STUDY HOURS

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michael299

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Hi guys,

I would like to make a survey to know how many hours of study do you devote daily to L1 exam, especially on week end. I am from a non financial background and I think I will need more than twice the recommended 250 h. For those who work, how do you manage your time afterwork. Any tips also to share to stay awake at night.

Thanks
 
I put approx 3-4 hours per weekend and 10-14 hours each weekend. I have an undergrad in FNC, but work is not directly related to the material.

If you are taking in June 09 you have plenty of time, but make sure you pace yourself because everything they say about being burnt out is true. If you get frustrated with a reading or study session just plow through it and keep going.

Good Luck!!
 
I started a little late (end of August); so, I doubled up on the hours my first four weeks. I would do about 4 -5 during the weekdays, while taking Friday's off, and would put in anywhere between 10 -15 hours on the weekends. After hitting 140 mark in about week 5 I kind of scaled it back to about 3 hours on the weekdays and about 12 hours on the weekends.

My goal was to do an average of 30 hours per week for 15 weeks (total amount of time from I began studying to the exam date).

If you want to stay awake at night, stay at work and grab a couple cups of coffee and a conference room and study. It may suck because you won't get home until late, depending on what time you finish work and how many hours you put in. But, what I would do is wake up an extra hour to get into work an hour earlier and study before my day started (around 8:30). If I had time, I would take an hour to study during lunch; but, I never relied on this bc I normally work through lunch. Then after work (around 6:30 -7 for me) I would study for three hours.

I may be overdoing it; but, I just like to be over-prepared for exams. This is how I was in undergrad and this approach helped me graduate with honors and make dean's list almost every semester I was in school . . .
 
thanks for your advice. What level are you doing now?
 
I passed L1 in June and will start studying for L2 near the end of November. My undergrad was in Fin & Econ.

For L1, I started the first week of January and kept the following schedule:
- 15 - 30 hours per week
- 1 Study Session per week (Would start reading the material on Sunday and through the week with Saturday having a heavy emphasis on problem solving for the SS. Basically, I tried to be as prepared by the end of the week as if I were going to take a test on just that material on Saturday).
- Finished all of the material with about a month to go, so then I began to review. Now, it's easier to re-learn material than it is to learn initially, so hopefully, you were able to learn the material relatively well the first time around.
- Took vacation days the last week before the exam and studied 14 - 16 hours per day from that Saturday through Thursday and covered nearly all of the material one last time. I was able to put forth that amount of studying because I would study for 45 minutes and take a 15 minute break (kept me from buring out...I highly recommend doing this). Didn't touch the information at all the day before, or the day of the exam. There's just so much stuff that I just went over that I wanted it all to gel in my head.

A couple of notes:
- take as many practice exams as possible (the ones available throuth the CFAI are very good. They will give you a good idea of your week points, and how the exam will be formatted. However, don't get discouraged if you fail them, because nearly everyone does. I did not pass a single one (including the last one I took a week before the exam). My range was somewhere around the 55 - 67%, with the lower 60s being the most consistent.
- Try not to get too discouraged if you can't remember the material when you are reviewing it. It is so much stuff that very few, if any, do. That's why you need some time to review everything.

Sorry if my response was a little wordy. The approach I took may not work for everyone, but I found it was very good for me. As far as how many hours I logged, there is no telling. Definitely much more than the recommended 250 hours though.

Good luck.
 
JensensalphaMale, did you use the CFAI texts or Schweser/Stalla to prepare?
 
Thank you for being so precise. I started studying and said to myself that I would do the questions only after studying all the CFA material. Do you think this is a bad idea?
 
me1999now Wrote:
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> JensensalphaMale, did you use the CFAI texts or
> Schweser/Stalla to prepare?


I started using just the CFAI text, while trying to create my own notes. However, I began to start getting bogged down. I think I was making my notes too precise and in depth. Sometime around mid-March, I bought the Schweser notes. I didnt' use them as a substitute of the text, but rather as a supplement.

