Schweser books vs. CFA Books

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Bronson

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Hello,

I need advice on the difference between CFA official Books for December 2008 and Schweser 2007 notes.

Are the Notes good enough, even though 2007? Has anyone compared both materials?

Regards
 
You get the CFAI books anyway and it's June with a test in December. Why the hell would you want to use old material?
 
do a search on manavsachdeva for a link to the comparision...
 
I now have Schweser 2008 and also CFA official books 2008.

Books sum up to 2,800 pages approx and Schweser to 1,500.
I started with books, and tried Schweser after, and decided to go with Schweser only, since I find it much more concise.
I also found out that there are so many unnecessery things in the Books which will just draw attention and loose time.
However I found some lectures which are not in Schweser like the last lecture in Statistics or a small sample formula for skewness and kurtosis is not stated in Schweser at all.

Is Schweser defficient or it just leaves out really unnecessery things?
 
The best approach might be to just read schweser, take all the practice questions from schweser and then go back and do all the end of chapter questions from the official CFA books and see where you need help. I tend to go back and forth between the two and have not noticed too much deviation from the two.
 
If you have a degree in finance or accounting, you can use schweser 95% of the time and use CFAI materials for more background on subjects you're not that familiar with.

If you don't have a STRONG background in finance, you'll want to spend the extra time reading CFAI books. At least 40 - 50% of the time.


The thing with Schweser is it will condense a paragraph or two into one sentence. If you're not already familiar with the underlying concepts, will you really remember this one sentence 6 months from now? Probably not, it would be much better for you to read the two paragraphs and UNDERSTAND what it means.

If you have the time, read CFAI first, then read Schweser (Book 1 CFAI, then Book 1 Schweser, then Book 2 CFAI followed by Book 2 Schweser.... etc etc) You'll get the underlying concepts, and then an extra reinforcement of the important topics.
 
Thanks for the advices people,

You are right, as far as 1st half of 1st book is concerned Schweser is good enough for me, and I find my background helpful. Although I do not have degree in accounting or finance, my major was international trade but we had a lot of financial basic subjects and I also have some working experience. Schweser saves a lot of time and I think that also explains things short and pretty good.
the only thing I am less familiar and struggle to understand are real life examples, which I did not encounter so far at work.

Returning to CFA books questions after Schweser will definitely fill the gap, if any.
 
i'd recommend CFAI and Qbank or any other question banks you can get your hands on...
 
I've adopted the same approach as Swissaholic. I'm studying Schweser and then going through the end of chapter summaries and questions in the CFA books. You can spot very quickly if you've got any gaps in your knowledge.
 
Its very convenient to use study notes in the begining and referring to the CFAI books for any topic that you want further detail on. If you can read the notes and then are able to solve the end of chapter problems from the CFAI books, the notes are suitable for that topic. If you cant do that, then best to read only CFAI books.

In any case, two or three readings are required for the whole curriculum. You could read the notes, then skim through CFAI and finally review the material in the end from the notes. Question Banks are great!
 
I have 2008 CFAI books and 2007 Schweser Notes. Although the notes are one year behind, I believe the major underlying concepts are unchanged. I still prefer to read CFAI books first and then go to notes.

Do you guys think 2 hrs reading per day good enough? I try to squeeze that 2 hrs with high concentration - not easy though... too many distractions from everyday life.
 
250 hours / 2hours per day = 125 days.

6 December 2008 - 4 July 2008 = 155 days.

155>125. So yes.

http://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprog/charterholder/program/howlong.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Friday, July 4, 2008 at 11:20AM by chrismaths.
 
sabdazar:

You write, "In any case, two or three readings are required for the whole curriculum." What are the two or three reading that you are referring to?


Can anyone else comment? Is he referring to readings 1-4 (ethics, ethics, gips, gips)?

Thanks!
 
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