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LM01 Alternative Investment Features, Methods, and Structures

LM01 Categories, Characteristics, and Compensation Structures of Alternative Investments

LM01 Corporate Structures and Ownership

LM01 Derivative Instrument and Derivative Market Features

LM01 Ethics and Trust in the Investment Profession

LM01 Fixed-Income Instrument Features

LM01 Fixed-Income Securities: Defining Elements

LM01 Introduction to Financial Statement Analysis

LM01 Market Organization & Structure

LM01 Market Organization and Structure

LM01 Organizational Forms, Corporate Issuer Features, and Ownership

LM01 Portfolio Management Overview

LM01 Portfolio Management: An Overview

LM01 Rates and Returns

LM01 The Firm & Market Structures

LM01 Time Value of Money

LM01 Topics in Demand and Supply Analysis

LM02 Alternative Investment Performance and Returns

LM02 Analyzing Income Statements

LM02 Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct

LM02 Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct Profession

LM02 Financial Reporting Standards

LM02 Fixed Income Markets - Issuance Trading and Funding

LM02 Fixed-Income Cash Flows and Types

LM02 Forward Commitment and Contingent Claim Features and Instruments

LM02 Introduction to Corporate Governance and Other ESG Considerations

LM02 Investors and Other Stakeholders

LM02 Organizing, Visualizing, and Describing Data

LM02 Performance Calculation and Appraisal of Alternative Investments

LM02 Portfolio Risk & Return: Part I

LM02 Portfolio Risk and Return Part I

LM02 Security Market Indexes

LM02 The Firm and Market Structures

LM02 Time Value of Money in Finance

LM02 Understanding Business Cycles

LM03 Aggregate Output, Prices and Economic Growth

LM03 Analyzing Balance Sheets

LM03 Business Models & Risks

LM03 Corporate Governance: Conflicts, Mechanisms, Risks, and Benefits

LM03 Derivative Benefits, Risks, and Issuer and Investor Uses

LM03 Fiscal Policy

LM03 Fixed-Income Issuance and Trading

LM03 Guidance for Standards I-VII

LM03 Guidance for Standards I–VII

LM03 Introduction to Fixed Income Valuation

LM03 Investments in Private Capital: Equity and Debt

LM03 Market Efficiency

LM03 Portfolio Risk & Return: Part II

LM03 Portfolio Risk and Return Part II

LM03 Private Capital, Real Estate, Infrastructure, Natural Resources, and Hedge Funds

LM03 Probability Concepts

LM03 Statistical Measures of Asset Returns

LM03 Understanding Income Statements

LM04 An Introduction to Asset-Backed Securities

LM04 Analyzing Statements of Cash Flows I

LM04 Arbitrage, Replication, and the Cost of Carry in Pricing Derivatives

LM04 Basics of Portfolio Planning & Construction

LM04 Basics of Portfolio Planning and Construction

LM04 Capital Investments

LM04 Common Probability Distributions

LM04 Fixed-Income Markets for Corporate Issuers

LM04 Introduction to the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS)

LM04 Monetary Policy

LM04 Overview of Equity Securities

LM04 Probability Trees and Conditional Expectations

LM04 Real Estate and Infrastructure

LM04 Understanding Balance Sheets

LM04 Understanding Business Cycles

LM04 Working Capital and Liquidity.

LM05 Analyzing Statements of Cash Flows II

LM05 Capital Investments and Capital Allocation

LM05 Company Analysis: Past and Present

LM05 Fixed-Income Markets for Government Issuers

LM05 Introduction to Geopolitics

LM05 Introduction to Industry and Company Analysis

LM05 Monetary and Fiscal Policy

LM05 Natural Resources

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LM05 Pricing and Valuation of Forward Contracts and for an Underlying with Varying Maturities

LM05 Pricing and Valuation of Forward Contracts.

