Schweser Notes vs. CFA Curriculum

Is studying just the Schweser Notes sufficient? Or should you also read the CFA Curriculum?

man, I gota be the most patient guy in the world… some other guy would bite your head off for this post, why? cause this is the MOST posted question on AF, so just search… Anyway, Schweser is sufficient, while I enjoyed studying from CFA curriculum for Level I, I did not find anything for exam purposes that Schweser failed to cover… Also retention is much better with Schweser cause you are looking at the 10 words you NEED to know, and not having to fish them out from bettwen the 90 you DONT need to know Study hard, and relax the exam is not that bad.

“Also retention is much better with Schweser cause you are looking at the 10 words you NEED to know, and not having to fish them out from bettwen the 90 you DONT need to know” In my opinion, this is a HUGE understatement. Went through CFAI text first and it is absolutely incredible what you come across and scratch your head asking “did I really go over this couple months ago?”. Maybe its b/c theres so much material and after awhile you’re really just readying and not studying. Reading is nice, especially if you like the material, but you’re here to take a test. And a test means studying!

A rather timely posting… Was just looking over my Schweser notebooks and noted that on the back cover it states: “The Essential Complement”. This got me thinking whether this is a caveat put out by Schweser to cover themselves for candidates who fail and attempt to place blame with them. Which begs the question, what are the pass rates for those candidates that rely solely on Schweser vs. the CFAI materials? After reading the first CFAI Lvl 1 book (ethics & quant) I can’t imagine going through another CFAI book which is why I’ve switched over to Schweser which seems to hit the topics one needs to know and moves on. I do have some concern that Schweser may gloss over the topics but at the same time the CFAI books go into the much detail which just wears you down. Thoughts?

I couldn’t agree more. I spent nearly 6 weeks laboring through Book 1 (Ethics and Quant) and was in full panic mode at the end of February as I looked at the remaining 2800+ pages I had to read in the CFAI text. I had been debating the benefits of CFAI vs. Schweser and was paranoid that I would spend 5 months studying the Schweser text only to fail and have to do the whole thing over again. Lets face the facts - I have a MBA with a concentration in asset management. None of this material has been new to me. But the volume of information is enormous, and even with the Schweser notes you will never remember anything. I switched to Schweser on March 1st, and am currently on the final book. Because I have time, I plan to re-read the 1st volume on ethics and quant from the Schweser material to see if it helps clarify quant issues I had with the CFAI text. The CFAI text is very robust, gives you a lot of detail and background, but is a nightmare to try to understand what formulas are critical vs. the 500 that are used to demonstrate the mathematical theory behind the ultimate formula. Schweser has has been helpful, and there are some areas that are a bit light vs. EOC questions in the CFAI text. I have been trying to answer the CFAI EOC questions after completing each Schweser chapter to supplement my studies. I find this helps to highlight any major areas that might have been skipped or not fully understood. In the end, it will come down to how well you memorize the formulas, understand the theories, and perform under a time-constrained test format. Personally, its a win-win situation. If you pass, great. If you fail, it does not invalidate everything you have learned and you should be able to better perform in an investment decision-making capacity.

I studied Ethics exclusively from CFAI.for the rest i used Elan notes( no videos), Elan Question Bank, CFAI end of chapter summaries and CFAI EOC in that order. During review I refocused on CFAI EOCs. I found the CFAI too verbose for other subjects. whichever prep provider you use, do the CFAI EOC.