I appreciate you so much. I've been really struggling with anxiety around my upcoming November exam and this video gives me hope and that extra push to keep going. Thank you!
I took the CFA level 1 exam back in 2015 (failed) and really had a hard time being disciplined with the program materials. I found that I got tired on the weekdays after work and really could only commit to 4-6 hrs on Sat/Sun. Even with 4 months of time prior to the exam date, I wasn't able to learn and retain enough of the curriculum to pass. A large part of the problem was my health. I was overweight at the time, had a poor diet, got suboptimal sleep, all leading to a general lethargy. If there's any recommendation I can give to people outside of study planning, it's to take care of your health and allow yourself to generate the energy to tackle this goal. Eat clean, exercise, and sleep plentifully. Keep a balanced lifestyle. Cut out any alcohol and bad habits that don't aid you on your journey.
Ma’m thanks for sharing. You’ve definitely provided some great tips on how to pass the exam. CFA exam is definitely not a joke , it’s a huge exam. Although I don’t work in the finance industry. I am trying to get into finance by way of a masters. I don’t have bachelors in finance though. Cfa level 1 helped me a lot in understanding the concepts and it took me 8 months to prepare for it while working a full time job not in finance. 2 months to me seems implausible .
Hello madam, may I ask you, are you a genius in general? how can somebody pass the CFA with a 90th percentile score in just 2 moths? am I so stupid? I just enrolled and pissed myself, wtf. It will take me 6 months at least. God bless you for more success! I love your intro !
Hi, I have two questions 1)how many months it will take to study? I'm working profession from finance side. 2) which is toughest subject and how many hours that subject will take to cover? It would better if could answer this questions to help me.. Thanks.
How many hours would you say you studied per day in those 2 months. I have a full time job and in a relationship and I have 4 months till the August exam. I am curious did you have a full time job during the two months? thank you
Thank you for the video, I am considering to take CFA1 too, I do have master degree in financial markets, currently working as a Oversight associate (Corporate Financial Reporting team at International company). Do you think CFA is still use to me ? or should I count on experience and my master degree?
Hey :) My advice would be that if you're happy in your current job and want to continue building your career at that company, I would recommend asking your manager if they think pursuing the CFA would help you in your career. If you plan on changing to another part of finance, I'd take a look on CFA's website and read about the typical jobs that people with CFA's get (it's a good way to figure out in what jobs the CFA tends to be the most useful), or look up people on LinkedIn in the kind of jobs that you want to have in the future and see if it's common or not for them to have CFAs. That way you might be able to tell if it would or wouldn't be worth your time to also pursue the CFA. Best of luck!!🥳
@@pearlstella Thank you for the answer :) yes talking to the manager is a good idea, especially she is very cool. Thing is I am considering going to another country (CH) and ideally starting a job related to Asset Management so ... Let's see. Good luck to CFA3 in August ! waiting for this update video ;)
@@scholarlyanalyst7700 Well 2nd does sound harder, though it is not guarantee that brings me benefits at workplace. As I see many companies only evaluate you based on your productivity.
Hi, I noticed some of the practice questions( official cfa practice questions) were extremely long, and some were very lengthy to read, but the mock exam was in comparison short questions. Which are a better representation of the actual exam? Were the exam questions extremely long and lengthy to read like the practice exam or was it more like the mock exam questions? Thank you for your response in advance
For Level 1, all the questions at the exam are short questions, like usually 20-100 words per question I would say, and all are multiple choice. For Level 2, the questions are still all multiple choice but they are those long ones where several questions refer back to the same half/whole page of text :) hope this helps and best of luck!!🙌
May I ask how important are the End of Chapter questions of the CFA books? You mentioned practice questions so I wanted to know if you meant end of chapter questions? Grateful if you can let us know.
I understood most, but I definitely didn't fully understand every chapter. After a reading that I didn't understand, I would usually just move on the practice questions, and then reading the answer explanations to the practice questions would help me understand the material. The answer explanations aren't always great, but they're very helpful for the most part imo. Of course sometimes not even that would help me understand the material, but then I reminded myself that we don't need to understand everything -- we probably only need around 70% correct to pass (so you can get 30% wrong). I'm not sure what we need to score in top 10% but maybe around 80% correct would be my guess -- so definitely don't worry about not understanding everything (pretty much none of us do) :)
I personally think it helps alot when you are already working in the investment/finance industry cos then the material becomes easy to understand since you are sort of seeing it on a daily. Failed my level 1 in 2021, hoping to resit soon.
