In the July 2011 newsletter, the association announced new changes to the exam(s) beginning in September 2012.
Has anyone focus on these changes and what they mean?
Also, does anyone have (prior years) Schweser Level I exam material they would be interested in selling?
I am looking to get a feel for the “Standards and Ethics”, “Private Equity”, etc. sections of the exam.
Clearly, I will need to purchase the complete Schweser Package should I decide to take the exam next fall.
Thanks!
ebitda4us
I too heard that there has been a massive overhaul of the CAIA Level I curriculum for September.
Supposedly, the September Level I is essentially “all new”, with something approaching 50% more material. (Not sure if this is true.)
Perhaps CAIAA is finally planning to make Level I a serious, challenging curriculum.
Wendy where is your source saying that there is 50% more content.
If that is the case, im kicking myself that I didn’t do it in March.
I received the L1 UpperMark materials for the March 13 exam and they consist of 3 books. My friends who previously took L1 only had to read 2 books. I understand gradually expanding the material, but a 50% jump is overkill, at least IMO. The silver lining is that the material still looks like a stroll in the park compared to CFA.
On April 2012, CAIA introduced the 2nd edition of their textbook. The number of pages went from 670 to 900. So, I am not surprised the 3rd party study materials increased. I have read one-third of the textbook and so far it feels like a review. I just don’t know how it is going to be tested. I will look at the CAIA sample exam questions sometime this week. Good luck!
It’s interesting that the length of the third party books is the same as the CAIA textbook (900 pages). I thought third party would be an abbreviated version as was the case with CFA. It makes me wonder what the point of using third party materials is. I didn’t really look into it much before because my friends used third party and my work paid for study materials.
Third party study notes include Q&A after each chapter unlike the CAIA textbook.
Thanks supra - didn’t know that was the case since I didn’t order the CAIA textbook.
Was anyone shocked at the size of the Schweser books? Looks like the next 6 months is going to be hell.
This is the response I got from UpperMark regarding the new CAIA curriculum: “Before the new Level I curriculum, our Study Handbooks consisted of 2 volumes. Now our Level I Study Handbooks are 3 Volumes. The Level I curriculum was significantly expanded. The Level II curriculum was also changed fairly significantly, but our faculty advises that it was essentially not expanded. In brief, our faculty advises that candidates would need to spend more time preparing for Level I now than before September 2012, but, for Level II, the amount of prep time would be about the same as before, if not even slightly less (since a fairly large amount of quantitative material was removed from the curriculum).”