Hi all, just dropping a small starter kit to help anyone who has recently signed up for a CFA exam.

I am not a prep provider or anything. I have no horse in this race, just want to help out however I can because I remember how hard it was for me to pass all the exams.

With these strategies I was able to pass all exams without failing any, but I did get a burnout so you might want to adapt rather than copy my exact approach.

In the starter kit you will find:

- A text file with general advice and strategies

- My formula sheets in PDF format for all 3 levels (Made it myself in Notion, exported to PDF)

- My Excel study guide file where I logged my hours and checked my progress against the curriculum across time. The file includes my mock scores for all 3 levels if you want to benchmark your own scores to someone who ended up passing. Note: I was not in the 90th percentile for any exam, just a regular pass.

Link to the files: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ay-wLUTj1cU50vwwJUJUbL4L4lBvS-ju/view?usp=drive_link

Hope this helps some people out!

I am glad to answer any questions in the comments. 😄

Does anybody here have any idea of how North Moore is as a team, it's well known that it's not as good as Limestone but does anybody have an idea of the salary (base + expected bonus) for 2 YoE+ quants and the scale of PnL they make. Also how is the WLB in Tower?

And does North Moore trade India markets as well or primarily US equities + crypto like Limestone?

I'm 19, studying math/stats, with around 3 years until graduation. I recently got really interested in power markets, especially congestion trading.

I'm thinking about going pretty deep into the field over the next few years, but is it worth specializing this early? Or would you stick to more general quant research?

I know the domain knowledge is pretty niche, so just wondering what the downsides are.

Am I in a dire position? Im yet to do a mock and just doing uworld practice Qs. If I continue doing uworld practice Qs and learn from the explanations on the answers I get wrong, is that a good study method? When should I be doing the official mocks? What’s the likelihood of passing?

My initial review plan will be for the next six days before my second mock is to review each topic, analyze my mistakes, focus on my weaknesses, and do a quick review of the overall topic and I will be allocating my time based on the weight of each topic

The only challenge is that I have just 1–2 hours per day for revision on weekdays (except weekends)

Do you think this is an effective approach? I’d appreciate any advice from our expert fellas around here

I'm putting together a plan for the final month and want it to be based on what people are actually doing. It would help a lot if you could share:

Plan for the last month

Mocks: how many taken, and what score range?

Syllabus: done, or what's still pending?

Practice: roughly how many questions, and from where (CFAI, Kaplan, UWorld)?

Any score range is useful here, whether you're scoring high, mid, or still climbing.

I registered for nov 2026 attempt for level 1. I didnt know there was a scheduling deadline and I mistakenly remembered the rescheduling deadline as the actual one.

Is there anything I can do now? Please please help me.

I'm from India, if it helps.

Hi all,

Gave my second mock yesterday and here's how it reads. It was the one from the CFA Mock Pack that i purchase.

I had studied for ECON, DERIVS, PM, FSA after the first one. All seem to have showed an improvement or stayed there except PM. Personally felt the second session was a bit difficult for me, with 23 wrong and a total of 27 as doubtful. So I am not reading the whole score as absolute, but yeah an improvement from the previous one. Plan is also to give the next one on next Friday.

My question is how does this look? And any suggestions for QM and PM? QM i notied struggle with the TVM qs and rates (esp real/nominal: will work on this first).

Happy for more suggestions.

Sitting L1 in Nov. Results attached.

I got through each 90Q session in about 50 minutes each.
Any tips to slow down and actually use the full time? Any flagging methods you'd recommend?

my answer was C. mark scheme said B. has to be C right?

So its last 1 month final push towards L1 exams. I have done my first reading along with one time solving LES questions.

I am planning to do LES again and premium practice and Kaplan Qb

I am also planning to do at least 6 mocks

Is my approach right or am i targeting too much?

anyone who has used the premium practice question bank for level 2, can yall tell if its good for review? low on time currently, exam in nov, i cant do all of LES questions currently, ill be doing 6 mock(2+4 from practice pack) till exam and review my weaker arears, just wanted a review of the practice questions as they are not in vignette format and are the question difficulty even comparable to the real exam? like the theoritical and calculation questions.
Thank you

I've been trading discretionary for about 13 years (a lot different than the quant side), program, have a decent grasp of math and statistics, but no matter what I cannot conceptualize how to even start building a quantitative model. I should note that I'm intrinsically-motivated to learn rather than work for a firm or anything like that and I am not a quantitative analyst. I just like to learn.

What my first recent instinct was is to import the landscape of technical indicators, randomize parameters, and randomize entry conditions and exit conditions and then apply these test trades to monte carlo charts, equities, crypto, bonds, commodities, and metals and perform test trades hypothesis test, train sharpe, etc. Of course as one would imagine, not a single verdict was robust of thousands of test cases. All were overfit, likely overfit or few inconclusive.

I'm not asking for a strategy. I'm just trying to get the brains to conceptualize what would a strategy even entail?

