CFA Curriculum and/or Prep Provider?? like, practice, although, everyone, starting

burning0spear

Hello everyone.

I am writing the Level I this December and I am really starting to feel that I am swimming against the tide in my prep. The CFA curriculum is very long and verbose and I feel that there aren't enough practice questions for some of my weak areas like Economics. I've studied Ethics, Quant and FRA and I really don't think I have retained much, although I was doing well on the chapters at the end of each reading.

It appears that prep providers are the way to go about Level I, but I remain apprehensive. I figure their effectiveness varies with every individual so I would like to know how you all are going about this. Are you exclusively relying on Schweser/Stalla/Elan or using them in conjunction with the CFA curriculum?

Please advise. I'd rather not dish out the cash on extra materials if they are not going to save me time and if they compromise my chances of passing too much.

Thank you!

dvilayphet

Tens of thousands of candidates purchase third party CFA study notes every year.

They don't do it because they want to spend money unnecessarily.

They buy these materials because they want to learn the testable content in a fraction of the time it takes to read the official texts.

mamuka12

From the perspective of someone who just passed Level I in June, I took a weekly prep class at my local CFA Society which referenced the Schweser Notes. I found this to be very helpful as it forced me to stay on track with the study schedule and I also had a professor who gave tips on areas to focus in on and areas not to waste too much time on. For example, our class did Economics as the last topic instead of the order of the curriculum as Econ has a lot of LOS' that can be tested for a very low percentage. Instead, he recommended that we spend our time on Fixed Income which has significantly less content on Level I.

As for the curriculum books, I only used them for ethics and I read that during the first week of my studying and then re-read it a week or two prior to taking the exam. Other than that, all of my studying was done using Schweser Notes and the Q Bank, which are significantly shorter than CFAI's material and more direct in what you need to know.

bbtomato

I started studying July 15th and I quickly realized that the books are simply way to long. I just graduated commerce with finance so much of what I am seeing has been shown to me in the past.

I purchased the Elan videos and I am very happy I chose to. They give me a structure to follow. I am trying to watch two videos per day and there are about 75. After that I plan to read the ethics.

I think the best way to really learn this material is just do questions. The more questions you do and understand the better your chances.

In the end if you put in the time you should be fine