(ANOTHER) CFA® Level 1 Freakout/All-Suggestions-Welcomed Thread

Take a deep breath BackOfficeUnderdog, you will be fine. 2 months is still a sufficient amount of time. I passed L I last December and only started studying 6 weeks out, though to be fair I wasn't encumbered by 80 hour work weeks. Schweser is your friend, and though I may be speaking out of turn, I found the actual December exam questions to be significantly easier than the practice tests in the actual CFA curriculum. I found a great post on the forum that I have copied here: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/the-cfa-cram-plan-the-last-minute-g… --- though you're not even in cram time yet. Best thing you can do though is relax. It's very hard to retain knowledge when half you're brain is focused on (unfounded) belief of future failure.

I passed L1 in December - Flashcards are definitely a good use of your time now. Making them will help you remember the important points, and then you can review easily on the train etc. Don't go overboard but I'd make sure you hit all the important equations/ratios. Don't bother with Ethics flashcards; just do practice questions. Tip that worked for me: the "low weight" sections on L1 are really easy - if you sink 20-30 hours in you can probably take close to 100% on corporate finance, Alternatives, and portfolio management which gives you 18% of the available points. After that there's a lot of overlap between FRA and Equities so I'd spend more time there vs. in Econ which you studied/derivatives which don't have the highest studying time ROI for L1. You should be able to get at least 10/15 for Ethics after one read through and some practice questions. Similarly for Econ since you studied it in college. If you then get 15/20 FRA and 7/10 Equities you're looking at 18+7+15+10+7=57 points and you only need to take 13/27 from Quant/FI/Derivatives to pass for sure (likely would pass with 10/27). Best of luck.

I agree with Doctor Burry, crush the q bank and mocks (your expected value is half of what you need to pass so just do your best and guess and move on to next Q). You will start to see pattern pretty quickly as to what areas in FRA ( or other sections) you will need to focus more on.. this is how these questions are structured..use the notes to fill in the gaps and you'll be fine.

Do this for 1 month and check in again to see how you are progressing.. you will have 5 weeks from that time.. at that point, you need to dive back into the remaining q banks or end of chapter (from the notes) quizzes on the sections that are most heavily weighted.. crush FRA, another section you have good background in that is heavily weighted, and ethics.. you can pick up the easy points elsewhere and should be fine.

Freaking out will not get you there. Also, avoid googling too much into "is this test worth it". that will mess you up.. Go to analystforum.com and to their CFA section for more helpful material.

Good luck.

2 months can easily be enough, depending on your workload at the office.
Naturally, if you have any vacation days you can take, that would help a lot. I passed all 3 levels and never started earlier than 4 weeks before, as I then studied full-time for those 4 weeks (I know, lucky me to have 4 weeks off...).

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Agreed with JB24- the key for Level 1(I passed last June on my first try) is to do as many questions as possible. As you see more and more questions, patterns emerge(i.e. every test might have a diluted EPS but every mock might not have a question on contango). For Level 1, at least, it probably doesnt make sense at this point to be reading the CFA curriculum. Shweser is good and don't underestimate the power of YouTube for any conceptual issues.

QBank is very useful for Level 1- I was scoring in the mid-50s till about a month out when I started the Qbank. Just started absolutely dominating. Remember that in Level 1 each question is independent from eachother(as opposed to L2 when you get the problem sets).

If youre taking the test in New York City(at the Javitz) I highly recommend bringing lunch. I did not and grabbed a sandy at Starbucks(almost didnt have time- line was long af).

If I remember correctly, you only need ~70% to pass, and level 1 is all multiple choice with 3 choices, so you can end up doing much better than you think just by making good guesses, especially if you can eliminate one of the choices. You still have plenty of time. I recommend using 1 week of vacation prior to the exam to cram. If you still feel overwhelmed by the amount of material in the last week then focus on the sections with the highest weighting (I barely studied econ at all 3 levels level BC it was so much material and only had a 5% weighting).

Figure out exactly how many pages/day you need to get through to complete Schweser (and still have at least a week for practice tests) and stick to it.

Don't do the Schweser end of chapter practice questions, they are unlike what you will see on the exam and will slow you down.

If you have to cut/skim sections, do so. Don't be afraid to "give up" on a topic or entire section if it doesn't come naturally to you. The exam is BROAD. You can completely ignore entire sections and still pass.

Consider the Schweser audio book for Ethics (or any section for that matter).

Two months of doing QBank is all you need.