CFAI Book is Red Herring problems, because, like, appears

scruge

CFAI books are red herring. I probably read 50 pages of all the 6 CFAI books, did not do any EOC problems but never repented it during the exam. To me it appears like the CFAI books are just meant to create an impression that exam is tough. To teach any topic they have this round about confusing way of saying things which makes it a complete waste of time to read through it. Why don't they say what they have to say in a concise paragraph. Maybe I have this attitude because I come from engineering background. But L1 is not as hard as projected by CFAI books. I am so glad I did not go through the CFAI books. If I had done, I would have spent probably 500 hours learning the material and still would have just wished for 70%. IMHO if a student coming from non-finance background picks up CFAI book as his guide there is no way he/she is going to score more than 60% after spending 300 hours.

I do not think CFA L1 is hard at all. Look at the questions. The questions are all basic and they are concept checkers. I did learn a lot about finance, etc. but compared to the regular math or engineering problems that I solved in school the L1 problems were not at all close in level of difficulty. The part that challenged me was the massive course material and dawn of amnesia in me as I am 30 year old I guess. So, I did fumble on occasions where there was a need for strong memory.

About the preparation material I would say, I do not think a student needs to study anything more than Kaplan material and do Volume 1 tests. The Kaplan problems were tougher and lengthier than real exams. Q bank prepared me good for the exam as well.

dece2011

Ok enough with this, whoever you are it's been established by nearly everyone here that Schweser isn't enough. I did every single q-bank, and the second half of that test was from a different planet. Consensus is that if you read CFAI you would have been fine. SCHWESER IS NOT ENOUGH.

trogulj

L1 is tough because of the breadth of material and how deep some of the questions drill into said material.

I was telling a friend yesterday that individually, I could rock all of the sections no problem, however, to do it all at once is a much different task.

__________

"good personality ... or he was known as Lt. Mandingo during his army days."

Ionutzakis

FYI... 'breadth of the market' was definitely one of the answers.

For L1 - SCHWESER IS MORE THAN ENOUGH.

mnieman

WOO! I know I got one right!

__________

"good personality ... or he was known as Lt. Mandingo during his army days."

koba

@CFAL1ed:

A guy I work with went CFAI materials only and did exceptionally well on L1 and L2. I think that required more time than your approach. He also had a very firm quantitative background.

I began studying for L1 on Nov 18 and did a couple thousand questions on Qbank/practice tests the two 1/2 weeks prior to the exam. I think it depends on the level of depth you want and how much time you want to put into it. It would be a nice luxury to read the CFAI materials but that's just way too much time for me.

The CFAI materials suffer from a lack of economy of words. Many of us learn more when we interact and have to mentally manipulate the concept or when we have to wire the new problem solving algorithms into our circuitry, and Qbank along with doing practice exam problems allows this in the most efficient manner.

I put it like this:

The objective is to maximize the number of correct answers on a timed test. You do this by improving your ability to answer test questions correctly and quickly.

Sounds obvious but I wonder how many actually design their method of preparation with regard to that simple fact.

PEACE!!

siavosh

I agree, reading the CFAI books would have been a waste of time for me, so i kind of didnt. But there were some sections you couldnt afford to read from a prep guide only, for example Ethics.

What I like about Schweser is that they focus on each LOS and tell you what the LOS wants you to know. It really organizes everything into concise 'notes' you can safely rely on, after you are done reading the textbook atleast once

cchang

Who cares about Ethics anyway? Most of it is common sense... The rest of the LOS' are explained adequately enough by Schweser, at least for L1. I only opened book 1 of the CFAI text and didn't even bother taking out the rest of the books from the shipping box.

Siddimaula

For L1, Schweser is more than enough. I used only Schweser (except ethics) and passed with greater than 70 in all sections but one. You just have to know everything in Schweser. For L2, I am using both.

suyash1989

You have got to care about ethics, its 15% of the exam. and sometimes common sense fails us all, because some questions are worded in a tricky way. I didnt read any of the textbooks either, except for Ethics and a bunch of stuff in Book 5. The rest are still unopened.