Congratulations on passing all three levels. im doing level 1 in June and i started studying pretty late so i want to be as efficient as possible. 1st of all is it essential to read the CFA books or are the Schweser notes enough obviously crossreferencing with CFAbooks? what do you recommend i read? Also what are the best practice questions the most similar (in terms of wording difficulty etc ) to use?? Schweser notes qbank? CFA end of chapter questions? Analyst notes? any other thing? please help Thanks
ManvsCFA, I passed L1 on the first attempt, I mostly credit QBank and Secret Sauce for that. I wanted to know if 1- you used Schweser QBank on the L2 exam as well and 2- what was the biggest resource for you. Im on pace to do 450 hours study for this one. I will follow on your advice to do all end-of-chapter Qs in CFAI books. I should have all of April available to use CFAI books 3- Should I just use CFAI for the hard topics I didnt understand out of Schweser, mine are just Stats and some of FSA 4- Could you tell me how many hour yostudied for L1, L2 and your first L3? Thanks!
Saradee - For level 1 reading the CFAI books are probably less important as the other levels. I would still do it but focus most of your attention on Schweser (but make sure you dont skip anything…everything is extremely important). I think Schweser has level 1 pretty good. When I studied for level 1 I didnt pick up the cfai books only schweser, but I remember seeing some questions on the test that schweser didnt cover. Fortunately I prepared well enough where that didnt matter. Schweser practice exam books and qbank are all that I used. I would pay for some of the practice exams offereb by CFAI online when you get closer to the test… I would also note that sometimes you can find good deals on materials on craigslist.
beyiyi - 1) Yes I used qbank on lvl 2 and schweser practice exam books - thats it 2) Honestly the best resource were the schweser practice exam books. For lvl 2 its all about taking practice exams and reviewing weaknesses. 3) Yes definitely use the CFAI for hard topics as I did that and of course the back of chapter questions mutliple times during your study efforts. 4) 450 hrs is probably more than enough…I think I clocked somewhere around 350 for lvl 2. 300 for level 1 and well over 500 for lvl 3 (because I failed it once), for lvl 3 the second time around I prob clocked close to 300.
ManvsCFA You’re the Man! Thanks for the advice.
no prob beyiyi…My pleasure
ManVsCFA, Great posts, you are the best. I just want some advice and suggestions about how I should study the the L1 in June, and what prep materials I should use to pass. I got a band 10 in Decemeber exam (1-6-3 in topics breakdown), with only studied CFAI books for 4 weeks intensively. I graduated (one year ago) with undergrad majors in Statistics and Finance, with accounting (financial and managerial accounting), economics (micro + macro), and investments courses (plain vanilla and exotic options, black scholes, Ito’s Lemma, martingales, Poisson process, Brownian motion, random walk, futures, commodities, bonds duration and convexity, currencies, etc). My math background is pretty strong, and need to refresh the Ethics, Econs and FSA parts. I got the 2009 Schweser notes, and 2 volumes for practice exams, but I am not sure if the 2009 notes are still valid for the 2010 syllabus. After reading other posts in the L1 forum, I am thinking to read CFAI books for sure, and do all EOC questions, then read Schweser for the corresponding section and do the questions. Unfortunately, I have all the time during the day and night to study, and I can contribute 10-12 serious hours a day, 7 days a week. I have studied the material from December exam (obviously not well enough) and from my undergrad background. If I study 1-2 reading per day, then I should be able to finish the first reading in max 60 days, and spend the entire May for practice before exam. I will leave the Ethics to the last for short term memory. Not sure if it is good to read the syllabus thoroughly once, and then start practice questions, or move fast for first reading and do a second reading (which would take longer than just read once). For practice, I plan to use the 2 volumes of Schweser practice, the CFAI free paper mock exam. If you suggest so, then I would consider the Schweser QBank (though US$300) or the official CFAI online practice exams (US$40 each). Not sure about if these worth the money, since I am paying all exam fees and prep material myself. I want to pass this time, and don’t want to waste another exam fee and 6 months. It sucks to be marginally failed that I just need to perform bit better by just one more band, to move from band 10 to the pass zone (band 11, I call that). It really needs to be above the 67th percentile rank to pass, with a pass rate of 34%. Only the top 1/3 of the world can pass L1 and move on the L2. Assuming normal distribution, it need to be above one-half standard deviation above the mean to pass. I am going to nail it this time. Thanks.
Whui - I wouldnt waste your money on additional schweser material. When I failed level 3 I just went on craigslist and found someone selling the material for very cheap online (because I didn’t want to pay additional money as well). I would do the following: 1) Study 2009 lvl 1 material thoroughly and do practice exams 2) Focus only on CFAI book questions and sections which you find difficult from just studying schweser 3) go on craigslist pay someone for material (some people have work pay for it and decide not to take the test and then sell it, or some people get it illegally and put it online or in pdfs —> up to you how ethical you want to be to save a buck) 4) If you were band 10 I am sure you just didnt put enough time in…4 weeks is kind of lacking but you have more time now so dont stress out too much because you already have a great sense of the material Good luck!!
