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WSO Free Modeling Series - Now Open Through
July 31, 2026
9 Free Financial Modeling Lessons
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Good luck!
Just finished up here in Milan, we're in the future - good luck buddy!!!
Musings to come. For now cooking up a nice dinner at my buddy's flat with my GF and drinking a ton of wine and smoking a Cohiba.
How much studying time did you put in? I'm kind of coasting between now and b-school starting in the fall so I've been tossing around the idea of registering for the Level 1 in June.
Half time here on the west coast. My head is starting to spin from a combination of sleep deprivation/exhaustion/caffeine/dehydration. Am I the only one who thinks the CFA exam is more taxing than marathon races?
All in all, I think I have a good shot at passing. I only wish I could have slept more last night, but the formulas spinning in my head kept me awake.
The lack of sleep made this more grueling than the mocks. In addition, I didnt appreciate the 1hour wait before the start of each half.
...now how long do we have to wait for the results?
Results will come out mid-January.
howd everyone do? Did anyone else find it very hard compared to the mocks?
I thought it was okay. The level of difficulty I thought was comparable to mock exams. I think I have a good chance of passing it.
Cries, out of curiosity, why are you doing CFA if you're in IB?
Very cool, good luck man.
Is it just me or everyone else that found the fixed income and derivatives sections the hardest sections to tackle ?
Quant and ethics was the worst for me. Ethics because its so vague; can never know if you're right. Quant because I felt so uninspired when I worked through it; it became my "skip" section. I still know nothing about confidence intervals and F-tests.
I'm definitely not a quant guy, nor will I ever be.
I think the fixed income and derivative sections can be tackled with enough practice and intution. I personally find FRA to be the most difficult section since some of the topics have no rhyme or reason to them, just rote memorization of inane concepts - primarily all of the IFRS vs. GAAP nonsense.
Its not so easy when you have no finance background and are forced to take the CFA level 1 under extreme pressure from your superiors with less then 2 months to prepare and long hours at work as well.
Which session did you guys find easier? I thought afternoon was a lot easier than the morning session but many friends disagreed. Just curious what you all think?
I did find the derivs part harder in both sessions. But again that may be due to lack of preparation in that area. Quant section and fixed income was a breeze though
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