Only using third party study material?

@MM12‌ schweser notes are expensive, cost me over £240 I think but when you take the time into consideration, I think I’ll rather spend that amount than trying to cover the entire CFAI and risk not finishing in time and having to resit a year later. I’m a slow reader btw.

@priyaamin318, using third material depends on how one is comfortable with and the time remaining for exam. I have preprared using Schweser for Level-1 and Level-2 since I had only 4 months for both levels. For Level-3 I did not even look at schweser except for test papers as I had ample time.

One more consideration – CFAI comes for free with exam registration, third-party tools may cost a lot more (anywhere from a couple of hundred $ to thousands). In my case my employer paid for the Schweser study materials – I might not have used them if I’d had to pay for them myself!

Hi @priyaamin318‌, I have used Schweser and CFAI materials in the past. In my opinion, using only Schweser to study and then only looking at CFAI occasionally works well (it got me past level 2). CFAI material is a lot more wordy and sometimes goes into unnecessary detail. That said, if I’d had an infinite amount of time to prepare, I would have used CFAI most of the time because some concepts are better explained (in my opinion). The real power of Schweser is that the amount of text is a lot less, making it feasible to go through everything while having a full-time job. Either way, good luck!

@priyaamin318‌ I don’t know about any other third party study material but i mainly used schweser for all levels and purely schweser for L1. In L2 & 3, if you want to have further explanation on certain concepts you can look at the underlying text (as @mm12 mentioned). However, I do know some hardcore candidates like @RaviVooda‌ and @Alta12‌ who only use CFAI’s. So it’s down to how much time you have, how quick you can go through the syllabus.

@mm12 haha yes that’s a better word to describe, CFA well used 😛

@vincentt‌, True, it’s all opportunity costs 😉