Th title is phrased in a way to attract viewers and the amount of days needed could vary from a week to a year depending on your educational background and job profile. So don’t just think you can crack it in a month or two just because she says so, read the topics and plan accordingly. The points mentioned are helpful I can agree on that, however the Kaplan notes are a lifesaver if you really wanna understand the complex topics. Good luck!1
I totally agree, it is naturally going to take everyone a different number of hours to study for the exam depending on their education, work experience, etc., I said this in the video at 5:22 too 🤗 I also talked about my own background to give people a sense of where I was coming from (business major and less than 1 year of work experience at the time). Will look more into Kaplan, I've heard a lot of positive things about it🙌 Best of luck!
HI Pearl, great video. When you were studying would you do the Practice Pack for each module once you had completed the practice questions for each individual reading? Or did you save those Practice Pack problems for your review period? Some practice packs like for FSA have 130 questions so they would take a fair bit of time to complete. Would be great to know what your approach was, thanks.
Hi Pearl, thanks for sharing. I had a question about your study strategy and the material you use to prepare. Did you study mainly from the material provided by the CFA Institute to pass you CFA level 1? Or In addition to that material, did you also joined a prep-course such as Kaplan?...I see a lot of people recommend joining a prep courses/tutorial sessions, but wanted to know if you actually did or did not. I see the material provided by CFA is quite robust. I am just wondering how you did it. Looking forward to your answer. thanks!
Hi Pearl, thank you so much for your insights! Do you think going through CFAI reading material is critical in addition to Mark Meldrum video & notes? Do you think Kaplan Schweser's notes instead of CFAI material are a good bet since it is concise? I intend to subscribe to Mark's videos, do CFAI qbank, blue box, EOCQ & mock tests. Thank you so much Gaurav - Level 1
Hi, Mrs Stella . Firstly, I hope your channel will be grow in the future . Secondly, I have questions . You think CFA valuable in the Europe and in 2024 syllabus can be changed ? Thanks and deep respect in advance
Thanks for sharing your experience. I have about 4 months and just got started. Like you, I also procrastinated and only now realised that i should get started. I believe the practice questions are a much more efficient way of studying the material instead of going through all the readings - this video validated my opinion haha. Hopefully it will be enough to do and re-do the practice questions + do the 5 mocks from CFA institute practice pack (they also included an additional 1000 practice questions!). My strategy will be to do all these + keep track and memorise all the formulas.
@@rohanshende4338 we shall see in two days. Tbh i procrastinated way too much and feel like it would take a miracle to pass. If you have the discipline in the last 60 days, it is still possible to pass. All the best!
thank you sooo mcuh for your encouragement, I'm about to pass away, taking my lvl 1 this Aug. Seeing that you can do it in 2 months, makes me feel a little better :')
Is it possible to clear the exams in 2 months with 6-8 hrs of study everyday? I am in my final year of graduation and most probably will be able to spare that much
Hey, when you say 2 topics a day @<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="203">3:23</a>, is that for example, time value of money and organising, visualising and describing data ? Or do you mean, for example, 2 topics within time value of money a day ? Thanks
I started to prepare in February, but took it seriously only in March. Now I only have a month left until my exam in May. I’ve covering all the readings, quizzes and Qbanks in Kaplan. I realised that I achieved only 50% of the whole test. Now im worried that I can’t finish the rest till the real exam date. What would suggest in my case, how to use Kaplan effectively?
I think it depends on your background :) If you studied anything business/economics or via work experience have become familiar with the basics of the investment industry, I don't think you need to take it. If you have no previous experience in the space, it might be a good idea to start out with the CFA investment foundation exam (it would be a good way to figure out how much the topic interests you too without paying CFA exam prices). I personally haven't taken the CFA investment foundation exam myself, so take my advice with a grain of salt :D wish you best of luck on your journey!
Hello, I am a working professional and I am sitting for my level 1 exam in May 2023. I am an economics and mathematics graduate. What would you recommend in terms of a study plan for a person new to finance.
Hi there! If you can, I would recommend that you start in January 2023. I'm sure you'll have a pretty easy time understanding especially the econ section and the different math questions, but it's better to give yourself a bit more time than needed so your study experience doesn't become stressful (speaking from my own experience haha), I wish you best of luck!!🤗
congratulations , In Canada, is someone who has graduated from a two-year college and does not have a bachelor's degree, in a non-financial field, according to the rules of the CFA institute, allowed to participate in the level one exam?
