Study Plans for Level 1
The CFA is undoubtedly a difficult exam, but with effort comes great reward. If you have decided to pursue a career in the finance industry, the CFA gives you a competitive advantage. The syllabus covers many different topics, and CFA Institute recommends that the student spend at least 250 hours preparing for the Level 1 exam.
Common questions that students ask are "How many hours a week do I need study?"; "Am I falling behind in my preparations?"; "Which topics should I spend more time on?" etc. The study plans try to answer these questions. Do note that every student is different (due to different abilities and prior exposure to the material), and the study plans are for the average student. So at best the study plans offer suggestions for how you should spend your prep hours, and you should combine these suggestions with your own evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses to formulate your own plan for success. The following plan is for a student starting out with 26 weeks remaining for the exam.
The 26 Weeks Plan
The First 9 weeks.
You are in a good situation and should aim for around 10 to 12 hours a week. Rather than trying to do an entire topic at one go (which may get boring), do the readings in the order suggested below.
Ethics: Readings 1 to 3. Spend around 2 hours every week on Ethics rather than trying to do it all at one go. Ethics reads like a novel and is a nice break from the more analytical topics. The key to Ethics (rather like the other topics) is doing lots of practice questions.
Quantitative 1 to 1.5 weeks: Readings 4 to 10. This assumes you have some background in finance and statistics, if not you should plan to spend more. If you spend more time on one topic, you will have to find another topic to spend less time on. Watch the videos or read the textbooks a couple of times, and then do the practice problems. This also applies to the remaining topics.
Economics 1 to 1.5 weeks: Readings 13 to 18
Financial Reporting and Analysis 1.5 to 2 weeks: Readings 29 to 34, and 36
Corporate Finance 1 to 1.5 weeks: Readings 44 and 45
Equity 1 to 1.5 weeks: Readings 52 to 55
Fixed Income 2 to 2.5 weeks: Readings 60 to 65
The Last 17 Weeks
At this point you have covered about 35% of the curriculum and have about 17 weeks left. The above topics are covered by the Sen Finance free prep materials. You can do the remaining 65% using the Sen Finance Premium Package, or other materials. The exam is still about 4 months away, but this is not the time to relax, but rather to remember all the good things a CFA designation brings and push harder! Try to increase the hours you spend a week to about 12 to 15. You may wonder how it is possible to find so many hours after work (most CFA candidates are employed full time)? Quite simply the CFA exam owns your weekends, and in return you will have career opportunities. Schedule at least 10 hours of work during the weekends. Videos are usually the fastest way to learn new material, leaving you more time for practice problems.
Quantitative 1 to 1.5 weeks: Readings 11 and 12.
Economics 1 to 1.5 weeks: Readings 19 to 28
Financial Reporting and Analysis 2.5 to 3 weeks: Readings 35, 37 to 43
Corporate Finance 0.5 to 1 week: Readings 46 to 48
Portfolio Management 1 to 1.5 weeks: Readings 49 to 51
Equity 0.5 to 1 week: Readings 56 to 59
Fixed Income 0.5 to 1 week: Reading 66
Derivatives 2 weeks Readings 67 to 72
Alternative Investments 1 to 1.5 weeks: Readings 73 to 74
After the above, you should have about 5 weeks left. Good job on making it this far, now is the time for the final push. Revise the material and start doing all the practice problems you can get your hands on. Every weekend take at least one full length (120 questions) practice exam.
Good luck with the exam!
Purchase the Premium Package for $195 using Paypal (credit cards also accepted) by clicking on the link below.
After payment within 24 hours you will receive a link for downloading the videos. The total size of the videos is about 1.5 GB and you will have 30 days to download (and more if you ask). The Premium Package for the Dec 2010 L1 exam is 80% ready and may be purchased now, and the entire package will be ready by end August. You will also receive free updates as they are prepared. The videos will be delivered to you online.
Sen Finance offers free lecture videos, notes, a Q-bank and 2 full length practice exams that cover the first 35% of the curriculum (the remaining 65% can be purchased later). The learning strategy begins with the videos where the important fundamental concepts are taught. Other details for full coverage of the curriculum are relegated to "Additional Notes". This ensures that the learning of important concepts is not cluttered by the details. Selected videos are available for viewing on your iPhone, Blackberry etc.
Free preparation materials are provided for the first 35% of the curriculum and you have the choice of purchasing the Premium Package that covers the remaining 65%. Included are 1) over 20 hours of videos, 2) notes are in PDF format (printed notes in the form of books may be purchased for extra payment) and 3) Q-bank and 4 practice exams that total over 1,000 practice questions (different from the 300 practice questions in free 35% part).
Jayanta Sen CFA has taught finance and related disciplines for 12 years. He has an MA from Yale, and a PhD from University of Chicago (the top university for Economics and Finance). The preparation material stresses fundamental concepts which enable the student to organize knowledge required to pass the exam, rather than some dubious ad hoc memorization.
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