Firstly I confess that I have been a lurker for a couple of months on this forum. I accidently stumbled onto this forum while trying to look for reactions to Level 1 exam on June 07th. Believe me, it was a confidence shattering experience to read some of the opinions, especially those where people suggested finishing both sections in 2:30 hours. To say the least, after those initial post exam days, this forum has not only given me valuable insights into the CFA curriculum, but has managed to entertain and amuse me from time to time.
Continuing in the vein of the subject of this thread, I am posting my L1 experience and preparation. I cleared L1 this june.
I enrolled for L1 in March 2008. Due to personal reasons, I couldn�t have given it in Dec and hence had to decide between waiting one more year or having a crack at it in 85 days. I obviously decided on the latter. I come from a non finance background, masters in industrial engineering, working in the banking sector for the last 4 years.
I received the CFA package on 15th of March once I came back from work. The minute I opened the package and went through the books, I realized the deep @#$%& I was in. The only thing I probably understood in those books was Quant. Frantically talked to a friend of mine who has failed L1 twice and asked for his advice�.all I really wanted him to say is �its possible�. Well that didn�t happen. I had a pretty long night that night. I had already lost $1450 and my confidence. In the end I decided to give it my best. I decided against using any other resource primarily because of lack of time and also money crunch.
Started with Quant to build my confidence and this is the only section where I didn�t solve back of the chapter questions. Kept strict deadlines for myself 3-4 hours everyday after work and 7-8 hours on weekends. On regular weekday I would target to finish 3 readings at least. This was the sequence of books I went through
Quant, Economics, Corporate finance and portfolio management, Equity and fixed income, derivative and alternative investments and lastly FSA. The sequence was more psychological than anything else. I wanted to finish as many books as early as I could Carried Ethics printouts everywhere� bus, bed, restroom.
I am a huge politics buff and people in the US would know that the primaries were underway around that time. I tried to keep targets like �before the Pennsylvania primary I should finish 4 books�. Primary days were rest days not by choice but I just couldn�t study. Anyways by the end of April, I was done with everything except derivatives and FSA. By this time I knew I didn�t remember anything of economics for sure. FSA in my opinion was the worst of the lot. I regretted my decision to keep this critical section for the last. Moreover I hit a lot of bottlenecks in terms of understanding the material. Sometimes I wondered if they were written in English or some other foreign language. I remember calling up friends late at night on weekends when they were half drunk, trying to understand cash flows, tax adjustments�during these times there were only bad days and then worse days. One good thing that happened is the thought of quitting never came.
If I didn�t understand the topic, I googled it, read a different source�discussed topics with people, friends. I never really got hung up on a topic�if it took too much time understanding, I moved to the next one, came back after a few days.
Believe it or not except for FSA and economics, I thought my retention and understanding of all other topics was not that bad. In the next month I not only finished the remaining topics but reviewed the material a second time.
For the final week, I had only quant and sample/mock exams to give. I gave the first sample exam on 2nd of June�flunked it miserably�scored like a 50%....time was also an issue. For the mock exam, I decided I would concentrate on accuracy and forget abt attempting all questions�..attempted only 80 of the 120 questions and got 50 right�.ran out of time to give the second mock exam.
Even though things were not really going good, I convinced myself that from where I started�it wasn�t too bad. Moreover giving an exam on the PC with no choice but to attempt the questions in order in which they are presented also hampered the performance
For the actual exam, I decided on the exact sequence in which to attempt the different sections�.had a clear strategy�.believe me this really helps.
In spite of all this, in the AM section I was struggling not so much on the content, but on the time. In the last 15 minutes call, I had 15 questions unanswered. I circled all of them before I gave a genuine attempt. I couldn�t attempt 4-5 questions on derivatives for sure.
Lunch break was the time for smokes and more smokes�.didnt know it was because I thought I did well or because I was scared what was in store. The second time around, I knew I was slow by maybe 15-20 minutes and had to cut time on my strong topics which were quant and portfolio management. I did finish the PM section in the nick of time. Throughout the exam I thought to myself that people left the exam hall early cause they didn�t know the subject. That thought cleared once I stumbled on this forum. I actually felt pretty good getting out. I thought I completely cracked quant and maybe even economics and I was hoping for some bit of luck.
I know some of you would have put in much more and failed. All I can say is guys don�t give up. I hope you derive some motivation from my tale. For the first timers all the best
While I know my scores are not the best, I am pretty happy with the results.
My scores are as follows.
