Schweser Cfa Level 1 2016 Free Download Pdf
Camila Fonua
But in L2, I would never suggest you to do that. CFAI EOC and Blu boxes are a must. In fact if you completely do this and are confident, you dont require schweser at all So choice is yours, but majority will agree that CFA EOC and Blue boxes is the way ahead for L2 and thats what I would suggest as well.
But i figure that reading the CFA text and schweser would be too time consuming. I was planning to do all the EOC and blue boxes from CFA text and reading schweser notes and of course the mocks available. but not sure if this is enough?
For ex: I read the notes from Finquiz and referred CFAI texts when I couldnt get the details. So you are free to read Schweser notes, But what I wanted to stress was the fact that doing EOCS and Blue boxes are MUST.
Yes definitely ! I did it only with Schweser. I tend to say :" just try first to know everything that is on Schweser and you will see that is more than enough". I personnaly think (and this is my perception) that people using real book have a certain disadvantage as they are wayyy too deep. I doubt that our brain can retain all what is written inside, you just loose the focus. Having said that, they still allow you to understand a concept that you wouldn t with the Schweser. Doing practice exam is also key !
Schweser nearly made me fail L2. I found their material way too brief (except for Ethics & Equity, my strong topics) and when I did the EOC questions afterwards, I got destroyed! I had to cram the CFAI text in the last two weeks.
Hi guys, I recently passed level 1, and here is my advice to those who are planning on taking it in December (or retaking it in December). I found that Schweser was NOT enough to cover the concepts. It is an excellent source of material, but should not be the only one in your arsenal. I would highly recommend everyone at least skim the CFAI materials to fill in the gaps, and ESPECIALLY go through every single EOC questions with a fine tooth comb.
Each reading in the cirriculum will have a main topic. This main topic should not be skimmed from Schweser, but should come from the source. The CFAI books are written incredibly well, and may elucidate concepts that a few sentences in Schweser might not. Furthermore, certain things will simply be left out of Schweser entirely (sources of borrowing for instance in corporate finance).
Finally, I highly recommend that all candidates get their main knowledge of fixed income from the new readings in the CFAI as opposed to Schweser. These new readings are worth the price of the books alone.
GTFO of here with your strawmen and hyperboles. Schweser is of course not a scam. I used Schweser as well and if you read my post carefully, I said Qbank is very useful, as are the notes. However, Schweser should not be the only tool in your arsenal, for instance, would you try to build a house with just a hammer?
I just passed level 3. I used schweser and NYSSA. I did not touch CFA books. I hate CFA books and they put me to sleep in 10 minutes. It really depends on how well you know the material. I took 9 complete tests, solved 2000+ Qbank and NYSSA practice test. I read Schweser for all level3 and found them very helpful for my life style that involves working 70 hours a week with 2 young kids.
@jimmyg same here man, have heard that its not comprehensive. But having said that, and having studied for the past 2 levels with Schweser, I am still using their notes. What you can do is maybe refer the schweser notes, and when you have time or when you are revising, try and go through the CFAI EOC questions and also the Blue box examples. Someone suggested the same at one of the forums I was a part of.
Agreed with @Christine. I used Schweser with online supplements and it worked fine. Advantage of 3rd party notes IS the condensed version. L3 is about broad connections between material, and not having to wade through overly detailed readings from the original curriculum works well as a time-saver. As with L1 and L2, the secret is going to end up being practice problems and sample exams
The most critical part of review for me was doing mock exams. Over and over. I was able to take a week off before L3 and did 6 morning exams and like 3-4 afternoon exams that week. There were no curve balls left at that point.
Generally, I finished the material about 3 weeks before L3. that was a little later than ideal but I had been reading Secret Sauce or flipping through notecards on my commute to keep all the material fresh throughout the process.
One other strategy I find particularly effective is circling the difficult (or crucial) practice problems at the end of each chapter and flagging their page # so that I could review only the most relevant EOC questions as part of that cram review process in the last few weeks.
