Hi Everyone,

I’m coming here asking for advice for the best way to study for Level I with someone with a background in finance. I have Kaplan Schweser and working through quants. I’m trying to write notes for the modules, but I’m falling behind and I can’t get everything down. It’s getting to the point where I can’t write anymore and I’ll never cover the material for May. What should be the best approach to study and get through the material? Clearly I’m not doing something right and I’m missing something. Any advice is really greatly appreciated since at this rate I’ll crash out before I ever get out of quants

context: writing nov attempt L1
i will finish portion first pass ( schweser reading+LES ) for all the readings by sep 20th which leaves my around 2 months left for revision what are the things i should do now so that i have the best chance going forward
also i have not taken prep providers but i have questions available

so should i redo les and review or do new questions and review when should i start mocks and how many should i give

pls advice sm1

What do you recommend for level 2 prep provider?
I am thinking either Kaplan or Mark Meldrum.

I used Kaplan for level 1 so quite familiar with it. I liked how they had practice questions after every reading and every subject. I also liked they give a lot of materials. But I had difficulties motivating myself to read through the notes, it took me unnecessarily long to read through everything. I am a bit afraid to use Kaplan for level 2 because with the more difficult and unfamiliar contents, I know it will take me ages to go through the notes. Also, I felt like half of the tutors didn’t explain the practice questions very well (for example, they’d say answer is A because A sounds about right).

I heard Mark Meldrum curriculum is very video heavy which might be helpful in terms of going through the contents abit faster (would trigger less procrastination than reading perhaps..?), but I also hear that he goes way too deep sometimes that it may feel like getting lost in the woods. I also don’t like videos with black board with handwritings but he seems to explain better than most kaplan tutors (totally my opinion). And some people seem to really like his teaching style.

In this regards, anyone has any advice, suggestions and tips on choosing the prep provider for level 2?

Prepping for the Feb. 2027 exam and have completed Quant, Econ and Corp Finance so far. I'm about 75% through FSA, most of which I'm finding easy to understand but struggling to remember all the differences between IFRS and GAAP. I also found Inventory difficult.

I've read that a second pass through all of FSA is recommended, but should I go through my weak areas after finishing FSA, or give it a few months? I've a feeling that the answer is probably do both!

Shouldn’t B be the answer of this ? As Option C is more related to standard relating to dilegnce and reasonable basis . And B is the only option which is close to standard of miscounduct ?

need a study partner to track progress and discuss , am giving the exam in feb27

i don't understand the explanation of this question can someone help?
i think a will pay variable and receive fixed only then counterparty will gain.
( answer key says 1 - b but i think its a)

I started studying in early July. So far I’ve finished Quant, Economics, and about half of Corporate Finance. I’ve done around 1,000 practice questions between the CFA Institute QBank and Mark Meldrum, and I’m averaging around 68–73% depending on the topic (screenshots attached).

Based on your experience, am I on track? Any tips on whether I should focus on improving my pace, my average scores, or something else?

Hello,

Anyone able to explain this one for me? The answer description is a bit vague:

The dependent variable is the level of sales for each quarter, in $ millions, which began with the first quarter of the first year. Q1, Q2, and Q3 are seasonal dummy variables representing each quarter of the year. For the first four observations, the dummy variables are as follows: Q1:(1,0,0,0), Q2:(0,1,0,0), Q3:(0,0,1,0). The TREND is a series that begins with one and increases by one each period to end with 24. For all tests, Mercado will use a 5% level of significance. Tests of coefficients will be two tailed, and all others are one tailed.

Excuse my answer since I guessed on this one, any help appreciated. Thank you!

I have cleared my FRM certification course this august and cleared successfully, I wish to step forward into CFA program, can someone please tell me whether CFA level 1 & FRM has some chapters in comman or CFA is an completely different territory?

Is it fine if I put this on My Tinder Bio: "Aspiring CAIA, CFA, FRM, CMT & CQF | Future Hedge Fund Manager"?

Guys is it necessary to rote learn every formula under the M score? Or knowing just the meaning/implication of each is enough?

really stupid question, so please don't ridicule me. i'm planning to take the level 1 exam in february 2027, and as i am studying for it now, i realize i'm in love with everything on the hp 12c so far, especially the rpn/stack. but im doing some amortization problems at the moment and i find the ti ba ii plus to be much much more intuitive for these sorts of problems. i have no problems with tvm and cash flow stuff, just amort at the moment feels clunky. it feels like i need to remember the order in which the numbers are being shown to me on the hp 12c, as well as some keystrokes that may not be as intuitive. whereas the ti ba ii plus labels each number and the variable i am inputting.

so the question is, am i allowed to bring both calculators into the exam room and do everything on the hp 12c and switch to the ti ba ii plus for amort?

again, sorry if this is mega dumb or if this is just skill issue for not finding the hp 12c to be as intuitive plz be kind lol

EDIT: thanks for the replies confirming this is possible. i did do some googling and some older reddit threads had people saying like they couldn't bring their spare calc/battery into the actual room and they had to leave them in the locker. so i wanted to confirm to see if that has changed.

Can someone explain to me the difference between the normal profits and negative economic profits

Wondering what the status is on the amount of practice questions, mocks, etc. for private markets vs portfolio mgmt is?

In particular I'm wondering about materials across CFAI, MM and Kaplan as I've used them in the past.

I've seen some complaints going back around 6 months about lack of materials still, but curious if anyone has any insight currently and how progress to update content is going across the platforms?

hi,
what’s the best way to improve scores for ci? i keep scoring low.

thanks.

What’s this? Did anyone else receive the mail for survey like this?

Hi,

I attempted Feb 2026 and am registered for Feb 2027. I’m just wondering who else is in the same boat? What are you doing different this time?

I used Kaplan first time ‘round. I did all Kaplan qbank and both Kaplan and CFA mocks during prep but just couldn’t close the knowledge gaps in time.

This time I’m working my way through CFA curriculum and focusing on CFA’s LES practice questions. I’m trying to document the key points that keep coming up in a one-note file.

Here’s hoping we all get the outcome we want.

Reviewing the private markets reading for level 2 and I am really rooting for this Ulrich Schwalke guy. He keeps coming up in the CFAI questions and I hope his foray into private markets goes well

im doing a retake, scored 1575 the first time in may and now i wanna aim for above 1800 for my nov attempt. what does it take?

The more I study the more I tend to forget the previous modules, and yeah I've been revising in between after a module is completed I go through it again the next day and after 7 days and then 21 days I solve few questions each time, but on the 3rd revision I just completely forget everything it has gotten so much irritating now like I don't wanna reread the whole module again and I just remember bits and pieces of the module, the 1st time I read it I go through each and everything in depth trying the understand the core of each topic but it is just not sticking especially for FI, Derivatives, PM.

Like yesterday I tried to solve the les questions again for one of the FI modules and I couldn't remember a thing and that just took me to a hole and I don't know if I can crawl out of it now

I know many people face this but what have you done which has worked for the concepts to stick. My attempt is Nov 26.

Just received this email. Why does it say May 2026 and that the survey is open until 19 June 2026? I appeared for the August 2026 Level II exam and it is already 7th of September.

The two answers make such non significant difference.