Dear CFA® Candidate:

Congratulations! You’ve decided to pursue the CFA designation. You’re seeking one of the most prestigious global certifications – a true mark of distinction in the investment profession.

Without a doubt, you understand how challenging the exam will be. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be purchasing our additional exam review materials. Studying for Level I of the CFA exam will take a major commitment of your time. With your commitment and our experience, you can do this.

Each of the expert authors who prepared the Professional Exam Review materials is a CFA charterholder who together have more than 70 years of experience preparing candidates for the exam. We know you want to jump right in and start studying. But, if you just take a few minutes to plan you’ll be able to get more out of your valuable study time.
Before you get started take time to establish your plan of attack to help ensure your mastery of the CFA Program curriculum. The place to start is assessing your learning style and then selecting the products that will provide the most efficient study program for you. This “Getting Started” handbook and the corresponding online resources at http://www.professionalexamreview.com will help you make these important decisions and select the learning tools that will benefit you most.
Successful analysts compare costs and benefits. That’s why Professional Exam Review gives you the choice of a wide range of learning tools. Each is delivered in various formats to best fit your mobile lifestyle so you can study however, wherever and whenever you choose.

• Comprehensive Study Notes – helpful instructional reviews.
• Sample Practice Exams – essential exam practice.
• Study HiLites – indispensable topical reviews for exam topics.
• Study Pilots – quick full-color laminated review sheets.
• Online Practice Exam – exam practice questions.
• Video Study Sessions – self-paced lectures.
• Sound Bytes – audio retention tools.
• Flashcards – extra drill and practice.
Take advantage of these unparalleled resources to help bridge the gap between your current knowledge and your success on the exam. Remember, you can do this! Now, let’s get started.

Clay Singleton                                 Mike Joehnk
PhD, CFA                                        PhD, CFA
                                                        Series Editor

Cengage Learning delivers highly customized learning solutions for colleges, universities, professors, students, reference centers, government agencies, corporations and professionals around the world. These solutions are delivered through specialized content, applications and services that foster academic excellence and professional development, as well as provide measurable learning outcomes to its customers.

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The CFA designation is one of the most prestigious global certifications – a true mark of distinction in the investment profession. This professional designation is awarded to individuals by CFA Institute. To be accepted into the CFA Program, specific criteria must be met. For details about the requirements set forth by CFA Institute for attaining this designation, please visit www.cfainstitute.org.

The CFA Institute has carefully structured the Candidate Body of Knowledge™ to cover everything a practicing financial analyst or portfolio manager needs to know. Periodically they ask CFA charterholders what they do and how important it is to their work. These topics and their importance are the framework for the examination. The program curriculum is designed to help candidates acquire the knowledge and master the skills and techniques the profession requires. Understanding how the program curriculum is structured will make your preparation more efficient.

Topic Areas
The Candidate Body of Knowledge™ has ten topic areas divided into 18 study sessions. Each topic area has a brief overview to orient you to the topic and highlight key concepts. The topic areas are not created equal. As the Institute explains, they base the topic weights on a periodic survey of the profession. These weights are displayed in the following table.

Readings
Each reading has one or more Learning Outcome Statements (LOS) that explain what you are supposed to learn from that reading. Many readings originally came from textbooks published by Cengage Learning. The LOS guide you to the important parts of the readings.

LOS
Each Learning Outcome Statement (LOS) has a command word – a verb that explains the breadth and depth of understanding required. Explain, distinguish between, calculate, define, and diagram are some of the command words. These words tell you a great deal about the type of question to expect. Obviously these command words do not translate into multiple choice questions. We can, however, learn from these LOS.

As a CFA candidate you realize how challenging the CFA exam will be. There are three levels to the exams. The Level I CFA exam consists of 240 questions – 120 questions in the morning session and 120 questions in the afternoon session. Each session covers the same ten topic areas:

ethical and professional standards

quantitative methods

economics

financial statement analysis

corporate finance

portfolio management

equity investment

fixed income investments

derivatives , and

alternative investment

You will have three hours for each session which means, on average, a question should take you approximately 1½ minutes to answer. The exam writers know this too and don’t design questions they think will take the average candidate longer than about 2 minutes. Generally you can expect one LOS per question,  though some questions may involve more than one LOS. The questions themselves are all multiple choice with a stem and four possible answers.

The exam is only given in English and is scored by the number correct. A strong performance in one area will compensate for a weakness in another. Of course, if one does poorly in one of the heavily weighted areas, like financial statement analysis, an individual will have to do very well in most of the other areas to recover.

The Level I exam is offered twice a year in June and December. Preparing for the exam requires commitment and dedicated study (generally estimated at 250+ hours).