Study Plan

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samahalobaidli

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Hi All,
So its been a few days since I started studying for my CFA level I for December 2012. I have made a schedule to cover all the books and have a month for the mock and practice exams. Can anyone share a proper study plan so I can compare it to mine and see if im being reasonable.
Thanks Ya’ll
 
Why dont u post ur study plan ?….How many hours ur planning to put in ? Do u have finance background ? Whats your profession ? r u working full time ? what are you studying ? Ur background makes this exam lot easier or harder
 
Well I’ll throw my plan out there:
Background: Econ major, math minor, finance certificate (just finished). Working full time, but generally just bankers hours, uncommon to have to work late or weekends. Occasional weekends taken off of studying for “me time”. I’m single and in a new city too, so that should minimize distractions.
July 1 - September 29: Reading weeks consist of reading a chapter and doing it’s EOC’s, repeat as time permits, on Mon-Fri, then Saturday spend in Qbank, and Sunday redo any EOC’s I got wrong during the week. I’ll do the books in order, but do Ethics a second time at the end, and possibly FRA as well if I’m ahead of schedule (have the feeling that’s gonna be a rough one).
September 30 - November 10: Doing as many practice problems as possible in this period, finding out my weak spots, going back to the CFAI and Schwesernotes as needed. I’ll aim to do two practice exams, maybe 3 if time permits, one of which will be the CFAI practice exam. This is also a buffer period in case I didn’t get through all the material yet. EOC problems first, then remaining time to Qbank.
November 11 - November 30: Booked off (vacation days) for studying. Go through Secret Sauce. Redo all EOC problems, 2 practice exams/week, including redoing any that have already been done. Do the CFAI practice exam last, right before the exam (so 3 exams that week). Fill the remaining time with Qbank and reviewing what secret sauce doesn’t clarify enough for me.
December 1: Nail dat shit!
Failing an exam is an entire extra year gone, and that just doesn’t jive with my life goals :D
 
I majored in Finance. Started working on the treasury floor and now im in investment banking. Working hours are decent so far cause its the summer. I am putting 2-3 hours a day 6 days a week to study. I did my study plan differently. Let me know what you think:
FRA - 3 weeks
Fixed Income - 2 weeks
Quant - 2 weeks
Equity - 2 weeks
Economics - 2 weeks
Ethics - 2 weeks
Corporate Finance - 2 weeks
Portoflio Managment - 1 week
Derivative - 1 week
Alternative Investment - 1 week
I am doing end of chapter questions as im going and I just bought the Q bank questions so I will also be doing those along the way. Im leaving November just to do practice and mock exams.
 
chibwack wrote:
November 11 - November 30: Booked off (vacation days) for studying. Go through Secret Sauce. Redo all EOC problems, 2 practice exams/week, including redoing any that have already been done. Do the CFAI practice exam last, right before the exam (so 3 exams that week). Fill the remaining time with Qbank and reviewing what secret sauce doesn’t clarify enough for me.
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holy crap man 3 weeks vacation!! if you have that much time to study, I would advise taking sundays off to relax or you might get a little bit burned out.
you should do some sort of daily activity to get your mind off studying - like going to the gym or beach or something outside of your study zone
good luck
 
I think using any more than one week of vacation for studying is a waste of your vacation time.
As long as you did enough studying ahead of time, taking off the week before the exam should suffice. Especially for level 1.
To each their own though…
 
chibwack wrote:
November 11 - November 30: Booked off (vacation days) for studying. Go through Secret Sauce. Redo all EOC problems, 2 practice exams/week, including redoing any that have already been done. Do the CFAI practice exam last, right before the exam (so 3 exams that week). Fill the remaining time with Qbank and reviewing what secret sauce doesn’t clarify enough for me.
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Sounds solid. Only comment would be the CFAI mock - I wouldn’t leave till last, but maybe 1-2 weeks before to make sure you get a feel of CFA Institute’s style and still have time to adjust & review. You can always retake it again if you want to be on top of the mock exam before the real thing.
If you leave till last you may be surprised by the format difference and not have enough time to review before the exam.
All the best!
 
usj2 wrote:
chibwack wrote:
November 11 - November 30: Booked off (vacation days) for studying. Go through Secret Sauce. Redo all EOC problems, 2 practice exams/week, including redoing any that have already been done. Do the CFAI practice exam last, right before the exam (so 3 exams that week). Fill the remaining time with Qbank and reviewing what secret sauce doesn’t clarify enough for me.
Click to expand...
Sounds solid. Only comment would be the CFAI mock - I wouldn’t leave till last, but maybe 1-2 weeks before to make sure you get a feel of CFA Institute’s style and still have time to adjust & review. You can always retake it again if you want to be on top of the mock exam before the real thing.
If you leave till last you may be surprised by the format difference and not have enough time to review before the exam.
All the best!
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Yeah that’s what I was thinking too, so you must not have noticed I’ll be doing it in October also, probably my second practice. Then I practice the hell out of the material and try again the week before the exam :D
As far as using all my vacation time in november, it probably is overkill but I’m not doing any big trips or anything this year so I say why not? Plus, having that much time off will allow me to take a weekend here or there to go visit friends/family. That’s of course if the boss will even give me all three weeks consecutively…
 
This is massive overkill for L1. I would expect something like this for L2 or L3.
Burning 3 weeks of vacation for L1 is like taking out your chainsaw to cut butter for your baked potato
 
I’m all for overpreparing as well. So many people study just the right amount of time and get band 10 or so… waiting another year/semester will probably be way worse than studying really hard a couple extra weeks, which may guarantee or almost guarantee a pass.
Although I must mention that iteracom’s butter analogy is amazing!
 
iteracom wrote:
This is massive overkill for L1. I would expect something like this for L2 or L3.
Burning 3 weeks of vacation for L1 is like taking out your chainsaw to cut butter for your baked potato
Click to expand...
At least you’ll definitely slice that in half.
Only risk is that you’ll either burn out or go crazy. If you’re confident you won’t be either I say go for it.
 
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