Quant questions on L1 exam?

CFA Level I
#1

Hey guys, I was looking at a Schweser sample exam, and I noticed there were only about 15 quant questions out of the 120 questions on the practice exam, and of those just a handful actually required much hardcore calculation. Would it be safe to assume that the actual exam would have the same proportion of quant questions - about 30 for both the morning and afternoon sessions? I ask because quants is my weakest area, so I’d be happy if quants aren’t weighted very highly on the actual exam. Also, I’ve heard that the L1 exam isn’t very calculation heavy in general…since you have a tonnage of questions to answer in a short time, most of them are more theoretical that you either know or don’t know. Is that true? Thanks guys

#2

heres the weights: Topic Area Level I Quantitative Methods 12 Economics 10 Financial Reporting and Analysis 20 Corporate Finance 8 Investment Tools (total) 50 Fixed Income 12 Equity Investments 10 Derivatives 5 Alternative Investments 3 Asset Classes (total) 30 Portfolio Management and Wealth Planning (total) 5 Ethical and Professional Standards (total) 15 Total 100 on the 240 question exam, that means that there’ll be 24 Quant questions, 48 FSA, 7 AI etc re your second question. the exam will not be overly complex on the calculation side. (i havent done it yet but guessing based on the sample exams, 2005 questions in the CFAi books etc). they are more concerned with testing your concept knowledge. in comparison to schweser questions where theres not a chance of answering some questions in a minute and a half that shouldnt be the case for the actual exam.

#3

Thanks for the info man, I appreciate it!

#4

I haven’t read the Quant readings yet, but started working on the practice questions. They’re very manageable. Occasionally you get a tricky one, such as the characteristics of a lognormal distribution. That obviously requires some memorization, but IMO, in general the Quant questions are straightforward: TVM, permutations, conditional probability, identify hypothesis testing. I took financial stats three years ago, and a lot of it has come back to me after doing some Schweser problems.