Hi pearstella, thanks for the helpful video. I have a question regarding advice #11 (If you’re behind, skip the readings and only read the summary pages + do the practice questions ): where can I actually find the summaries ? At the end of every chapter of the CFA book?
hi🤗 I think your odds of passing the exam are high! I only did one mock exam for L1 and I scored 78% on that - but I ended up being in the top 10% and could have gotten away with a lower score and still passed. If I were you, I’d study as much as possible this final week and then try my best at the exam - I think you’re definitely way more likely to pass than not! I wish you the best of luck🙌🎉
hi im currently on my second year in college and planning to take an internship soon as a financial analyst do you think getting the FMVA will help me with the intership? and is it worth it?
tbh I know very little about the FMVA so take my advice with a grain of salt😄 from what I've heard the FMVA is particularly good for financial analyst and investment banking jobs while CFA is better for investment management jobs (even though they're both helpful for all of it). If you're already majoring in finance or a similar field and have good excel skills, I don't think you would need to spend time on the FMVA too, but if you do have the time to study for it, I'm sure it would still help you. Wish you best of luck with all of it!
Hi Rajat! Yes, in my experience, having passed any of the CFA exams is a great way to make your job application stand out to employers, especially in the investment/financial services industry! If there's a place in particular that you want to work at, looking up people on linkedin that work there and checking whether they are CFAs/studying for the CFA can help you find out how important a CFA is to that employer -- if a lot of the employees are CFAs, it's probably something that employer particularly values. Hope this helps and wish you best of luck with your CFA studies😃🎉
if you do enough practice questions, I think that alone is enough to get the questions where you have to calculate something correct. For the more theoretical questions, it's helpful to have done the readings (just because the calculation questions are a bit more repetitive in the methods that they use, whereas the theory questions often are a bit more unique, at least in my experience) 🙌🤗 best of luck!!
I think I studied close to 2.5 months for Level 2, but in hindsight I would probably have wanted to spend at least 3.5 months. Level 2 was significantly harder in my opinion than Level 1 and I felt very burnt out after cramming everything into a bit more than 2 months, even though I usually like to cram things :')
Hi , I have started preparing for the CFA L1 - I'm gonna give it a shot on this November , My question is - Many of CFA exam takers are recommending the schweser notes because it simplified the concept in the easy way to understand , may i know what is your opinion on schweser notes? is it best option to learn or CFA leaning system ? Please advise... Thanks in advance.
Hey :) I haven't used the schweser notes myself, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but my impression is that they are quite simplified, so if you only use the schweser notes to prepare, you risk getting questions on the exam that you weren't prepared for. I think the schweser notes can be a great supplement, but I would recommend combining them with CFA's learning ecosystem (or another vendor's detailed materials) instead of using them on their own -- even though this might be more time consuming, I think you'd learn more and score higher at the exam this way. The exception would be if you already have many years of CFA relevant work experience, then you might not need more than the schweser notes. Best of luck!! :D
@@pearlstella hey thank you for the detailed response 🥳👍, the conclusion I'm going for the CFA ecosystem. And all the best for your next levels and keep rocking.🥳
In CFA's Learning Ecosystem, at the end of every "study group" (the different groups are visible under "study plan"), there is a summary reading in a bullet point format :D🙌
I'm spending around 3.5 months but studying less in the beginning and then gradually ramping up my study schedule😃 because L3 isn't just multiple choice questions anymore, I figured it'd be smart if I put aside more time to make sure I know the material. So far though the L3 material seems to be a bit easier than the L2 material (in my own opinion)
@@pearlstella nice! I pass L2 in Feb 2022 but opted to not rush into L3 for the August session. I decided to register for the Feb 2023 exam and planned to dedicate roughly 7 months or so since written responses were always my weakness during undergraduate. Glad you’re finding it relatively easy in comparison to Level 2!
ooh congrats on getting through L2!! and sounds like a good plan! I did L2 in November '21 but also didn't want to rush it and do L3 in May already. Also, I feel you on the written responses, I'm the same way haha :D
on weekdays, I usually study after work in the evening for 1-2 hours and on weekends I study 3 hours each day (time of day varies depending on my other plans). Once my exam is only a month away, I'll probably be studying 2-3 hours on weekdays and 5 hours on weekend days :)
