NOV 2023 Level 1 CFA® Exam Study Plan & Tips
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3 months 3 weeks 1 day
Special offer for candidates who start studying in March

Since you're reading this post, you must be thinking about registering for your NOV 2023 level 1 CFA exam soon. The NOV 2023 CFA exam registration started on 31 Jan 2023 and the early registration fee deadline is not until 10 May 2023 (you can save $300 if you register by then + there are new higher 2023 registration fees, so it's definitely worth considering).
- your strengths,
- your weaknesses,
- your learning pace,
- your finance background.
NOV 2023 AVAILABLE TO LEVELS 1&2
Let's take a moment to discuss the strengths and weaknesses before we provide our deadlines for topics and topics review.
Are You Like Billy, Danna, Larry or Umber?
Your strengths and weaknesses may relate to things such as time management, motivation to study, diligence, and determination. But also to the previous knowledge of topics you gained as a student or at work. You will need to take all this into account when making your study plan. Just take a moment to think about it before you get down to books.
You know best what your strong and weak points are but here we'd like to draw your attention to some key aspects such as the ability to prioritize, ability to plan, ability to act as planned, and ability to focus. Why? Because CFA exam candidates:
- are often very busy,
- find it hard to fit their study hours into their full daily calendars,
- are no different than the others and procrastinate at times,
- struggle with efficient learning.
Remember that even with 8 months to go it is important to study systematically and at a suitable pace. The exam day will come sooner than you think and you want to be prepared for this day and then satisfied when the exam is over.
NOV 2023 AVAILABLE TO LEVELS 1&2
CFA Exam Tips for Organized and Focused Learning
KEY CFA EXAM TIP: It's no mistake to start your level 1 exam preparation so soon. On the contrary, it may be a very prudent and responsible decision as long as you can manage your study time reasonably and use it to your advantage.
Here’s some advice on how to do it:
- Develop both hard and soft skills
- Manage your distractions
- Devise a clear CFA exam studying strategy
- Get yourself a good CFA exam study plan
- Study regularly, then simply relax
- Review and practice a lot
- Assess your study progress
It means that apart from studying your CFA Program curriculum (hard skills), you should also learn about the specifics of the CFA exam and exam prep. So, read as much as you can to get familiar with the exam format, requirements, policies, etc. Also, get to know how much time you should prepare for your exam and how to prepare to pass (soft skills). We write about it all on our blog.
If you stay busy with everything else but your CFA exam prep, you won't be able to organize your prep successfully and study productively. Plus, you'll be tempted to put your study sessions off, which is not a good idea if you want to be among the 43% (or even lower these days!) of candidates who pass their exam.
Treat learning as a process, not an event – a good strategy drives every efficient process! The strategy we recommend can be put into 4 words: PLAN – STUDY – REVIEW – ASSESS. We implemented this strategy into our CFA Exam Study Planner and it is intended to help those who feel busy, disorganized, lazy or unproductive.
Plans make things happen! Plan for the big picture but focus on your everyday tasks. The level 1 study plan you will find below is a good basis for your own 8-month study schedule. If you use our CFA Exam Study Planner, you'll be able to adjust it to your needs, e.g. you’ll be able to choose your topic sequence and allocate fewer study hours to those topics you are good at by marking them as ‘easy’. We say more about it at the end of this post.
Study hard, then rest once in a while – a good student is a relaxed student. When you study, best go to your study space where nobody disturbs you. When you relax, don't think about the exam. It's the only healthy approach.
Be careful! I’ve studied ≠ I’ve learned. It's because of the forgetting curve that makes us forget even up to 60% of what we study. To learn, you need to regularly review what you study. Also, practice systematically by doing lots of exam-type questions to get familiar with the exam format.
Each week you should check if you follow your study plan. Reward yourself if you’re making progress, try harder if you don’t. Remember that it's ok to make some reasonable adjustments to your study schedule as long as you do not postpone too much and too often.
Warning Against
8-Month Prep Threats The worst you can do is spend these 8 months ineffectively! Grrr…
Only the responsible attitude of regular and productive work leads to success.
Let the time slip through your fingers and you’re in for real trouble – make sure you don't wake up too late to a great deal of work ahead of you!
Creating a Level 1 CFA Exam Study Plan for NOV 2023
Below, there's a sample 8-month study plan for the NOV 2023 level 1 CFA exam. It is divided into 5 study blocks with topics revision in between the study blocks and the Final Review just before your exam.
