round). Please advice me how to utilize my time the most :(. FYI: I am a slow reader. Thanks
p/s: I have problems with sleeping due to studying 3 hours before going to bed everyday. My sleep is not deep and dreams are sometimes about CFA stuffs :(. How can I deal with this ??
You are doing good, You strategy is very good it is more than enough to cover the syllabus in detail and to prepare you for the exam day. all the best.
You are doing good, You strategy is very good it is more than enough to cover the syllabus in detail and to prepare you for the exam day. all the best.
Definitely keep exercising on the weekend! You need to stay mentally and physically fit for your exam!
I think you are doing okay if you can devote 3 hours every night and 6 hours on the weekends. What you need to do is to focus and lock yourself up!
You mentioned you are doing your second round already? My suggestion is, if you have already covered the material once, there are some topics you can probably miss or just read the summary/ concept checkers? Not all topics are heavily weighted on the exam, so you have to study smart. Not to say you want to skip anything but if you have limited time, you need to focus more on big topics! (that’s why it’s a good idea to do mocks early to know what you are expecting on the exam)
As for dreaming about CFA materials… we have all experienced it
and worry that I cannot make it by the end of Oct. On the other hand, I will not be confident if I speed up or skip some of the above because working on excercises points me out mistakes and lession learnt.