Costs Incurred:

We are certain you would be able to find countless of articles about how much it costs financially to take the CFA level 1 paper but here we summarised a whole list of costs (financially, effort, time, etc) that you would have to pay for when studying for your first paper, on first try:

Exam Duration & Question Format

Did you know that the CFA paper 1 is split into two sessions – one in the morning and one in the afternoon? Intensive period indeed.

1. a) Morning: 120 questions (3 hours)
2. b) Afternoon: 120 questions (3 hours)

That means you have approximately 1.5 minute to attempt every question. These are mutually exclusive questions with three available answers per question in a similar format below: 

Which of the following is least likely to be considered as an alternative investment?

1.      Real Estate
2.      Commodities
3.      Long-only Equity Funds

Release of Results 

The most nerve-wracking part of CFA Paper 1 only occurs 60 days after completing the exams – the release of the Exam Results. The minimum passing score for the CFA level 1 paper is never disclosed, says CFA institute (we are assuming it is based on the intake’s bell curve!) but we encourage candidates to aim minimally 70% of the points by topic to try to be among the right hand side of the bell-curve!

Read more on the above quote here. If you need any help in understanding how to read your topic area performance summary then read the official release by CFA Institute here.

Last but not least, Funds Partnership Asia wishes all candidates taking their CFA Level 1 paper the best of luck but always remember: Exams are always going to happen. You are either going to pass or fail but that one word does not get to decide your future!