The Chartered Financial Analyst or CFA exam is one that is taken by thousands of people each year. If you are one of these people, you need to prepare for the CFA exam correctly. Fortunately, there are some tips to prepare for the CFA exam that you can use.
Studying Is A Marathon
If you are looking to pass CFA Level 1, you need to allow 300 to 400 hours of studying before the exam. This is why you need to think of studying like a marathon instead of a sprint. Trying to study as much as you can in as short a span of time as possible will lead to failure.
If you are going to take the exam in June, you need to start studying in December. When you do this, you are going to be covering less material each day. However, this does give your brain a better chance to fully absorb the material you go over and will lower the stress you feel.
Plan Carefully
While you should allow around 6 months to study, this can bring its own problems. A lot of people stray from their studies when they have this much time and you need to avoid this. The best way to avoid this will be to have a study plan.
When you create your plan, you need to take your work into consideration. You need to work you study schedule around your work commitments, but still allow 12 hours per week to study. You should also build 2 to 3 weeks of completely free time into your schedule. This will ensure that you can take care of any personal problems that come up without having to sacrifice study time.
The way that you study may be different from the way that someone you know studies. This is fine and you need to find and stick to the method that works for you. If you have a study method that has worked in the past, you should use this to study for the CFA exam.
When considering the method to use, you need to consider when you should study. Some people study better at night while others study better first thing in the morning. Where you study is also important because some people benefit from going to the library while others study better at home.
Practice
There are some people who spend too much time completing practice questions and not studying the concepts. However, this does not mean that you should not practice at all. Completing practice questions will help you get used to the questions and understand what to expect in the exam.
The key is to find a balance between practice questions and studying. When you complete practice questions, you should do so under a time limit. This will place you in exam conditions and train you to answer properly.
There are many tips that you can use to prepare for the CFA exam. Completing practice questions is important, but you also need to allow enough time to study.
