I have a confession to make. Everyone says you should have a look at the CFA institute books, do the questions in it, etc. I'm not sure where these people come from, because I haven't got enough time to do all their questions as well as Schweser's! Has anyone here completed a level without referring AT ALL to the CFA official curriculum?

• Schweser Kaplan Cfa Level 1
• Kaplan Cfa Level 1 Prep

Is Schweser enough to pass entire level? April 2013 in General CFA Topics. I passed Level 1 with just Schweser.

• Any1 doing level 1 should use this free QBANK I found on. October 2013 in CFA Level I. Material providers for CFA then you probably heard of kaplan schweser.
• For me to use an outdated version of the Schweser Qbank (2013/2014. Until CFA Exam. Changes to curriculum 2017. Using an outdated Schweser Qbank.

Just wondering if it is at all possible, or generally you have to hit those books too. 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. Hi, I felt the same too as the curriculum looked too much to handle for me at that time I took the CFA.

So I relied entirely on prep notes like Schweser as I only had weekends (Elan didn't exist then, I wasn't aware of 7city that time) - and yes, I did the thing that you shouldn't do - I did not refer to the official curriculum at all ' Survived - but I'm one lucky example. I only cleared level 1 and I relied solely on Schweser. For level II because I have more time I do refer to the official material, but I have yet to read an entire chapter. The CFA books makes for good reference material. Hi, I felt the same too as the curriculum looked too much to handle for me at that time I took the CFA. So I relied entirely on prep notes like Schweser as I only had weekends (Elan didn't exist then, I wasn't aware of 7city that time) - and yes, I did the thing that you shouldn't do - I did not refer to the official curriculum at all ' Survived - but I'm one lucky example. Make that 2 You can rely on Schweser material.

As pointed out, CFAI books are more like reference books. Having said that, it won't do you harm to go through the EOC questions in the CFAI books(Especially Ethics), if you have enough time and can fit it into your study schedule.

As far as the 'people' whom you've heard, do not give every piece of advice too much weightage, use your judgement. Especially certain online forums for CFA, I've found that they tend to be too negative rather than being realistic (300 hours is excellent in that sense, lots of positivity ) If you're still in doubt, then just a fact that should help ease your worries. Schweser have been one of the exam prep providers for more than 20 years, the fact that they've been around so long shows that the probability of you going wrong with that decision are low indeed. Bottomline: You can definitely survive on Schweser notes. Schweser should be sufficient, I never even touch the underlying readings (CFAI) in level 1 not even their questions at the end of the each chapter (though it's highly recommended that you do so!). 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). All in all, get through ur notes ASAP and hit the questions, i think I learned a lot more and re-enforced what I know during the question practising stage.

I hate to be THAT guy, but I relied almost exclusively on the CFA curriculum for Levels 1 & 2 and I'm doing the same for Level 3. This isn't me being preachy, I have nothing against using whatever materials you find helpful.

You can read 5 books on a topic and not get a concept. But the 6th book explains it slightly differently and the penny drops. That happens all the time and I encourage people to learn from as many different sources as they find useful. 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. 1) The exam is based on the curriculum. Are you comfortable going into an exam knowing that there were parts of the curriculum that you didn't read?

Schweser Kaplan Cfa Level 1

For many subjects, such as when you need to know the three versions of x, prep materials are as good as the curriculum, but why pay for prep materials when you can just read the curriculum? 2) To me, the idea that prep materials will save you time because the books are thinner is insane. It's like a prof grading term papers by dropping them down a flight of stairs and giving the best grades to the heaviest ones that go farthest.

First of all, they use smaller font and formatting. Are there fewer words printed in the Schwesser books than the CFA books? I don't know.

But whether you learn about, say, bond valuations by reading 800 words or 1000 words is pretty much irrelevant. Either you learn what you need to know or you don't, and arguably it's better to read a couple hundred more words and really get the concept. 3) The natural tendency for anyone is to open the box of CFA books, freak out and think 'I will pay any amount of money to make these go away.' But the thing is that the books are not actually that bad (personally, I think many more people would read the books if the first topic was anything other than Ethics). The reason the CFA books take longer to read than an Archie comic is because this material is difficult, which is probably why there are way fewer CFAs than Archie comic book readers. Since you have no choice but to learn these materials, you need to ask whether prep materials do a better job of teaching you what you need to learn. In my experience the prep materials are no better than the CFA books on average.

And, again, once you actually get into the CFA books, they are not really that bad. 4) Reading summary materials can be very dangerous, particularly preparing for a multiple choice exam. As I'm sure you know, answering multiple choice questions often involves eliminating one or two wrong answers (I am so old that when I wrote Levels 1 & 2, there were actually 4 possible answers per question, not 3) and getting to the right answer by process of elimination. This is where the importance of reading the CFA books really kicks in, because for many questions one or two of the possible answer (the wrong ones) are going to be terms that appeared in the curriculum and appears to be irrelevant. In fact, they were so irrelevant that the prep providers deemed them unworthy of even mentioning in their summary materials. These are important terms or topics on their own, and your certainly not going to become an expert in them. In fact, chances are that you won't remember anything about them - anything, that is except for the fact that they are irrelevant in the context of the question staring you in the face and can therefore be eliminated as a possible answer.

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? First, I should clarify that the second last sentence of point 4 should read 'These are NOT important terms or topics on their own.' As to your specific situation, I certainly would not recommend stopping everything and starting from scratch by trying to read the entire curriculum in advance of the exam. And please don't feel as if by reading Schwesser, or whoever, you are missing out on vast chunks of the curriculum.

My point is that reading the CFA books is the only way to learn the entire scope of material that is fair game to be tested on the exam. I absolutely recommend that you do all of the end of chapter questions and generally give a higher priority to any of the questions that are actually provided by CFAI. As someone who has done my share of practice question, I can tell you that there is a noticeable difference between questions produced by CFAI and those written by prep providers.

Kaplan Cfa Level 1 Prep

As you do your practice questions, take note of any possible answers that seem unfamiliar - even if you get the question right - and take a quick look at where it shows up in the curriculum. Again, the idea isn't to become an expert in everything, but rather to be aware enough to eliminate a wrong answer (and, by the way, it might actually end up being the right answer).