LM05 Sampling and Estimation

LM05 The Behavioral Biases of Individuals

LM05 Understanding Cash Flow Statements

LM05 Understanding Fixed-Income Risk and Return

LM05 Working Capital & Liquidity

LM06 Analysis of Inventories

LM06 Capital Structure

LM06 Cost of Capital-Foundational Topics

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LM06 Financial Analysis Techniques

LM06 Fixed-Income Bond Valuation: Prices and Yields

LM06 Fundamentals of Credit Analysis

LM06 Hedge Funds

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LM06 Industry and Competitive Analysis

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LM06 Introduction to Geopolitics

LM06 Introduction to Risk Management

LM06 Pricing and Valuation of Futures Contracts

LM06 Simulation Methods

LM07 Analysis of Long-Term Assets

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LM07 Capital Flows and the FX Market

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LM07 Company Analysis: Forecasting

LM07 Estimation and Inference

LM07 International Trade and Capital Flows

LM07 Introduction to Digital Assets

LM07 Introduction to Linear Regression

LM07 Inventories

LM07 Pricing and Valuation of Interest Rate and Other Swaps

LM07 Pricing and Valuation of Interest Rates and Other Swaps

LM07 Technical Analysis

LM07 Yield and Yield Spread Measures for Fixed-Rate Bonds.

LM08 Currency Exchange Rates

LM08 Equity Valuation: Concepts and Basic Tools

LM08 Exchange Rate Calculations

LM08 Fintech in Investment Management

LM08 Hypothesis Testing

LM08 Long Lived Assets

LM08 Measures of Leverage

LM08 Pricing and Valuation of Options

LM08 Topics in Long-Term Liabilities and Equity

LM08 Yield and Yield Spread Measures for Floating-Rate Instruments

LM09 Analysis of Income Taxes

LM09 Income Taxes

LM09 Option Replication Using Put-Call Parity

LM09 Option Replication Using Put–Call Parity

LM09 Parametric and Non-Parametric Tests of Independence

LM09 The Term Structure of Interest Rates: Spot, Par, and Forward Curves

LM10 Financial Reporting Quality

LM10 Interest Rate Risk and Return

LM10 Non-current (Long-Term) Liabilities

LM10 Simple Linear Regression

LM10 Valuing a Derivative Using a One-Period Binomial Model

LM11 Financial Analysis Techniques

LM11 Financial Reporting Quality

LM11 Introduction to Big Data Techniques

LM11 Yield-Based Bond Duration Measures and Properties

LM12 Applications of Financial Statement Analysis

LM12 Introduction to Financial Statement Modeling

LM12 Yield-Based Bond Convexity and Portfolio Properties

LM13 Curve-Based and Empirical Fixed-Income Risk Measures

LM14 Credit Risk

LM15 Credit Analysis for Government Issuers

LM16 Credit Analysis for Corporate Issuers

LM17 Fixed-Income Securitization

LM18 Asset-Backed Security (ABS) Instrument and Market Features

LM19 Mortgage-Backed Security (MBS) Instrument and Market Features

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2021 CFA Program Level I Exam – Overview and Major Changes

By Arif Irfanullah, CFA

Posted on 08-10-20 at 5:25 pm

Changes for 2021 Level I CFA Program Exam

In this blog, we provide you a brief overview of the Level I exam and will also go over the major changes that will come into effect from the February 2021 exam. The biggest change is that from 2021 all testing will be computer-based and not paper-based. December 2020 will be the last paper-based exam.

Key changes in exam format, topics, and topic-wise weights

Here are some key points related to changes in exam format, topics, and topic-wise weights.

We will now have two 135 minutes sessions i.e. 2.25 hours per session.
In each session, we will have 90 multiple choice questions which means a total of 180 questions instead of 240.
The average time per question will be 1.5 minutes per question like before.
There will be an optional break of 30 minutes between the two sessions.
Further, there are two changes in the topic weights. One change is that now the weights are given in a range. This implies that CFA Institute is not committing to any particular number of questions. The second change is the change in weights of topics. For example, the weight of ethics used to be 15% but now it lies in the range of 15 – 20% which implies that there could be more ethics questions than before. This highlights the fact that ethics is extremely important as also reflected by the fact that ethics has the highest weight among all the topics. So you shouldn’t take ethics lightly and you need to study it very carefully.

