I studied for the Chartered Financial Analyst Level 1 exam in the summer between undergrad and master’s. This post was written after the fact that I passed, but during the preparation I had written that I was “definitely starting to see some symptoms of burnout” and how “behind schedule” I’d been. So if you are in the same spot with a tight time constraint, don’t worry! I hope this study plan can help you with your preparation strategy.
Disclaimer: as some time has passed, 2017 specific information might be outdated.
Exam date: June 21, 2017
Materials used — overview
- Schweser Notes 2016
- Mark Meldrum YouTube videos
- QBank 2016 (33% completed)
- FinQuiz mock exams 2017 (3/6 completed)
- Wiley mock exam 2017 (1 completed)
- CFA Institute (CFAI) Topic tests + Official CFAI mock exam, included with exam registration (100% completed)
Materials — be thrifty!
If you checked out the links you might have noticed that many of the materials are very expensive. However, you might have also noticed that even though I was studying for the 2017 exam, many materials I used were from 2016. Here’s the thing: I found those 2016 materials, in physical book form, for super cheap on Kijiji or university book sale groups. Just make sure that you check the official CFA site for the year-over-year changes in exam topics. Wiley maintains a curriculum change list which I used as well to compare which chapters had been changed from 2016 to 2017.
As for mock exams, I split the FinQuiz purchase with some of my fellow undergrads to lower the cost.
The study plan
Please note that I was studying for the CFA full time, meaning that I was not taking other courses or working during the time. If you have other commitments during your preparation period, the same planning principles can be applied, but make sure to calculate on your own time frame.
6 weeks away:
I made a rough study schedule, which listed
- All topics, with grade weighting, e.g. “Quantitative Methods (12%)” — full details on the CFAI site
- Materials I planned on using, e.g. “Mark Meldrum videos + take notes”, “Schweser QBank”
- Rough timeline, estimating how many days/weeks to allocate to materials and mocks, e.g. “All videos + QBank after each topic — 2 weeks”
Before anything, I made sure to watch several videos on the BA 2 Plus calculator, which is what I’d purchased. This took me about an hour, including some practice. I did all future questions with it, apart from some parts of Quant which I did by hand just to learn the concepts better.
The first 2.5 weeks I focused on doing a “first pass” of the content. This meant skimming a lot of it, but I was determined to have exposure to all topics. This was so when I did questions, even if I lacked depth of understanding, I could identify sections and areas to improve on.
I used the Mark Meldrum videos heavily, at x1.25 to x1.5 speed. If I couldn’t understand something at that speed, I would turn it back to normal x1 speed. An issue I ran into was attention span, as I historically disliked studying from videos. There were many days when my goal was N amount of videos but I would fall short, or not absorb what I had watched. If I still didn’t quite understand a topic after the video, I would look up the corresponding section in Schweser Notes (I bought a used copy from 2016, the previous year).
Initially I was ambitious and wanted to watch all videos + read Schweser notes back to back + do Schweser blue box (in text) questions, but in reality I completely fell short of that goal. What I really ended up completing in the first two weeks was:
- Mark Meldrum videos for most topics, starting from heavily weighted and unfamiliar. I skipped Economics (undergrad major), and Ethics (short term memory, to study closer to exam), and barely watched the lower weighted topics (Derivatives, Alt. Investments, etc.)
- Partially read Schweser notes for heavy topics (Quant, FRA) and did their blue box questions. Barely read anything else but a couple sections I didn’t understand from Mark Meldrum videos.
4 weeks away:
I started watching videos of lower weighted topics that previously, I had barely watched or skipped altogether. I continued supplementing with Schweser Notes if I really didn’t understand something.
One important thing I did was that I kept updating my study schedule (from the rough study schedule made in the very beginning). This really helped me budget my days, and keep track of what I was taking too long to do, or should spend more time on. Quick iteration on the study plan was key to dealing with such a tight time constraint.
3 weeks away:
I did my first mock (FinQuiz). At this point I had a decent understanding of Quant, but only the minimal “first pass” of the other topics. I’d spent much time on FRA, but the sheer amount of content made it seem like I barely remembered anything. I hadn’t started reading Ethics yet at that point.
The mock was an absolute disaster, as to be expected. I got 30% or 40%, I recall. I spent two full study days just going through each question that I got wrong and reading the detailed solutions on the answer key (most mock providers will have a paragraph explanation for each question). This would prove to be a highly time consuming, but extremely important study method.
2 weeks away:
I kept hammering mocks. This included the FinQuiz 2017 mocks I’d bought, and the official CFAI mock. Each mock would take me a full study day to finish (AM + PM), and for each I would spend another full study day going through the detailed solutions on the answer key. This really helped me identify commonly tested formulas and topics. I would go back to watch Mark Meldrum videos or read Schweser Notes if I still couldn’t understand the answer key explanation.
At this point I was starting to get worried, as I was scoring only 40% to 60% on the mocks. In addition, I felt like I was spending excessive time — 2 full study days — for one mock.
I did not end up reading Ethics from the Schweser Notes at all. The mocks were giving me a good idea of the questions. I did listen to Mark Meldrum’s Ethics podcast though (basically audio from his Ethics videos).
1 week away:
I redid the official CFAI mocks, and did the online CFAI topic tests. I also went to a in-person mock session with a Wiley mock, which was timed and was meant to prepare you for the atmosphere of exam day.
The day before:
I stayed at an Airbnb, a 10 minute Uber ride away from the exam centre. I scheduled the Uber ride the night before! (It took me 3 hours to get to the Airbnb, so I’m really glad I did the travelling the day before and not the morning of the exam.)
Items I brought to the Airbnb:
- Printed sheet of all formulas
- Printed sheet of IFRS vs. GAAP
- CFAI official mock (just to skim questions I’d gotten wrong, not to redo)
- Snacks! And lunch for exam day (apples, crackers, Redbull)
- Essential exam items: Printed exam ticket, passport, pencils, calculator
I won’t cover the actual exam day here, but will probably do so in a future post, as this one is focused on my study plan.
Summary and advice:
- Best thing I did was to allocate 3 weeks to doing mock exams, given that I only had 6 weeks.
- Make a study plan and keep updating it so you don’t misbudget time.
- Learn the commands on your calculator before starting anything.
- I’m glad I didn’t focus on understanding everything with 100% depth on my “first pass”.
- I highly recommend Mark Meldrum videos, CFAI mocks and topic tests.
- Again, doing questions and going through the answer key explanations helped me learn.
- I focused on heavily weighted topics first and foremost.
- I made sure my exam day logistics went smoothly (transportation, food was planned for).
- Do Ethics last, and probably Economics second last. (Tailor this to your existing knowledge and experience.)
- Watch out for burnout and allocate some breathing time.
Originally posted on susanshu.com, a blog of postmortems and how-tos.
