I always read on these forums what it takes to pass the CFA L1 exam. How many hours to study, what materials, and a study schedule. But what does it take for people to fail the exam?
No seriously, what kind of person fails the CFA L1 exam? Are most of the people who fail from outside the country so they don’t have as a solid grasp of English? Or candidates who get too busy with work? Or people who are so confident in themselves that they don’t prepare, Or people outside the profession of finance?
And to go even deeper, are the types of people who fail different in L2 and L3?
I cannot speak for the difficulty of taking the exam myself, as I plan to take it in December. In sum, I’m trying to understand the number one way to fail the CFA exam so I can avoid it, and be on the otherside of the passrate statistic.
People who don’t put in the time required to get through all of the material in a way that they absorb it will fail. Make sure to cement the material by doing practice problems and tests.
Simple: Lack of Preparation None of the material is actually difficult. There’s no mathematical proofs or calculus required. No special tricks with questions not in the curriculum books. Everything is there. The difference is some people pick it up fast, some people retain information better. You just got to do what it takes to remember it. That’s it.
Anyone with any origin from anywhere with any level of confidence or any level of social life or family life or business life that speak any language can pass or fail. The kind of people that don’t pass are PEOPLE THAT DON’T STUDY ENOUGH. /thread
You’re asking a fair question. LI is the most basic of the CFA exams, but that doesn’t mean it’s not extremely hard at the time, particularly for those lacking a strong background. The majority of people who fail LI either didn’t have enough time, lacked the discipline, underestimated it, etc. Basically they just didn’t prepare enough. It’s a very passable exam. But there are also some that are just unlucky. Maybe they misread a few questions under pressure, maybe the exam topics just hit their weak areas more than their strengths on that specific day, etc. While consistent 2-3 hours study sessions are key on weekdays for keeping the material fresh and making progress, it’s the larger 6-12 hour weekend study sessions that really immerse you in the material and get it done. I also think it’s good to hit the super long study sessions on the weekends (mine were generally 12 hours plus on Saturday and Sunday for LII and LIII, but that’s not recommended, I’m pretty obsessive and don’t really like to sleep if I don’t have to) because it prepares you for sitting through a 6 hour exam. A lot of people said they could feel themselves losing focus in the afternoon, whereas I definitely felt myself hitting my groove and picking up my pace as the day wore on. LII is much, much harder. Again, people that fail LII typically did not prepare enough for that monster. Fewer people underestimate it, it’s known to be hard, some people just can’t find the time to put in the hours, some lose focus, some burn out. Burn out is a major concern, especially for LII, you need to manage your prep so you don’t peak too soon in the process. There’s just an incredible amount of material in LII, I remember freaking out at one point because I felt I reached a critical point where every time I sharpened an area, it would come at the cost of forgetting another topic. I definitely feel there are many very smart people who I respect that are adequately prepared each year and fail LII or LIII because of simple factors like bad luck and flexible exam weights. LIII has a different feel to it, it’s a little more interpretive, but don’t let all the talk of the “writing portion” freak you out. Much of the writing portion is multiple choice or very clear bullet points, calculations, etc. Some people really struggle here because of the format change. Best practice is to just study hard for LIII, the same way you would for LII, do many practice Q’s, take advantage of the free past three years exams posted on the CFAi website (with answer keys) and the sample exams available for you to take. If you do that, I have a hard time imagining you wouldn’t pass. Some people see the progressively rising pass rates for each exam and figure it must be easier. The opposite is true. For LII, roughly 55% of those that have cleared LI are failing, for LIII, roughly 40% of those who cleared LI AND LII are failing. These are much more prepared groups experiencing these fail rates, so the difficulty definitely goes up, although personally I found LII to be the most difficult (vs LIII, but that’s a debated topic). Hope that helped.
Having just wirtten a short post and seen Black Swan’s masterpiece go in between opening the thread and posting mine, I am shaming into completely agreeing. It’s all about doing the work. I know when studying is going well because when I zone out on the bus or where ever my brain takes a break I find myself swimming back through the material I have been looking at recently. I am convinced that to pass you almost need to eat sleep and breath the curriculum in the months preceding the exam, but then everyone’s got their own way, it just seems the most successful way is to work like a b*****d
@Black Swan > Great post, what most people have answered is, if you put the time and dedication in, it’s a very fair exam. That said, how much off a good test taker do you need to be? For example: I have a friend who cannot break the GMAT, and another who studied for 2 weeks and poof, they got a 720. How much does the CFA exam call on critical thinking skills versus application skills? In other words, can you be an excellent test taker and have a significant advantage? Or are those excellent test takers in the same boat as everyone else, by having to put the time in to learn the material, rather than learning how to take the exam.
being good at tests will definitely give you an advantage. So will being a quick reader, having good reading comprehension etc.
At the end of the day though – pretty sure most people on here would agree that none of these things will get you across the line if you don’t know the material.
you could mayyyyybe cram for level 1, get an ok understanding of the most important topics, and strike it lucky. but i don’t think this strategy works for L2 and L3. (yet to face those beasts myself, but judging from the L2 material, there’s no shortcuts.)
Yeah, being a good test taker definitely makes a difference. One of the biggest reasons for prepared individuals failing on exam day is not paying attention to detail. CFA questions tend to test your understanding of the topic by throwing little twists in or small details that change the answer. But you can prepare for this by going through the end of chapter questions in the CFA material and / or doing the cfa sample exams / schweser qbank. So yeah, being a good test taker helps, but it won’t get you through the exams (especially II and III) alone and you can definitely prepare adequately without being a great test taker.
More specifically to one aspect of your question, at LI, the CFA tests more for general understanding and but as you progress through the program the questions will become more and more about understanding and less about rote memorization.