Multiple Choice Q# Topic Max Pts <=50% 51%-70% >70%
- Alternative Investments 8 * - -
- Corporate Finance 20 - - *
- Derivatives 12 * - -
- Economics 24 - * -
- Equity Investments 24 - * -
- Ethical & Professional Standards 36 - * -
- Financial Statement Analysis 48 - * -
- Fixed Income Investments 28 - * -
- Portfolio Management 12 - - *
- Quantitative Methods 28 - - *
Continuing in the vein of the subject of this thread, I am posting my L1 experience and preparation. I cleared L1 this june.
I enrolled for L1 in March 2008. Due to personal reasons, I couldn�t have given it in Dec and hence had to decide between waiting one more year or having a crack at it in 85 days. I obviously decided on the latter. I come from a non finance background, masters in industrial engineering, working in the banking sector for the last 4 years.
I received the CFA package on 15th of March once I came back from work. The minute I opened the package and went through the books, I realized the deep @#$%& I was in. The only thing I probably understood in those books was Quant. Frantically talked to a friend of mine who has failed L1 twice and asked for his advice�.all I really wanted him to say is �its possible�. Well that didn�t happen. I had a pretty long night that night. I had already lost $1450 and my confidence. In the end I decided to give it my best. I decided against using any other resource primarily because of lack of time and also money crunch.
Started with Quant to build my confidence and this is the only section where I didn�t solve back of the chapter questions. Kept strict deadlines for myself 3-4 hours everyday after work and 7-8 hours on weekends. On regular weekday I would target to finish 3 readings at least. This was the sequence of books I went through
Quant, Economics, Corporate finance and portfolio management, Equity and fixed income, derivative and alternative investments and lastly FSA. The sequence was more psychological than anything else. I wanted to finish as many books as early as I could Carried Ethics printouts everywhere� bus, bed, restroom.
I am a huge politics buff and people in the US would know that the primaries were underway around that time. I tried to keep targets like �before the Pennsylvania primary I should finish 4 books�. Primary days were rest days not by choice but I just couldn�t study. Anyways by the end of April, I was done with everything except derivatives and FSA. By this time I knew I didn�t remember anything of economics for sure. FSA in my opinion was the worst of the lot. I regretted my decision to keep this critical section for the last. Moreover I hit a lot of bottlenecks in terms of understanding the material. Sometimes I wondered if they were written in English or some other foreign language. I remember calling up friends late at night on weekends when they were half drunk, trying to understand cash flows, tax adjustments�during these times there were only bad days and then worse days. One good thing that happened is the thought of quitting never came.
If I didn�t understand the topic, I googled it, read a different source�discussed topics with people, friends. I never really got hung up on a topic�if it took too much time understanding, I moved to the next one, came back after a few days.
Believe it or not except for FSA and economics, I thought my retention and understanding of all other topics was not that bad. In the next month I not only finished the remaining topics but reviewed the material a second time.
For the final week, I had only quant and sample/mock exams to give. I gave the first sample exam on 2nd of June�flunked it miserably�scored like a 50%....time was also an issue. For the mock exam, I decided I would concentrate on accuracy and forget abt attempting all questions�..attempted only 80 of the 120 questions and got 50 right�.ran out of time to give the second mock exam.
Even though things were not really going good, I convinced myself that from where I started�it wasn�t too bad. Moreover giving an exam on the PC with no choice but to attempt the questions in order in which they are presented also hampered the performance
For the actual exam, I decided on the exact sequence in which to attempt the different sections�.had a clear strategy�.believe me this really helps.
In spite of all this, in the AM section I was struggling not so much on the content, but on the time. In the last 15 minutes call, I had 15 questions unanswered. I circled all of them before I gave a genuine attempt. I couldn�t attempt 4-5 questions on derivatives for sure.
Lunch break was the time for smokes and more smokes�.didnt know it was because I thought I did well or because I was scared what was in store. The second time around, I knew I was slow by maybe 15-20 minutes and had to cut time on my strong topics which were quant and portfolio management. I did finish the PM section in the nick of time. Throughout the exam I thought to myself that people left the exam hall early cause they didn�t know the subject. That thought cleared once I stumbled on this forum. I actually felt pretty good getting out. I thought I completely cracked quant and maybe even economics and I was hoping for some bit of luck.
I know some of you would have put in much more and failed. All I can say is guys don�t give up. I hope you derive some motivation from my tale. For the first timers all the best
While I know my scores are not the best, I am pretty happy with the results.
My scores are as follows.
Multiple Choice Q# Topic Max Pts <=50% 51%-70% >70%
- Alternative Investments 8 * - -
- Corporate Finance 20 - - *
- Derivatives 12 * - -
- Economics 24 - * -
- Equity Investments 24 - * -
- Ethical & Professional Standards 36 - * -
- Financial Statement Analysis 48 - * -
- Fixed Income Investments 28 - * -
- Portfolio Management 12 - - *
- Quantitative Methods 28 - - *