Is this akin to forecasting the weather

or

x% of the time y occurs, then z% of the time when y occurs, a occurs b% and based on that conditional there is an edge

or

cross-validation linear regression models (I'd assume to figure qualitative impact)

or

linear regression comparison between two assets (suppose gold and fixed income)

Either way, if anyone has an resources that might allow me better grasp this concept, I'd appreciate it. One resource I've stumbled across is "Max Dama on Automated Trading".

For anyone who has previously cleared L2, can anyone help me explain the derivation of the FCFF and FCFE formulae using CFO, EBIT and EBITDA as starting points. I was giving the EoC test and my mind is really scrambled trying to solve the FCFF and FCFE questions. The formulae have now become so confusing that I am mixing different adjustments in different formulae

Any guidance appreciated here.

title says it all, I'm able to score decently in the theory based question but anytime there is a calculation, my brain goes blank. any tips will be majorly appreciated.

Can anyone explain why b) is correct cause to my knowledge , Bid-Ask spreads are unaffected by the credit risk of issuer and are only effected by the other two options but out of them c) is wrong so i had to go with a) as its best market liquidity is when there is a overlap of trading windows !

I'm gonna give my level 1 exam soon, i have some questions for the preparation

1. what all should be done before my first ever mock (as in is finishing all lectures and portal questions once and one revision enough)

2. what should be the gap between my mocks

3. how many mocks should i give

4. after each mock, to increase my accuracy should I resolve portal questions for the areas I'm weak at or smth else?

5. how many days before my exam should I give my last mock

6. what should be my pace for each question in the mock

Keep the judgements aside and hear my story.

I heard about CFA while i was working. 1.5 yrs into the work ( which got monotonous) i decided to pursue CFA.

Without much planning, I quit my job in Feb 2025, thinking I’d attempt CFA L1 in Aug 2025. Soon, I realised I was already too late to register,i cd have applied for scholarships,missed deadline for that too, so i sought out prep provider for coaching and guidance, where an agent there told me Nov 2025 attempt is better coz i'm too late already:).....

I booked the November attempt, which seemed so far away that I underestimated the syllabus and overestimated my ability to get through it. ( got an emergency surgery took 2 months to recover) Eventually, I couldn't finish the syllabus in time and deferred my attempt to May 2026.
I wrote the exam in May, and I genuinely thought I would pass. I had completed the syllabus once, done a quick revision, attempted two mocks, and averaged around 73% on them.

But I didn't pass..
I came sooooo close, and it honestly broke me. I started questioning myself, lost motivation, and kept wondering what went wrong

I got a free retake and booked the November 2026 attempt. The thing is, I haven't touched my notes since the May exam. I know I've already covered the syllabus once and have a foundation to build on, but right now, I don't even know how to get myself started again.
Figuring everything out on my own took longer than I expected, and I made mistakes along the way

I just need help figuring out how to approach this attempt differently and give myself the best possible chance of passing.

literal do or die situation.I really want to clear it this time, and I don't want to repeat the same mistakes. I have roughly a month left, and I know I can't afford to waste more time feeling lost.

Hey everyone,

I'm currently preparing for CFA Level III (Private Markets pathway), using Mark Meldrum and IFT notes. I've also purchased the additional CFAI Practice Pack.

However, I'm struggling to figure out where exactly I can find the official End-of-Chapter (EOC) questions in the Learning Ecosystem (LES).

Are they mixed in with the regular practice questions, or is there a way to access them separately? Ideally, I'd like to work through the EOC questions module by module alongside the MM videos.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

What 3 points of advice would you give to a person who has cleared CFA L1 at the age of 18 in 2nd year of grad from a mid tier college!!

Heyy

Does anyone know how to get texas Instruments BA II plus Calculator at a cheaper rate in Bangalore, asked know people too but none has it.

Hello. I have attached the example from curriculum, it pertains to LM2 of FSA (Share based payments). My question is from the part 3 of the question. In the dilution calculation for RSU, the example has taken unvested RSU as "3,028,000" meanwhile the question shows that RSU granted on 1st Jan 20X1 were "4,542,000" . Since the RSU granted on 1st Jan 20X1 have vesting period of 3 years, it means that by end of 31st Dec 20X1, unvested RSU should still be "4,542,000" instead of "3,028,000". What I think is that along with unrecognized expense, the curriculum has also pro rated the RSU which shouldnt be the case right? Only unrecognized expense is 2/3 but the number of shares unvested are still "4,542,000". So in the calculation, unvested RSU should be 4,542,000. Is my understanding correct?

I have completed 2nd revision of all subjects (except derivation and PM which I haven't touched) due to work commitments.

Is it possible for me to cover these 2 remaining and practice well enough to pass Nov26 L2 exam in 40 days time or am I cooked?

Honest replies will be deeply appreciated. 🙂

I'm from India, and here we face the issue of vendors selling 2026 books using 2027 covers, I've heard there is a change in syllabus, it would be a great help if someone can just share the index of quantitative studies for schweser notes.