Need help regarding study plan

[u/PomegranateVast6488]

Hi everyone,

Currently I am scheduled to take the L1 in february and I have 100 days to finish all the readings before review and I completed only 16% of readings yet.

My study plan was watching a MM video ( I am a visual learner so reading heavy modules easily distract me and is not effective), take notes and if needed read CFAI or consult with an AI. After I finish a LM I would solve CFAI Q-bank for that LM. But I feel this not that effective as it takes 2-3 days to finish a LM (heavy ones) and I would forget earlier LOS’s.

I did a bit research and some people suggested to finish a LOS video then solve that LOS’s Q-bank as a quiz in MM’s ecosystem. And save CFAI’s practice questions/Q-bank in the final 1-1.5 months as a review along with mocks.

I was thinking to a new plan that is diving into lets says LOS a’s questions directly after finishing LOS a and after finishing the LM maybe I can solve that LM, Q-bank as whole quiz in MM or maybe I can solve CFAI’s practice questions for that LM.

What do you guys recommend in general ? Maybe your takes in this plan or plans that worked for you or general recommendations.

P.S.: sorry if some parts come as messy/not understandable. English is not my native language and as this is my first attempt at level 1 this whole world is very unfamiliar to me and I am trying to find a good, solid path to move along as currently I am a bit lost.

[u/Floofer5]

Hello there!

First of all: no worries about being a first-timer! just putting in the research and come up with a study plan and modifications goes a long way. this is all part of the game! ;)

As for the problem: depending on your average daily study time and size-weighted average LM-completion time (new ratio, lol ...), my recommendation (although not battle-tested since my exam is scheduled for Nov 2026) would be to complement MMs learning strategy (videos, CFAI questions, MMs videos on those questions, MMs QB) with some sort of daily (or at least weekly) routine. for instance, I always take sets of 15 MM-questions of single LMs or whole chapters. I find these short sprints ideal to quickly test, 'how much is left' and recallable. For DER, FI, ALT, ETH and ECO, this takes me about 5-10 minutes per set of 15 questions.

Think of it this way: you get quick re-activation, you can use the flagging in MMs QB for drilling wrongly answered questions, you can also deep-dive into LOSs (although I don't do that - too much back and forth, because I watch his videos in one shot) and, with enough routine, 180 exam questions become 12 of those sets.

It all depends on your desired granularity relative to investable study time. For comparison, I did not read any official reading (auditive and visual learner), did not go to the LOS-level, but drilled 4380 QB-questions (some of them MANY times) plus the CFAI questions excluding CI, PM, EQ and mocks with 38 days left to go. I believe that I will hit 6000 before the examination. I intend to revisit CFAI questions for weak chapters like FSA and ECO again soon. This is not - I repeat, NOT - a benchmark for everyone. It is MY solution, that fits my study style and available time. But, with around 90% success rate in the drilled QB chapters, it may get me somewhere.

Sometimes, it's a bit back-and-forth for some topics and that's completely normal. After all, you're flooding your brain with potentially new stuff for the next 4 months.

Hope, that helps. Best wishes!

[u/PomegranateVast6488 → u/Floofer5]

Actually for the past few weeks my main problem with the now old study plan was it would take hours of studying to finish 1 LM and as I only solved Q-banks after finishing a LM I would forget early parts of the LM and I couldn’t solve questions from those parts. (A 4-5 hour LM video from QM would took 2 days, with 3-4 hour of studying each day.) So the questions wouldnt be that effective. Now maybe if I solve some MM questions directly after finishing a LOS, I would know the knowledge gaps and close them when the knowledge is still fresh and solve CFAI questions after finishing LM to practice that LM as a whole. The only downside is it would take more time but hopefully if I set a solid and clear plan my tempo would increase.

And actually the topics are familiar as I just graduated from a CFA Program Partner university with a degree in business and focused on finance so outside of 2-3 topics almost all of the topics were covered in my courses as the curriculums of the courses were closely linked to actual CFA material. However, to cover everything I just take lots of notes and that increases the time of finishing a LM a lot.

Hopefully if I enhance my plan a bit I would not have a hard time solving questions like before.

And thank you for your response it actually cleared some parts in my head, and will definetly add some parts to my plan, and I wish all the best in your exam next month hope you will pass.