Hey guys. I’m a PhD candidate in computer science at a target school. Finance interests me as a career choice, so I just registered for the CFA Level 1 December exam earlier today. However, I have no prior experience in accounting or finance. I’ve minored in economics and have some prior knowledge there.
What should I do to prepare? To be honest, I didn’t research the exam much before registering, which was stupid. I made the decision on an impulse. Anyway, now I have a little over three months to prepare and have never studied finance before.
Should I buy Elan or Schweser, and if so which one? Or should I just focus on the CFAI material given that I don’t have the background? I’ve heard the CFAI stuff is 3000 pages and that Schweser is 3/4 that length. Daunting stuff. But I’ve also heard Elan is very good - how long is it compared to CFAI?
It is always better to study from CFAI material. But CFAI material needs time investment. You should have around 400 hours to study once from CFAI material and revision also takes time if you don’t make your own notes. You will need close to 600 hours if you are planning to study from CFAI material. The course can be finished in 300-400 hours if you study from Schweser and combine it with CFAI material. There are few topics (2-3%) which Schweser notes do not cover for level I. You will get to know about those topics if you do the End of Chapter (EOC) problems from CFAI material.
The best strategy for you could be covering the syllabus from third party content provider like Elan or Schweser and attempt EOC questions from CFAI material and also cover bluebox examples from CFAI material. I do not much about Elan material. But people say that it’s also good.
If you have enough time and can devote 5-6 hours daily or 35-40 hours weekly, you can study from the curriculum books. Otherwise you can always rely on Schweser or Elan. Or you can also cover the key subjects like Ethics and FRA from CFAI books and rest from Schweser/Elan. But if you can devote only 20 hours per week, then it would be really tough to cover syllbaus from CFAI material.
I don’t know much about Elan notes. But their videos are longer in duration than Schweser vidoes as they are more detailed. So, I guess their notes would also be more detailed. Candidates appreciate the quality of questions from Elan. The questions from Elan are very similar to EOC questions from CFAI curriculum. But I think that doing EOC questions will take considerable amount of time. There are more than 1,000 questions in the book. Solving those many problems along with few mocks can be sufficient. Although it depends from person to person. Few people do not feel confident unless they solve more than 3,000 questions. Schweser provides around 4,000 practice problems.
You can visit Elan website. They provide around 10% of curriculum free of cost. You can signup for 7 days free access to notes and videos and then can make the decision accordingly whether to go with Elan or Schweser.
I just replied to your another thread pmarley concerning the number of pages. I used Elan this year and passed very comfortably. I just solved EOC questions and read the summaries from curriculum.
Haha - thanks guys, it’s definitely Elan for me. I think I’ll just use the notes, no videos. Will try to get through all the material within two months, and for the last month, practice hard.
You really have to pack in a lot into a short amount of time. If you have a long commute I’d also recommend some audio notes just to reinforce the material. I’ve heard good things about Stauffer International and Allen Resources.
I have never used Elan but in your case it may be a good idea to use CFAI texts even if it’s lengthier.
If you have no prior knowledge in accounting or finance, you really need every term to be “explained” to you in detail, if you use the study guide, they may teach you the material, but they do not explain each line item as detailed as possible.
If you are interested in a career in finance, you do want to learn right? not just passing the exam because it’s required by your boss…
You may read a lot faster with external study guides but if you do not learn the material and fail L1 then all the energy is wasted.
You’re right, NANA. I would use the CFA materials if I had the time. But I’m worried that if I get into them, I will not have the time to finish it all in three months.
Spend more time on quality studying rather than worrying about the quantity of time spent. Try creating a study schedule and sticking to it so once you get closer to the exam, you are just reviewing, not learning new material. Try using this scheduler:
Looking at the time constraint you should go for material which explains the topic in fewer lines. But you should keep CFA notes handy as in case if you don’t understand any topic, you can refer to the CFA notes. As though CFA notes are lengthy but they explain it good. Also, as rightly mentioned earlier, practice is the key to success. Do practice as many questions as you can. What I believe is that CFA exam is so old that almost all kind of questions which can be there are there in the market. Now its just they change the language of questions (90% of the questions). So, if you practice enough you can’t fail.
I forgot to mention that I’m preparing for June 2014 exam, and I still have plenty of time to go even trought CFAI curriculum. So, my question is, if I alredy have a CFAI book, is it necessary for me to buy and Schweser book, and which package of Schweser is enough?
