Schweser Cfa Level 1 Pdf Free
Cre Wallace
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?
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.
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.
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 simply used Schweser's notes to pass CFA Level I with minimal study time. Has anyone had a different experience w/ the Level II exam? Will study notes be enough and is Schweser the best Level II option?
I took Level II last year. Schweser skimped on the portfolio management section so make sure you read the curriculum especially in this area...for the other areas, I thought the exam was fine, but do practice a lot and review the CFAI documents for ethics and PM. It's obvious that CFAI is trying to make the exam more "proprietary" as evidenced by the requirement to now bundle the curriculum with the exam.
Don't underestimate the amount of time needed to pass Level II - it is quite a bit more challenging than Level I. A lot of the stuff in Level I, I either learned in college or during my experience in BB equity research. Best advice I can give you is to take a lot of practice tests, do not procrastinate, and understand how all the key concepts relate to one another (rather than getting too caught up in the little minutia). I put in about 125 hours of study time for Level I and probably around 200 hours for Level II. You seem to be pretty on top of stuff so maybe it would take you about this much time too, but just don't let anyone tell you that you can "get by" doing a certain amount of hours...you have to figure out what's right for yourself.
Also, I second an aforementioned poster's suggestion to read AnalystForum.com. Actually, this is where I've posted most frequently, since given my experience in equity research, I've generally had more to contribute there (and in a similar fashion as WS Oasis where most people don't work in IB/PE, most people on AnalystForum also don't work in ER/HF and are trying to learn). However, you'll see me more on these boards now that I'm working in PE.
By the way, thanks again for your advice on the PE stuff that I asked you about a while back. I ended up taking a job at a large middle-market buyout shop and just started recently. I'm sure I'll be seeking your advice again once I get settled in, as far as what I need to do as a new PE analyst in order to (1) move up the learning curve quickly and (2) be seen as a leader and contributor rather than someone who just does what they're told, and I think a lot of this has to do with understanding what is important to deal teams, which is something I don't really understand yet. I'll make a separate post about this in the PE forum when I have a chance to collect my thoughts a little.
Wingman - I agree w/ Ratul. 1-2 weeks prep for Level I is absurd, no matter how familiar you are with the material. The knowledge base is so broad that there's almost no way you've seen most of it in classes and can familiarize yourself with it in such a short period of time. Hopefully you mean 1-2 months prep. You've got to have enough time to absorb the material.
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