Thanks ManVsCFA. that really helped 
ManVsCFA- I enjoyed reading your advice to others…Obviously, you are very knowledgable on all this…Do you have any advice for someone without a finance degree taking the CFA? I’m contemplating taking CFA Level 1 in December…If I study 400 hours with schweser do you think that will be sufficient? If I had money I would contemplate taking finance classes beforehand but I would really like to avoid that if possible. Plus, I work better self-studying anyway. Any advice you could provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much.
simon14 - I work better studying by myself as well. Definitely stick to that. I was an undergrad finance major so the level 1 test was sort of a review of all my business classes with a little more depth. It definitely helped me having the experience but I didnt think it was a necessity. With 400 hours you might be overdoing it but you will know when you feel comfortable with the material. Just think of it this way. When I first took my college finance classes I had no experience whatsoever in finance because they dont teach you that in high school and I did fine. With this material its all about self-study not someone teaching you… I didnt take a class for any of the 3 levels but if I had to do it again I probably would of taken one for level 3 only. People rely too much on classes and someone else teaching them when I believe you learn it better by teaching yourself… Hope this was helpful
Very helpful… Yes, 400 hours might be too much. I picked that number because most people seem to study 300 hours and I thought without a finance degree and little experience working in the industry I should give myself extra time. But as you said, I will know when I feel comfortable with the material… Thank again you for your help.
Hi , (I have already posted this as new topic in this forum, just want your thoughts on this.) How do you track a lot of questions that you do? I mean, i find it difficult when questions are scattered . I like to write all questions from Q bank at one place, arranged LOS wise, and then solve them ( i am using Schweser Q Bank) . It helps me to keep track of all the questions on a particular LOS , at one glance, for future. I did this for Dec 09 attempt , to a certain extent. Like i noted down important parts of all relevant questions from Q Bank for particular LOS, instead of writing down the whole problem and solution word-by-word.( though it helped me for quick revision, but I could not clear in Dec 09 
, performance band= 9) But obviosuly it is very time consuming. Does someone else has a better method to do that? Thanks
Great post ManVsCFA! Really appreciate your devotion to helping others succeed the same way as you did. Just passed my Level 1 this January.Ive planned to appear for the Level II exam next year. Im just concerned about forgetting material i learnt at level 1. I have always worked on concepts and feel probably it was the reason i bombarded the level 1 exam (got a 70+ in all topic areas). Second, im not buying review material right now because the curriculum gets revised in June. However, i do want to start reading the books once again. Want to learn and solidify as much and as early as i can. Should i buy the stuff now or wait for summers until the curriculum gets revised? Thanks brother, for such a helpful post.
CFAFour - Writing down important questions is a huge waste of time. Instead write down the concept that you missed (ie: if the question was about calculating the dupont formula and you think its a good question, dont write the entire question, just write the formula down). WHen I studied for the exam and came across great question (which were usually ones I didnt know the answer to), I just wrote expanded notes on the answer.
luckyali I would just wait…alot of lvl 2 stuff is just expanded lvl 1 stuff so they review it in the new material anyway.
ManVsCFA Thanks for your help !! I agree with you not to waste more money in extra Schweser stuff beyond the notes and practice questions. Just it seems many people in this forum use QBank for the 4,000 practice questions, therefore, I want to know if it is helpful at all, or not, before I even spend my time to search for cheap second hand stuff online. Did you use QBank when yo study for all 3 levels? How about Stalla and the Elan notes? The Elan notes seem not that expensive. But for now, I will stick to your advice and focus only on Schweser 2009 notes and CFAI books, and any free material available. P.S. How can I send private message on this forum? I could not find a way. ManVsCFA Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Whui - > > I wouldnt waste your money on additional schweser > material. When I failed level 3 I just went on > craigslist and found someone selling the material > for very cheap online (because I didn’t want to > pay additional money as well). > > I would do the following: > > 1) Study 2009 lvl 1 material thoroughly and do > practice exams > 2) Focus only on CFAI book questions and sections > which you find difficult from just studying > schweser > 3) go on craigslist pay someone for material (some > people have work pay for it and decide not to take > the test and then sell it, or some people get it > illegally and put it online or in pdfs —> up to > you how ethical you want to be to save a buck) > 4) If you were band 10 I am sure you just didnt > put enough time in…4 weeks is kind of lacking but > you have more time now so dont stress out too much > because you already have a great sense of the > material > > Good luck!!
Whui- I did use qbank. Don’t underestimate craigslist ny. I’m not only talking about second hand material. No clue about private messages.
how effective are the Qbank question in Schweser?? Im literally going through every single LOS and doing every question. am i wasting my time?? should i be doing the EOC of the CFAI books?? Thanks
Please post your queries on just one thread.