Number of Hours Prepping L1

CFA General
#1

There is lots of info about this on the web, but I am just curious to hear from some people who are actually serious about writing the exam or have written the exam. I am a noob on this website so please don’t bash me if this is redundant or I am not posting things correctly.

  1. What is your background? Do you have a math intensive undergraduate major (Finance, Math, Economics, Accounting) etc. ? Or a less quantitative focused background?

  2. How many hours did you put into studying / plan to put in? (is 3 - 4 mo. adequate if I have a finance background)

  3. The section that gave you the most problems.

  4. What prep package you used or if you didnt use one.

#2

  1. I have a BBA degree with a concentration in finance.

  2. I started skimming the books in October but didn’t really get into it until December/January. Not sure of the number of hours. 3-4 months should be adequate for a finance background but I like to over-study especially for this exam because I knew that if I failed I would have probably given up.

  3. I think derivatives gave me the most problems but it wasn’t worth a lot so that was okay. Just put most of your focus on FRA, equities and ethics. But of course, still study the other topics. There are 3 choices to choose from. If you can eliminate one of them and have two left, your chances of passing are that much higher.

  4. I read from CFAI but stopped halfway and bought Elan (now Wiley). This was when Elan was cheap. I think it cost me about $200 for the books and problems. They provided the 11th hour guide for free due to their late delivery schedule. Now that Wiley has bought them, not sure I would pay the $800+ for the packages though. Your choice.

#3

I spent probably 100-120 hours. I had some math and economics knowledge already though. The hardest part for me was Ethics, since that is the only part where CFAI just made it up and it is not based on established, logical economic principles.