Calling Dec 2014 L1 takers

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sunstarn

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Hi,
I began my prep a month ago with FRA and I’m just done with it and moved onto Equity&Fixed Income. I am completely relying on CFA prescribed material and preparing from the same. For those of you who followed the same what was the level of difficulty and how similar was it in the december exam when compared to the EOC qstns in CFA official material? Can I continue preparing in the same manner or any extra preparation is required? ‘Cos after reading every chapter I’m able to solve,if not all, most of the EOC problems/qstns. Jus wanted to know your thoughts…
Tia. :)
P.S: If it make any difference, I come from non-finance background. CFA L1 is my first foray into this field
 
sunstarn wrote:
Hi,
I began my prep a month ago with FRA and I’m just done with it and moved onto Equity&Fixed Income. I am completely relying on CFA prescribed material and preparing from the same. For those of you who followed the same what was the level of difficulty and how similar was it in the december exam when compared to the EOC qstns in CFA official material? Can I continue preparing in the same manner or any extra preparation is required? ‘Cos after reading every chapter I’m able to solve,if not all, most of the EOC problems/qstns. Jus wanted to know your thoughts…
Tia. :)
P.S: If it make any difference, I come from non-finance background. CFA L1 is my first foray into this field
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CFA has a lot of material. Memorizing everything will be very tough. I found the best way to do this was through Q-bank questions. The CFA books are fine for prep material and will honestly be all that you need, but I would supplement and buy q-bank questions from a prep course. It will help build your foundation.
 
Do the EOCs, most importantly Take lots of mock exams (time a few), Qbank was my favorite tool but most qbank questions are not that hard. If your starting this early your in a much better boat then I was because I only started 3 months before.
Be prepared for tricky questions. You may think you know the answer and you probably did until you go back and grade yourself, you notice it actually said something 3 sentences before like What is the “least likely” or “most probable.” I made a habit of circling these statements to keep from tripping up.
Be mentally and physically prepared on exam day, I was physically tired by the afternoon session because when I did the mocks I usually only did one session per day. Try doing the full time length in the weeks previous to the exam so you know that you have the stamina.
 
Supplement it with Q-banks and make sure you attempt the BB (Blue boxes) questions in the CFAI Curriculum.
CFAI Curriculum is all you require but considering the time constraints and the volume of the study material, it might not be advisable cos you need approximately one month before the exam date to attempt CFAI mock exams and Third party practice questions (if available).
Also, make sure you grasp the principle of each LOS thoroughly. As stated by @Mark1440, you need to be mentally and physically prepared on the exam day.
Cheers!!!
 
The Cfa books are enough, but make sure you have enough mock exams at your disposal. I encourage you to take at least 6 mock exams and try to take at least 2 of them like the real thing (two 3-hour sessions with just 1 h in beteween)
good luck!
 
I think the very closest you can get to the exam is to do the CFAI official mocks. Both the level of difficulty and style are very similar to that of the exam in my opinion.
The EOC’s aren’t always written in the style of the exam: a lot of them are not even multiple choice but just ‘explain’ type questions. Now don’t get me wrong- these are still good for getting your head around concepts but they’re not always a representation of what you’ll see in the exam.
 
The only bad thing about official CFAI mock exams is that questions are not organized by topic. This can be pretty confusing since the real exam is divided by topics…
 
You’re on the right track. I also solely relied on CFAI material and went through the curriculum as you are, acing EOC questions. But here’s the thing I realized; the challenge is not grasping the readings as you go through, but retaining enough of this material by exam date. So continue on, but do not get too complacent just because you’re doing well on your EOC questions. I can guarantee you if you were to finish the entire curriculum and achieve 90% in all EOC questions for every reading, you would still fail the exam if you simply wrote it immediately following your last reading.
So my advice is to aim to get through that first read 1.5-2 months prior to exam date. Your challenge will then be to review and hammer the important concepts into your head. I didn’t do any Q-bank, but simply took notes on my 2nd time through, and although time consuming, it was effective. Everyone may not have that kind of time though, so only recommended if you do. You should aim to have 2nd read/review finished a solid 3+ weeks from exam, where you can start doing mocks, and working on your weaknesses.
 
Yeah! I agree with @SHoot85, full grasp of the concept and practice is key to success for CFA exams.
Best of luck!
 
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