Tips for Passing CFA Program Level I Exam

When you are working towards a second go at an exam, it can often be worth using a new study technique. It’s a way of keeping things fresh even though you are looking at the same material, and a different method might also help you retain information that you didn’t the first time around. 

How you learn best is a very personal choice, but there are a lot of techniques out there that have been tried and tested over the years. Here are three for you to try:

Pomodoro® Technique  – for distraction-free focus

Invented by Francesco Cirillo, the Pomodoro Technique aims to help you avoid distractions when you are trying to study. It emphasizes the importance of working on one task at a time and in small bursts, using something simple like a kitchen timer or smartphone timer app to keep you motivated and on track.

It’s all about breaking down a big curriculum into achievable bite-size chunks. Cirillo suggests working intensively for 25 minutes and then taking a five-minute break.

To-do lists are important, but just as important in the Pomodoro Technique is keeping a record of what you have learned. There’s no better way to keep your spirits up – and get a sense of real progress – than ticking off a list of small wins that build towards your bigger goal.

Feynman Technique – for deep understanding

Here’s a technique from Richard Feynman, who was a physicist but also a master of the art of simplification. The idea is that when you are learning a new or complex concept, you should work out how you would explain it in the simplest terms possible to someone who knew nothing about it. 

That can be harder than it might sound, and you’ll soon find that learning in this way really tests whether you understand a topic deeply. 

It can be a great method to try if you are part of a study group, where each member can choose a topic to explain to the others. But even if you’re studying alone, you’ll find that by acting as if you were teaching someone else, you’ll teach yourself better too.

Leitner System – for grading your knowledge

All of us know about using flashcards as a way to learn large amounts of information, but do we always use them effectively? It’s easy to lose sight of structure with lots of cards, and that can mean lots of wasted time.

The Leitner System, invented by German journalist Sebastian Leitner, builds on ‘spaced repetition’, which is the idea that if you review information regularly, but with longer intervals between each review, you’ll retain it better than intensive ‘cramming’. 

The Leitner System combines this with flashcards that you keep grading according to how difficult you find them to remember. You set up a series of boxes in order of difficulty, and start with all your cards in the hardest one. When you recall a card correctly, you put it into the next easiest box in the sequence. Get it wrong, and it goes back to a harder box – and so on.

The harder a box is, the more often you test yourself on it. That means you will gradually focus your effort on the information you’re finding more difficult, while not neglecting what you’re more confident about.