Topic	Weight (%)
Ethics	15 – 20
Quantitative Methods	8 – 12
Economics	8 – 12
Financial Reporting and Analysis	13 – 17
Corporate Finance	8 – 12
Equity	10 – 12
Fixed Income	10 – 12
Derivatives	5 – 8
Alternative Investments	5 – 8
Portfolio Management	5 – 8

A comparison between paper-based and computer-based exam is given below:

	Paper-based exam	Computer-based exam
Scheduling	One exam day/time offered	· Self-schedule your exam within the exam window (up to a 10-day period) · Now the candidates will have an option to schedule their CFA® exams on any day within the ten days predetermined exam window. The candidate can choose a date and location/center of their choice.
Locations	Proctored exam in 192 locations globally	· Proctored exam in 400+ locations globally, to include all locations currently offered in June. · Like before, the exams will still take place in examination centers. · However, the length of exams, and the dates and locations they can be taken, will change.
Exam length	Two 3-hour sessions with breaks in between	· Two 2.25-hour sessions for L1. · 135 minutes for sessions 1. · 135 minutes for session 2. · Total testing time is 4.5 hours. · Optional break in between the sessions; · There is going to be a 30 minutes period before the start of the exam which is allocated to pledge, tutorial, and survey. Hence, the Total appointment time for the exam will be 5.5 hours.

Exam cycle

Exam date	When to start studying
February	September
May	December
August	March
November	June

As depicted in the table above, you can opt for the Level I CFA® exam in four months – February, May, August, and November.
When to start studying depends on how much you already know and how quickly you can learn/grasp the concept and the amount of time you have every day for the study. You can refer to IFT study strategy videos for more details regarding the study strategy.

Paths to Receive the Charter

If you take the Level 1 exam in Feb 2021, then the earliest you can take the Level 2 exam is in August 2021. There is a Level 2 exam in May 2021 but you are not allowed to take that because the time period between Feb and May is too short. Similarly, if you pass the August 2021 Level 2 exam then the earliest you can take the Level 3 exam is in May 2022 although there is a Level 3 exam in Nov 2021. And then if you pass the Level 3 exam, you need to complete 4 years of relevant work experience in order to earn the CFA ® Charter. This is the best-case scenario.

However, if you are not able to pass the L1 exam, you cannot re-take it in the next session. For example, if you take the exam in Feb 2021 but do not pass then you can re-take it in August 2021 or November 2021 but not May 2021 exam. This means that Candidates that do not pass Level I will still have to wait a minimum of six months to retake the exam. Therefore, a maximum of two exams a year is possible – even if there are now four dates. This is consistent with the time that current candidates must wait to retake the exam.

What study material you will get from CFA Institute

When you sign up for the L1 exam, you will get the following study material:

CFA Program Curriculum for L1 – remember that you will be tested on the material covered in this curriculum. Most students find the Level 1 curriculum very lengthy and which is why they use study material from prep providers like IFT.
Interactive study planner
Topic tests – these are the questions associated with each topic. We highly recommend that you practice these questions once you are done with each topic.
Mock exams – you will get access to the CFAI mock exams generally 2-3 months before the exam. We strongly recommend doing these mock exams as these mock exams will help you in preparing for the actual exam.

How Will the Changes Affect Preparation and Curriculum?

The changes discussed above will neither reduce the volume of information in the curriculum nor will they reduce the level of difficulty of the exam. Hence, we recommend that you prepare for the exam with great dedication and commitment. IFT provides a number of comprehensive prep materials including video lectures, notes, practice questions, mock exams, etc for the candidates. There is a separate video in which we have discussed different IFT materials designed to help the students pass the exam.

Last, but not least, always remember that the key to success is PRACTICE, PRACTICE, AND PRACTICE.

Good luck!