Hey guys… I know this forum is pretty much dead… But if anybody comes across this post… Just wondering a few things about CAIA. What material did you use to study? the official book? or Schwesser? And if schwesser, is that enough?? Also, how long did you study? I’m a CFA level 2 candidate… sat for the exam this June, and i’m awaiting my results… I’m assuming the material overlaps quite a bit… but any idea on how much? Thanks!
I am studying for level 1 right now and only using the official textbook. I feel that, although dense, it is fairly straightforward. The only issue I have is that they don’t have many practice questions. Once I get through the text I am going back and reviewing there practice questions. If needed, I may buy the Uppermark practice questions/exams, but not their notes. I have recently received my CFA charter and I am expecting to study half as much for this as I did for the CFA exams. While there is some overlap, there really isn’t a ton. The CFA program is a good prereq, but this definitely digs a lot deeper in alternatives. The CFA barely touches the surface compared to this text.
Thanks for the repsonse. This was exactly what I was looking for. I guess I should get started sooner than I was originally planning! I was going to give myself a month to study… But from what you’re saying I feel that I would need a little over a month just in case. Thanks for the info. and best of luck to you on the exam.
book arrived today… Its hard to imagine that this is the only book i need! I’m so used to seeing these HUGE books from CFA… I think I’m going to read Schweser back and forth from work… and suppliment what I read with the actual textbook. Do you guys think this should be enough? And planning on spending the last few weeks (2-3) just doing questions.
MK514, that sounds like enough as long as you work through as many questions as you can. There might be a benefit to squeezing in some questions earlier than the final 2-3 weeks. I did 10-20 questions per day while studying just to stay fresh and then did test-sized sets of questions (or half tests) the final few weeks to ensure that I had practiced most (if not all) of the topics and LOs.
Thanks for your input ATH Ok… So its been a few weeks… Just to give everybody an update… I finished reading the first book for schweser… and on my way with the second… I havne’t touched the official book, and plan on doing so once I finish schweser’s books… Honestly… i gotta say that the reading is REALLY DRY! I expected something along the lines of CFA reading… where… its annoying, and hard… but really good and interesting in terms of the material… And another problem that I think I would need to overcome is the fact that almost all the things that I’m running across in the reading is something that was touched upon in CFA… so I feel like I know… when most likely I don’t recall the details of things. And I agree with ATH… I plan on doing all EOC questions during my reading of the official book (doing schweser questions) and then work through the practice exams during my final weeks.
I read the CAIA recommended books, then moved to Schweser, took the online video class as well, did all the questions in the qbank…every other day I did a mini test on one section (maybe 25 questions) or multiple sections (50-60 questions), the biggest help was the doing the questions over and over…and over, passed no problem.