I would:
- Read the Schweser books for a reading
- Read the CFAI Text for that reading
- Re-read the Schweser books, but this time adding some additional info where I thought Schweser was lacking information
- Studied the Scwheser notes w/ my added notes
- Worked CFAI practice problems and studied the Schweser notes further where necessary.

While many people have passed using JUST the Schweser notes, I probably wouldn't recommend it unless you have an extensive Fin background. The problems are pretty much coming directly from the text, and the text will help you gain a deep understanding of the material (which is sometimes necessary based on how the institute words their exam questions). The schweser notes were great as a study supplement though.

I know it seems like I kind of overdid it, but I didn't want to invest 5 months of my life to a FAIL. Regardless of what you choose to do, good luck.
 
michael299 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thank you for being so precise. I started studying
> and said to myself that I would do the questions
> only after studying all the CFA material. Do you
> think this is a bad idea?


That approach wouldn't have worked for me (but to each his own). I found that I learned the material pretty well the first time around because i was working problems while studying it. This made re-learning it later on a little bit easier. If you wait until the end, it may make re-learning the concepts more difficult because you haven't had the practice.

That approach may work for you (different approaches work for different people), but it certainly wouldn't have for me.

I hope that my response was helpful. Good luck.
 
I think questions after all material is a terrible idea.

I learned a lot of the material THROUGH questions and I find it highly efficient. It is not a substitute for reading of course but I spend at least 50% of my time on them.
 
I do enough so that I never do more than 2 readings in a day (questions included), and take at most 2 days per reading (some FSA sections were the exception). That turns out to be about 3-5 hrs a day. I'm up to about 200 hrs. I have derivatives and ethics left, and then review.
 
ive done 90 hours logged so far, hoping to get 200 when it's all said and done. i come from an accounting background though.
 
i logged in a total of 300 by the time i was done. for the last 3-4 months, i studied in the mornings frmo 630-930 and then 4-6 hours on saturday. took sundays off.

i took the full week off before and put in a good 6-8 a day the last week. only studied 30 minutes the day before the exam and rested.

my best advice for you is to try and get used to getting up earlier than you have to. it was easier for me to get used to going to bed earlier and getting studying done in the am.

also make sure you take the CFAI.com exams, While i didnt pass a single one of the CFAI exams, i did score around 65 on them. i was also scoring in high 80's to 100 in schweser mock exams. dont kid yourselves by thinking your doing good by scoring high in schweser. use the cfai exams to gauge your readiness.

good luck!
 
For me its all about Qbank and learning outcomes - I make sure to do 3% of the 4104 questions each day, so my emphasis is more on ground covered than time spent. This can take several hours, but it depends on the particular topic (some days easier than others).

In previous weeks I have read through the CFA readings, taking notes when I saw fit, and answering end of reading questions. HOWEVER - I feel that the CFA chapters often contain information that is not particularly relevant to the learning statements.

By answering questions relating to my material every hour or so definitely keeps my eye on the ball, and I would say leaving questions until you have covered all the material is a bad idea.

This is just my method, whether it leads to failure or pass remains to be seen!
 
I usually study 2-3 hours a day during the week, take Friday and Saturday off, and study 6-8 hours on Sunday. Sometimes I do a 20 question test during lunch. I got to the end of Session 12 so far and done about 30% of the Qbank - I do not do Basic questions, I test myself after each session with only Intermediate and Advanced.
I base on Schweser, however, I read some of the CFAI as well.
 
Are you guys serious? How do you have so much time?

I work a 60-65 hour week in my job and I am usually so tired I get no work done in the evenings. I do an hour before work first thing in the morning, so I guess I only get 5 hours done during the week. And I do approx 4 hours each day on Saturday/Sunday.
So in total I think I do about 12-13 hours a week. And have been doing since August. So, so far I've done just under 100 hours.

Its just not possible for me to fit any more studying in! I have an accounting and finance degree, and I'm a chartered accountant. I also work in Equity Valuations so I'm hoping this will all help. I'd like to study more, but I don't see how I could do it.
 
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