Quote:
Originally Posted by J pold
**BUMP**
I’m bumping this old thread because I’m basically in the OP’s situation. It’s August 17, I’m writing the exam on December 4th and I just got my books in the mail today. HOLY FFFFUUUUUU that’s a lot of material to be covered in roughly 105 days. I know it can be done, but I’m going to have to work my ass to get it done.
For those who have passed a few questions:
I know the institute says minimum 300 hours in order to be successful, but do you reaallllyyyy need to study that much? I’m not trying to down play the amount one should study but 300 hours seems a tab bit in excess.
What sort of exam regiment did you follow? Did you work in a group or alone?
And finally would you recommend the Schweser prep material? I’ve already sunk a fair bit of coin into the curriculum that is provided for me, is it worth another $500 bucks?
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Keep in mind that the prerequisite to enroll is a reconized post-secondary degree in a variety of fields. Many people who write level 1 are seeing most concepts in those text books for the first time. If that is the case then most definately 300 hours would be the bare minimum. If you graduated with a B.Comm and majored in Finance in all honestly you might find that it takes less than 300 hours.
As for the schweser materials, I would consider them a must. They typically give a greater variety of review questions, comprehensive notes on each learning objective, and good pointers on how to navigate the curriculum specifically to what you should focus your time on in each reading.
The successful study plan for me for Level I was going through the schweser materials for each reading and performing all the of the practice questions. After each reading, I would then delve into the curriculum books to see if there was anything that the Schweser materials missed and then do the practice questions at the end of each reading. You should be getting close to 100% on each set of Concept checker questions and questions in the curriculum because the exam questions will be much more difficult.
Make sure you are finished reading and doing questions in the curriculum and schweser materials up to a month before exam time (Meaning you have about 2.5 months from now to crush all those pages! Get going!). Once you have reached this point start doing practice exams and try to simulate as best as possible the testing conditions(There are a couple of books of practice exams that come with your schweser purchase). In between practice exams you can do additional online questions on specific curriculum that you are having trouble with.
If you do all that you should be well on your way to passing level 1 and enrolling for your level 2 exam (which is exceedingly more difficult than level 1!).
PS: As an add on to your cost comment on Schweser materials, earning a CFA designation can net you on $20,000/year more pay. So seriously just pay the $500-1000 per level for your schweser materials because it's worth it!
http://johnmolson.concordia.ca/en/gr...iles-pass-rate