there easily could be anchoring bias, with everyone having heard 300 hours as an average. I think people who did much less don’t really want to say that. Still, there was a prior version of the survey where people who passed only studied a little more than those who failed. Something like 20 hours difference.
200 for level 1
150 for level 2
100 ~150 for level 3.
Could be ~30 hours more each if you count non-efficient studying time.
285 hours for L3 tracked religiously. I doubt as many spent over 400 as posted except for retakers. Y’all need to quit lying or actually post your study logs.
If you take the final week off and study 13 hours per day which is realistic… that’s 91 hours right there…
me i studied about 75 hours in the final week… whether I passed or fail will not be about the total number of hours but how effective the study was and the actual exam execution which is more important
Give me your email. Ill send you my study log. Or, does anyone know how to add an attachment.?
Did you study once and were done? Did you use official or a third-party?
Glad you have an opinion about what others have done with their time…what was the time frame you studied over and what material did you use? qbank’s? past papers?
Started 1/1, averaged roughly 14 hours a week. An hour before work, hour after during the week, 3-4 hours each weekend day. Studied mostly from CFAI material since it was only 1900 pages instead of 3000, and Schweser wasn’t that great. Started mocks around 4/15. Did about 11 AM mocks and 8 PM mocks. A mix of Schweser and past papers. No Qbank.
I started on 15/08/2016 in mid last summer and there are my posting on L3 thread in the moment when previous candidates still were celebrating. Averaged 3-4 hours each and every day. I had 2 months break last fall when I was preparing another exam. Why would I lie and what I suppose to achieve with lying. Rufus, do not judge other people’s situations through your own situation because you simply do not know their situations.
#BaseRateNeglect
In this thread, there are 16 observations, the median is 510 hours and the average is 525. What base rate am I neglecting here?
No reason to judge. No reason to lie either. And no reason to call people out specifically. Thanks. 2016 Candidate survey points out the average hours for L3 as 334.
im sloppy AF in just about everything i do in life so you know there was no way i was tracking hour studying. anyway sometimes i’m mindlessly staring and making no progress and other times everything is clicking.
Agree that each person has their own situations. It took me three times at L3 to pass…I spent about 350 hours each year. The 3rd time was the charm and I found the fact that I had already “plowed the field” a couple times and stayed upbeat & focused, I nailed it! Best of luck to all of you!!
2015: 300
2016: 250
2017: 500
I guarantee I tracked more “religiously” than you. That’s a promise, m’am.
Once for l1 and l2. Failed l3 B9 last year. Didn’t exactly manage to clock more hours this year. Fingers crossed.
Strictly schweser readings. I did read up the ethics portion on the official in an attempt to not fail ethics miserably. (never did score >70 on ethics ever though). And I think i did most of the EOCs for l2.
Retrospectively i could have passed L1 with maybe 100 hours or less just by whacking the Q bank. But didn’t know what i was getting into and studied very conservatively. End up with a 8/10. My pass for l2 was a much thinner margin. So no secrets there. A bang for a buck.
Lets just say my patience grew thin with this exam each year. I study for a pass rather than care for learning anything after L1.
L1: 350
L2: 500
L3: 600+
Passed all in the first attempts. No magic here.
I strongly believe that CFAI highly underestimates hours put in for Level II and Level III, IMO its 400-500.
L1: 400
L2: 500+
L3: 600+
650 - 750 hrs in total
CFAI AM 2016-2009 actual papers (went min twice)
CFAI Mock PM (2017-2014) - twice or trice
Schweser Vol practice exams 1-2 - twice or trice
Schweser Notes, books 1-5
CFAI books on Individual Risk, Fixed Income and Economics, end of chapter and blue box examples.
Wiley Mock AM/PM - once
In most cases listed on this thread, candidates seem to have spent more time studying on L3 than L2. Is the age-old adage “L2 is the thoughest” still valid? L3 has a different kind of toughness required with AM. I think, the fact that candidates want to be doubly sure that they are in fact done with the last step of examinations makes them put in extra effort.