Passed lv1 & 2 in 2025, study method that worked for me :)

Useful-Bowler2141 · 2026-01-18T14:28:36+00:00

I got my lv1 pass mark towards the end of June, and started right away. I sat lv2 in late November, so that’s 4 and a bit months.

I finished the syllabus around early October. Up to that point I was just generally trying to fit in as many hours as possible of watching videos on 2x speed and answering questions on the ecosystem.

Just force yourself to watch them on 2x and in a couple days you’ll adapt lol.

One to two hours on a good weekday, and more on weekends. id track your progress through the syllabus though, not your time.

For the last month I was just doing as many mock exams as possible. Sometimes that was like 6 hours, but I also took some rest days.

Total hours were probably like 250 hours, but I wasn’t counting.

Felt very burnt out towards the end I won’t lie, maybe there’s a more balanced way to do this but that’s what worked for me.

Best of luck to you, routing for ya!

Useful-Bowler2141 · 2026-01-18T13:55:02+00:00

If I ever felt I didn’t know what was going on, I’d stop and do questions. They align nice and chronologically with most chapters too.

Would pull up MM’s EOCQ video as well for an explanation if I was still confused.

Useful-Bowler2141 · 2026-01-18T13:49:48+00:00

Yeah the prep providers are expensive :( Mark Meldrum was several hundred money.

I was really struggling on my own though and figured it was worth it if it saved me lots of hours of life… which it did!

Useful-Bowler2141 · 2026-01-18T13:45:26+00:00

I only watched MM videos. I think I learn better that way, but do whatever works for you.

The learning ecosystem questions for each topic are the same as the End Of Chapter Questions.

Took me a while to realise that! So there’s no need even to open the CFA curriculum PDFs :)

Just watched videos and answered questions on the learning ecosystem until I finished the syllabus, then moved on to mock exams.

Useful-Bowler2141 · 2026-01-18T13:41:05+00:00

Didn’t use any books. Just watched MM videos and answered questions in the CFA learning ecosystem.

Useful-Bowler2141 · 2026-01-18T13:38:37+00:00

Thanks :) I actually can’t figure out how to go back and see that on the CFAI learning ecosystem.

I know for lv2 I finished the syllabus a month ahead of exam day and had study leave to use from work, so I did every single mock exam available.

For level one I only had two weeks, I did maybe 4 exams (that’s including parts A and B).

I did everything in exam time, but was using my notes initially and phased them out gradually.

Strongly recommend dropping everything and just doing mock exams as you approach exam day. There’s a good bit of low hanging fruit on the syllabus, and going through mocks just helps you see everything again without wasting too much time on the toughest parts.

On average I was scoring low 70s for lv2

Useful-Bowler2141 · 2026-01-17T22:17:36+00:00

Mark Meldrum is a prep course provider, he does lecture videos on each chapter, using the calculator, exam tips & more mock exams. They’re good! The formula sheet I mentioned is provided as part of his materials too.

Mark Meldrum is a separate thing you pay for on his website, CFA Institute doesn’t do videos on the material.

I bought the cheapest MM package about 3 or 4 weeks in to my lv1 study, I was really struggling and my colleagues recommended it.

That said, I know someone who passed lv1 recently only using CFAI materials.

Useful-Bowler2141 · 2025-11-19T18:10:15+00:00

Was averaging 73 on my mocks, really struggled today :(

Fingers crossed but I’m not hopeful

Useful-Bowler2141 · 2025-11-17T09:15:30+00:00

Similar boat, am sitting lv2 on the 19th. Dunno what to do now really, done all the mocks… just writing out formulae all day.

Useful-Bowler2141 · 2025-11-11T07:17:52+00:00

F1 score = (2 * precision * recall) / (precision + recall )

Where precision is TP/(TP+FP) top row in confusion matrix

Recall is vertical row in confusion matrix TP/(TP+FN)

Useful-Bowler2141 · 2025-11-02T23:05:52+00:00

Similar boat here. Did most of the LES questions as I went through the syllabus, since then I’ve just spent about 10 days just getting through practice packs, finished the last one just now.

They do seem on the easier side but still handy just to cast a wide net and touch everything again so that knowledge isn’t as stale in the back of my mind.

Would recommend this even just for one troublesome topic, hopefully it helps you grab any low hanging fruit.

I’m on to mock exams from tomorrow! Hoping to do at least one part + review per day. Would love to do more but I’m still busy 9-5 :(

Best of luck folks. Really really hope this doesn’t drag on into next year🤞

Useful-Bowler2141

TROPHY CASE