Level 1 exam prep, weightings by study readings

Question

Hi guys,

Like most who first enrol in the CFA program, I have been somewhat overcome by the sheer volume of material contained within the program.

To try to cope with this I've thrown together an Excel spreadsheet which compares topic attribution scores (per exam weighting), and with each reading assigned a level of significance according to how many end-of-reading Practice Questions there are.

My question is: does anyone know, are the number of Practice Questions indicative of the number of questions in the exam? (by proportion to the exam day's 240 questions) For example, I have counted roughly 1,500 practice questions (non-multiple choice questions are counted by the number of question sub-sets); if there are say 40 Practice Questions at the end of a topic, and that topic's total practice questions (across say 3 readings) is 100, would it be fair to say that that reading's content comprise 40% (40/100) of that topic's assessable content?

I know this is unlikely to be anything near an exact science, and by no means is that my objective.  What I am trying to do is work out an estimated significant of each topic in relation to the overall exam so that I can figure out which areas my weaknesses lay, and most importantly where I should be focusing my attention to improve my overall result.

(i.e., if I am scoring 50% in a section that is worth 5% of the exam, but 60% in a section that makes up 15% of the exam, it makes more sense for my to improve my 60% score to 80% {3% improvement in overall result} than to screw around getting my 50% score to 90% {2% improvement in overall result} )

Hopefully this makes sense.  I'm happy to share the Excel spreadsheet I put together for this (though not sure if I can upload on this site?  Maybe I can email to the moderator to post??).

Cheers!

mitch895 · Answer

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the feedback.

@zee - I've been scouring this site for the past week taking in the suggestions posted by moderators and members -- certainly helps to work out which areas I need to brush up on.

If the Practice Problems are anything to go by, the difficulty of the exam is going to be much, much tougher than I initially anticipated.  It's full of topics that I know quite well, but the depth is insane!

When I get back to the office and when time permits I'll send you a copy of the Excel spreadsheet.  Cheers!

edulima · Answer

Sounds good @mitch895. Since you're going for Jun 2014, there's enough time to test a couple of ideas and see what works best for you. Best of luck!!!

To clarify, I'm not getting close to 100% -- that's just what I'm aiming for! I'm closer to 90% after reading twice each reading (first time I highlight, second time I write my own summary), which entails a lot of effort. My pace is about one Study Session per week (actually a little slower than that: 22 weeks for 18 study sessions; I spent more time on the FRA part), and I should be done in about 5-6 weeks from today, leaving me about a month until the exam. At that point, I plan to review my summaries and crack q-banks and mock exams at an increasing intensity.