CFA preparation recommendations

1) Read schweser notes Book 1 to Book 5 and ofcourse did all eoc questions. In my first read I had zero
focus on retention and memorizing formuls etc and 200 percent focus on making sure I understood
everything and every concept inside out. So If i did not understand anything, I would maybe do some
more research on the internet, use this forum, read other books, reread and reread until I was sure I had
in depth understanding of what was written and why things were the way they were. I feel this is
important. Some people get some satisfaction by telling themselves hey i read 50 pages today or 100
pages today but maybe it works for them but for me. I would not understand anything that way and its just
false sense of satisfaction. I think I would read 20-25 pages in a session/day. So idea was read very slow,
thorough understanding, less to no focus on retention.
2) Once I was done with book 5, I found that I did not remember much from previous books. I would say
my total retention was maybe 20 to 25 percent. This can be scary and cos some to panic but I feel its
normal atleast given the approach that I took. The second step was to reread everything again word for
word like you were doing it for the first time and this time focus on retention and also REDO all eoc
questions again by hand like you were doin for the first time. Hopefully on the second go everything will
start to come togather and you will start developing confidence. After this painstaking second go, I felt
my retention level was around 85 percent.
3) Then I tore of the formulas given at the end of 5 schweser books and commited them to memory.
4) read and commited quick sheet to memory
5) Finally ready secret sauce. This was highly benifical.
6) I gave some schweser pratice exams, i do not remember how many. maybe 2 to 3 . Regardless of what
I did I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you give as many exams as posssible and under fully timed conditions.
both volume 1 and volume 2 of schweser practice exams and also ne cfai exams/sample/mock you can
get your hand on. Do not under estimate the stamina/timing/speed aspect of this 6 hour exam. This is
especially true for level 1 candidates as they are new so they may underestimate this aspect and this can
be fatal.
7) some final comments tips.
a) I do recommend doing schweser eoc twice to truly get the computations/calculations under your grip.
b) Although i did not do it I recommend you read original cfa book and do all original/cfai book eoc for
ETHICS SECTION ONLY. i recomend this as ethics is a very important part of the exam.
c) I definaly recomend you NEED TO do as many practice exams as possible schweser/cfa mock/cfa
sample. Anything you can find. The more the better. Also try to do atleast 3 to 4 under fully timed
conditions. Timing is crucial in this marathon exam.
d) Do not SKIP anything from schweser books. Everything is important, even small little topics/concepts
that may seem you can ignore you NEED to know them. You need to know Everything and need to know
it solidly.
e) Keep your composure during the exam, if something seems hard it is probably hard for other
candidates as well. do your best on every question and donot think you are doing bad or you are doing
good. While you are in the exam room just do you best and forget about everything else.

f) I recommend start early, as early as possible. There are no shorcuts, you need to put the effort in and I
am sure you will nail this exam.
g) One more point I would like to add which I didnt in my original post. Make sure you make a realistic
plan which covers all important aspects I have discussed and stick to that plan. if your plan is too
ambitious , you may find you are constantly revisn and updatin your plan and fallin short of your
targets and may end up running out of time. So make a realistic plan. monitor your progeress and adjust if
necessary but make sure you remain on course to cover all important things discussed
I think I started to 6 to 7 months before the exam. I am really estimating here but I think I put in maybe 2 to
3 hours daily for the first 4 to 5 months and then maybe 6 to 7 hours daily for last 2 months. I really dont
remember it was long time ago, so dont want to misguide you. I definately recommend start ATLEAST 6
months before the exam and the more time you give yourself the better. As long as you start 6 months
before, you should be fine. Also more important is what you do and how you do it and what you get done
and not just counting hours you study.
I did not make any notes whatsoeever. Schweser are already notes I feel so no point makin notes out of
notes. I guess equivalent of notes would be 1) schweser eoc summaries 2) schweser end of book
formulas 3) schweser quicksheet 4) schweser secret sauce. You can consider these 4 items as notes for
revision. But ONLY AFTER you have done everything else like I said. Also if you find an area weak go
back to it , reread it do more question on it and maybe even take a look at cfai book if you are still
struglling.
I think i was 23 when i passed the exam. as for final few weeks. Like i said before 1) make sure do tons of
pratice exams 2) make sure you have schweser end of book formulas and quick sheet momerized
completely (and also understood how to use the formulas) 3) read secret sauce 4) 3 to 4 days before
maybe go over ethics and fsa again. As both are really important topics.
Again this is what worked for me, everyone is differnt so please dont be afraid to do use the style that is
your strength and is known to work for you and get any useful info from my post and incorporate in your
plan
HI, yes i did not do qbank. the schweser eoc questions are pretty good (IMO) for the sort of questions you
may face in level 1 exam. I did them twice to solidify my understanding on the concepts and calculations
and also did a few exams at the end. (though i recommend as many exams as possible). The length of
curriculam on the cfa exams is so much that it is humanly impossible to retain all of the information while
going through the books once.
Some people tackle this problem by reading once and doing loads of extra questions to aid retention and
then going through and revising for the material they were weak on or made mistakes on and then
repeating this process over and over again. If you read posts here everyone has unique approach how
they approached their preparation and tackled the exams and many differnt approaches have been
succesful. its differnt ways of tackling the same problem really. the bottom line is you need to know every
word in schweser inside out and this is the approach i took to achieve that goal and it worked for me. I
also used the same approach for level 2 and it worked for level 2 as well. Like i said before everyone has
his own style of working and this method has given good results for me. Whatever approach you use, as
long as you know EVERYTHING in schweser inside out when you the enter the exam room you will be
fine. The way you get there is your own choice, i just illustrated my way incase it may help someone. but
whatever way you get there as long as you get there you should be fine.

I read Schweser notes twice for L1 btw. First time round was a very careful read which took maybe 4-5
months, then second read took about 6 weeks. Then practice exams for 3 weeks.
Some people cram everything in 3 months while working 60 hours a week. Everybody is different.

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