CFAI seem to be more straightforward in general, but I also agree that it tends to get wordy at time. What I am most concerned with on the morning part is knowing exactly what the question is looking for when they can be quite ambiguous. But overall, CFAI less ambiguous than Kaplan.
I found the Schweser questions to be good practice but occasionally poorly worded or asking about obscure topics. But I also found the CFAI official 2015 mock to be poorly worded at times too, both come from third party providers. The past AM exams are your best guide so use those to your advantage. 9 days is still enough time to improve your scores.
Deadline to schedule the exact date for your CFA exam. You still can reschedule this up to a month before the actual exam date for $250. Click on the link to sync all key CFA deadlines to your calendar.
Wow, @Marc. That was very well written. I am almost done with my L1 curriculum and will start practicing papers soon. But i will definitely consider these views when i do my L2. Too late for L1 right?
However, my advise to others is to really think about what value you will get from prep provider materials over and above the CFA curriculum. As someone who has sampled a broad range of the prep materials out there, I offer the following thoughts, which you are free to find useful or stupid, but that I wish had been provided to me earlier.
In summary, I find prep materials useful. Formula sheets are a very handy time saver. Videos are helpful when you are to tired to concentrate on a reading. Audio recordings are way under-rated, under-provided and under-used (anyone else commute to work?). But I would strongly advise people who are considering not touching the CFA readings and only reading Schwesser or whatever to reconsider.
To use an analogy with which we are all familiar (or at least should be), you can pay for active portfolio management, and you might even get a little bit of alpha, but is it worth it? And are you comfortable with the idea that you could actually be worse-off than if you had just been boring and stuck to the benchmark?
Hi I think the curriculum notes are no doubt the bible to understand Cfa topic concepts and its especially very helpful for the non finance guys. It makes you understand thins as if you are completely out of this world and you are explained each and everything in minutest details so it all depends on you. If you are ok with the concepts generally then I guess schwesers are definitely more than enough. I believe or live with the saying that, the more you know the more you get confused so always know things precisely. :d
In level 2, I do refer to CFAI from time to time as I find schweser tend to over summarise certain information (maybe they are not important but at least for me, I would always like to understand the logic behind it rather than memorising it).
I used Schweser almost exclusively for LIII and passed. The notes are great, and cover realistically about 100% of what you need to know to pass, that said CFAI material will have some additional material that may or may not show up on the exam. I started reading both the Schweser notes and the CFAI material, and I found the CFAI material to cover the same stuff, though was much lengthier and more difficult to get through and I stopped going through the CFAI books. The QBank is just OK. I used it mainly to drill down the main points and to make sure I had the formulas down. One thing the CFAI books are excellent for are the end of session questions which you should do for each study session. Pretty much everyone will tell you though that practice exams are the best way to really prep for the exam. As you do practice exams your weaknesses will come out, and that is where the Qbank can come in handy and you can drill through dozens or even hundreds of questions on a particular topic to get up to speed.
Used only schweser for all three levels and passed. (almost all ppl i know cleared various cfa levels used schweser exclusively.) In fact i have hardly come across anyone personally who has used the CFA curriculum.
I find that schweser gives nice consice explanations for most of the topics and this is more than sufficient as a majority of the topics are not really that difficult to understand. (the ones you find too difficult can obviously be looked up from the main curriculum) The main benefit of this is that one can quicly go through the entire curriculum once and get a good grasp of what fits where in the broad portfolio management process. This is especially important as i think a key part of level 3 is to be able to pick points from various sections of the curriculum and answer accordingly.
Schweser in my view is more than enough. The videos on Individual and Institutional portfolio management is really good. I thoroughly enjoyed watching other Scheweser videos too. Whatever you do, do well.
I have cleared L3 in my first attempt and i didnot even order the hard copies of CFAI books. I have never seen those CFAI books. I prepared from ONLY schweser material and schweser videos. Honestly wirtten all the 6 question papers of Schweser and 3 past question papers from CFAI. Following is my result where i have aced both morning and evening. (Didnot get 70% in 6 topics). I assume i am waay above the MPS and cleared the exam quite comfortably.
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