I could use some study advice…
I haven’t sat for the CFA L1 exam since June 2009. It’s now almost September 2013. The first time around I realized that the study material was too slow back then and picked up some old Schweser 2008 notes. The differences seemed miniscule. I came fairly close to passing, but everything was new given my undergrad degree was management.
Fast forward to today, I am currently enrolled in the December 2013 level 1 exam and am pressed for time due to home repair projects this summer. I still have the old 2008 notes 100% fully marked up and color coded. In general, I’m not a fast reader. With the marked up notes I’m doubling and sometimes quadrupling my read speed today versus 2008 (I logged every hour without breaks back in 2009). It took me about 230 hours of studying to finish everything, and 30 additional hours practicing tests.
Also, I am half-way through my evening MBA program with a finance focus on Investment Management. I have been averaging in the A range. Over the next 3 months I will simultaneously be taking one MBA advanced investments class on topics like real estate, venture capital, hedge funds and distressed debt. I do not currently work in the financial sector. I have already taken relevant classes on Quant, Micro, Macro, Corporate Finance, Financial Statement Analysis, and Investments (covering fixed income, portfolio management, equities, and derivatives)
My Questions to the CFA Study Community: My dilemma is that I have three sources of material to study from. The old Schweser notes are marked up, my recent MBA text books are marked up with notes as well, and my new 2013 books are untouched.
1) Which study material should I use and what is the best plan of attack?
2) What sections have been updated the most since 2008?
My current plan:
1. Re-learn from the 2008 Schweser notes as most of the material likely has not fundamentally changed.
2. Do all the practice problems at the end of each section of the 2013 official CFA books.
3. Mark every 2013 practice problem I didn’t know.
4. Study the marked questions using both my MBA class notes and the official book making notation of the sections that seem new.
5. Taking a lot of practice exams during the months of October and November.
6. Take off a couple days before the December exam to make final preparations.
At the moment, I figure that doing problems may be the best method. Correct me if I’m wrong, but with 2008 being the year of the financial crisis, I would imagine risk management and ethics likely have been changed around. I know some purists would say to re-learn directly from the 2013 material, but that seems like too much to do with 3 months remaining. I’ve been knocked off schedule. I started the 2008 Schweser material a week ago and finished Economics in a few days. I am on to financial statement analysis now.
Thoughts on how best to succeed?
Thanks!
I haven’t sat for the CFA L1 exam since June 2009. It’s now almost September 2013. The first time around I realized that the study material was too slow back then and picked up some old Schweser 2008 notes. The differences seemed miniscule. I came fairly close to passing, but everything was new given my undergrad degree was management.
Fast forward to today, I am currently enrolled in the December 2013 level 1 exam and am pressed for time due to home repair projects this summer. I still have the old 2008 notes 100% fully marked up and color coded. In general, I’m not a fast reader. With the marked up notes I’m doubling and sometimes quadrupling my read speed today versus 2008 (I logged every hour without breaks back in 2009). It took me about 230 hours of studying to finish everything, and 30 additional hours practicing tests.
Also, I am half-way through my evening MBA program with a finance focus on Investment Management. I have been averaging in the A range. Over the next 3 months I will simultaneously be taking one MBA advanced investments class on topics like real estate, venture capital, hedge funds and distressed debt. I do not currently work in the financial sector. I have already taken relevant classes on Quant, Micro, Macro, Corporate Finance, Financial Statement Analysis, and Investments (covering fixed income, portfolio management, equities, and derivatives)
My Questions to the CFA Study Community: My dilemma is that I have three sources of material to study from. The old Schweser notes are marked up, my recent MBA text books are marked up with notes as well, and my new 2013 books are untouched.
1) Which study material should I use and what is the best plan of attack?
2) What sections have been updated the most since 2008?
My current plan:
1. Re-learn from the 2008 Schweser notes as most of the material likely has not fundamentally changed.
2. Do all the practice problems at the end of each section of the 2013 official CFA books.
3. Mark every 2013 practice problem I didn’t know.
4. Study the marked questions using both my MBA class notes and the official book making notation of the sections that seem new.
5. Taking a lot of practice exams during the months of October and November.
6. Take off a couple days before the December exam to make final preparations.
At the moment, I figure that doing problems may be the best method. Correct me if I’m wrong, but with 2008 being the year of the financial crisis, I would imagine risk management and ethics likely have been changed around. I know some purists would say to re-learn directly from the 2013 material, but that seems like too much to do with 3 months remaining. I’ve been knocked off schedule. I started the 2008 Schweser material a week ago and finished Economics in a few days. I am on to financial statement analysis now.
Thoughts on how best to succeed?
Thanks!