ECON

CFA Level I Economics
#1

Some background: I scored a band 9 in June. Had above average on 5 sections, 3 sections average, and 2 sections bombed.

The 2 sections bombed were the sections that i planed on “winging,” Fixed Income and Econ. I am kicking myself in the ass, because i was hoping to “get lucky” on exam day. This past week i started reviewing everything again and I first went over the fixed income sections. In about 3 days, i feel like i had a good grasp of the fixed income concepts. I took a few QBank schweser advanced questions and surprisingly scored 90% on all of them.

So my question is now Economics. I took 2 econ classes many years ago in college. The Schweser book for Econ is big, even though it is a lower weighted part of the exam. Is it worth my time/possible to actually learn this econ, or would it be better to spend my time on reviewing the other sections? Or should I just review the secret sauce secitons on Econ and make sure I know some things like different market structures.

PS: I hate econ, i hope it is not a large part of Level II.

#2

It’s 10% of the total points, so I’d say that you need to take it seriously. True, it’s not FRA (20%) Ethics (15%) , or FI or QM (12% each), but it’s still one of the bigger ones.

And even more, Econ is a big part of L2. So I’d say suck it up - if you do manage to squeek by L1, you’ll still see it in L2.

#3

I think it’s worth using the low hanging fruit approach, aim to be able to solve 80% of the 40% easy questions, get about a half of the 40% medium questions (be able to eliminate one wrong answer) and randomly guess at the rest. So you should aim for a 50% in mocks excluding random guesses. If you get into the 50-70% range and do well at the rest, you’ll pass, but i wouldn’t try to “wing” it again, it just does not work.

Econ is still in L2, but usually, there is only one item set during the set so 5% worth. However, there can be up to two item sets. If you hate L1 econ, you’ll cringe when you see L2 econ. L2 is much less intuitive than L1 and can be quite esoteric.

#4

You can’t eliminate or deffer economics books.Economics is having a 10% weighted in level 1 exams. Economics is very important part of finance studies and you need to be concious about that.

#5

You can’t eliminate or deffer economics books.Economics is having a 10% weighted in level 1 exams. Economics is very important part of finance studies and you need to be conscious about that.

#6

Reread the first section of Econ. I am just terrible at it. Elasticity and all. How helpful are the Khan academy videos? I’m going through those now.

#7

Although I don’t know the elasticity videos specifically, the Khan Academy videos are generally first-rate.

If you have specific questions about, say, elasticity, please post them; I, for one, will do my best to help.

#8

Every topic is important for CFA exam. So, you can not skip anything. Khan Academy videos are awesome, still if you have doubts shoot it here and we will try to help you.