hi everyone, i just joined this forum and this is my first post! anyway, i am from vancouver, bc and have registered for the june 2008 level I exam. i have got a hold of the schweser 2006 notes however, i was wondering what everyone’s opinion is about studying from the schweser notes which are old, or from the 2008 CFA textbooks. i find schweser has everything organized for you, which makes going through the studying easier. i have emailed CFA and obviously, they said to concentrate mainly on the 2008 material. What does everyone think? thanks in advance! K
Well, at least you’ll have the official CFAI 2008 curriculum to compare against your old notes, so you can see how much things have changed. I’m not going to claim that using those 2006 notes will guarantee your failure, as I’m sure folks have achieved success in the program using old materials, but I think anyone who tries to convince you that you’re not rolling the dice is just full of it. You’ve got a considerable amount of time to prepare, and given the exam’s difficulty, why stack more odds against yourself? If you’ve already got a strong background in the LI material, or finances are a constraint, maybe resign yourself to the old notes. However, given the amount of time you have left to prepare, I’d suggest starting with your new CFAI materials and deciding from there what, if any, value your old notes can add to the process, or consider purchasing new notes to complement your CFAI volumes. Anyhow, just my $0.02. Welcome to AF.
Don’t you already have the CFA 2008 notes? They’re included in the cost of the exam…So you can compare and see for yourself… In my opinion, they shift the LOS around quite a bit, and as the exam is based on LOS, you’re better off with more current mat’l…
I’ve actively decided not to study from old notes. The exam is hard enough as it is in my opinion without adding the extra burden of mapping the curriculum towards an old set of books.
thanks everyone for their feedback… i was kinda leaning on studying the 2008 notes anyway but just wanted to see what other ppl’s opinion were regarding the 06 schweser notes. i think i might use the questions as supplementary material…but we’ll see how things go when i get started next week!
start so early? For 2008… uh… You make me frightened…
cfaisok Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > start so early? For 2008… uh… You make me > frightened… Why does it surprise you? Not to be mean, but do you even know what the CFA is?
Nice reply, Damage. I have a banking background and all colleagues who allready performed level 1, didn’t spend more than 2 month. One of them did it in 30 days…
cfaisok Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Nice reply, Damage. > > I have a banking background and all colleagues who > allready performed level 1, didn’t spend more than > 2 month. One of them did it in 30 days… I guess it really depends on what their background is. I’ve got a banking background as well, but haven’t dealt with securities until doing some of the local securities courses that are requirements for being licensed in canada and I can certainly say that I doubt I could finish the cfa studies within 30 days or even 2 months. Did your friends pass?
all of them (3) passed… Do you have a bachelor or a master degree?
Damaged I took the CSC’s as well this spring
No I do not due to personal reasons, but I’ve spent a couple of years in a mechanical engineering program in a top university here and also recently have done several commerce courses, as well as the local securities courses which contain quite a bit of the material contained in the CFA, though not on the same grande scope or breadth. From what I’ve read, just to read the curriculum alone (all 6 books) takes roughly 6 months. Most people spend about a month just reviewing and taking practice exams. But hey if your friends have a masters in finance or an MBA, I guess 2 months is doable, but still unlikely, just as a result of there being so much material, at least in the CFAI curriculum.
florinpop Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Damaged I took the CSC’s as well this spring Good stuff, how did you find it? I wrote on may 30th then on july 4th and did the cph on july 18.
I took them a week apart, I thought it was gonna be harder than it was and I think 60% passing rate is way to easy to pass. I took them in March or April can’t remember and took the CFP on june 9th
florinpop Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I took them a week apart, I thought it was gonna > be harder than it was and I think 60% passing rate > is way to easy to pass. I took them in March or > April can’t remember and took the CFP on june 9th I’d have to agree that it was a bit easier than expected, maybe because I know a lot of people who have failed the volume 1 exam so I took it a tad more seriously and spent about 1 month studying for both, though I didnt really get most of my studying done until the last 1.5 week or so of each exam, so if i really put my mind to it I probably could have written both exams within a month worth of studying, but probably would’ve gone a little batty. are you writing the level 1 exam in june? I’ve started studying a bit, but not really. I’m going at an extremely casual pace right now and won’t be hitting the books hard until january most likely.
they have master equivalents (the highest possible german diplomas) and they are fit guys… With 6 month prep you will have sucess, too… Must go to bed now, it’s 3.45 a.m. in germany.
No i am taking it in December, started easy reading couple months ago and more seriously a month ago, i have a lot of chatching up to do As I said I took the CFP exam that was challenging and I needed some time off away from studying
cfaisok Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > they have master equivalents (the highest possible > german diplomas) and they are fit guys… > > With 6 month prep you will have sucess, too… > > Must go to bed now, it’s 3.45 a.m. in germany. Well all I’ll say is that it’s better to be overprepared than underprepared, so even if you spend a few extra months studying, it’ll save you from spending another 600 bucks, and another few months worth of studying, not to mention the stress/depression you might feel in case you fail. If you’re at the same level as your buddies, academically speaking, by all means take whatever advice they have to give you and come to a realization about your own abilities as to how quickly you can go through all the material. Sorry if I came off as a bit harsh earlier, you were just coming off as not being familiar with the program and sounding like someone who hasn’t taken the initiative to read the other posts on this board or elsewhere.
florinpop Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > No i am taking it in December, started easy > reading couple months ago and more seriously a > month ago, i have a lot of chatching up to do > As I said I took the CFP exam that was challenging > and I needed some time off away from studying are you mainly reading schweser material? I haven’t thought about taking the CFP myself, I’m not sure why. I guess at this point I just wanted to get the csc and cph out of the way, get a job and see what I’m interested in doing and take it from there. I’ll probably be looking at doing the DFC and OLC eventually, but i think the cfa will be taking up most of my time and I’m also trying to finish off the bachelors, so some of these peripheral courses will probably have to take a backseat for the time being. are you working these days or just studying?
3-6 days a week so it’s challenging CFP is good is you want to go on the personal finance path, especially sell investment products It’s not really what i want to do, more interested in the stock market Well good luck to you