Some basic information about our sample level 1 CFA exam study plan (8 months):
- Starting date: 13 March 2023
- Ending date: 10 Nov 2023
- The NOV 2023 level 1 exam window lasts from 11 to 17 November 2023. So, you can have from 5 to 6 weeks of – what we call – Final Review. Basically that's when you should do as many mock exams as possible!
- Using our Study Planner, you can choose your topic sequence. This is what we believe to be the best level 1 topic order (Ethics may be done either at the beginning or at the end):
START on 13 MARCH 2023
1st Study Block (13/March – 27/Apr)
- Quantitative Methods
- Portfolio Management
- QM+PM Review
2nd Study Block (28/Apr – 26/June)
- Financial Statement Analysis*
- Corporate Issuers*
- FSA+CI Review
- QM+PM Review
3rd Study Block (27/June – 8/Aug)
- Fixed Income
- Equity Investments
- FI+EI Review
- QM+PM+FSA+CI Review
4th Study Block (9/Aug – 30/Aug)
- Derivatives
- Alternative Investments
- DER+AI Review
- QM+PM+FSA+CI+FI+EI Review
5th Study Block (31/Aug – 8/Oct)
- Economics
- Ethics
- ECO+ETH Review
FINAL REVIEW (9 Oct – 10 Nov)
END on 10 NOV 2023
Special offer for candidates who start studying in March
This plan follows the optimal topic order – topics come in quite natural pairs, where one is more challenging and one a bit easier, namely QM+PM, FSA+CI, FI+EI, DER+AI. Ethics and Economics end your preparation. (But you can easily choose your prefered topics sequence after creating your study plan). Also, apart from the final month of revision, there are 8 topic review sessions scheduled meanwhile.
*Topic difficulty is a rather subjective criterion (here as estimated by Soleadea expert). To learn more about it, see CFA exam topics categorization.
What is great about this level 1 CFA exam study schedule is that you will be able to study every topic thoroughly. You may as well read each topic twice, which will give you a more in-depth understanding. The final revision lasts roughly 30-40 days. Proper revision enhances your long-term memory and allows you to better recall things in your exam. There is really a lot of time and you should try to use it as effectively as possible.
NOV 2023 AVAILABLE TO LEVELS 1&2
Detailed Level 1 CFA Exam Study Schedule
Here’s a table with all the topic deadlines for your 8-month NOV 2023 level 1 CFA exam study plan. Given in the table are also the deadlines for topics revision and the Final Review before your exam.
Level 1 CFA Exam Topics | NOV 2023 Exam: Topic Deadlines |
---|---|
Quantitative Methods | 2 Apr 2023 |
Portfolio Management | 23 Apr 2023 |
QM+PM Review | 27 Apr 2023 |
Financial Statement Analysis* | 5 June 2023 |
Corporate Issuers* | 20 June 2023 |
FSA+CI Review | 26 June 2023 |
QM+PM Review | 26 June 2023 |
Fixed Income | 16 July 2023 |
Equity Investments | 30 July 2023 |
FI+EI Review | 8 Aug 2023 |
QM+PM+FSA+CI Review | 8 Aug 2023 |
Derivatives | 16 Aug 2023 |
Alternative Investments | 20 Aug 2023 |
DER+AI Review | 30 Aug 2023 |
QM+PM+FSA+CI+FI+EI Review | 30 Aug 2023 |
Economics | 17 Sept 2023 |
Ethics | 4 Oct 2023 |
ECO+ETH Review | 8 Oct 2023 |
Final Review | 10 Nov 2023 |
* Before 2022, CFA Program curriculum referred to Financial Statement Analysis as Financial Reporting and Analysis (FRA for short) and to Corporate Issuers as Corporate Finance.
NOTE:
If you set up your personalized study plan,
the deadlines will get adjusted.
NOV 2023 AVAILABLE TO LEVELS 1&2
Your CFA Exam Study Plan: 30+ Weeks, 300+ Study Hours
With 8 months to go, you need not study every day. Let's say you study 3 hours 3 days a week + get half an hour of review each week and you get yourself as many as 315 study hours, easily split into study time and review time.
In the paid version of our CFA Exam Study Planner, you can find lots of to-the-point study materials and regular review sessions as well as get benchmark study times for all topics given on a weekly basis and allocated to every CFA exam reading one by one.
Special offer for candidates who start studying in March
* * * * *
Adjust the Study Schedule to Your Needs!
Using our CFA Exam Study Planner, you can personalize your study schedule. That's what you can do:
- choose the START DATE of your CFA exam prep (need not be today),
- choose the EXAM DATE within your CFA exam window,
- choose the no. of Final Review weeks,
- choose the topic sequence,
- decide for each topic if it's easy, moderate, or difficult to you (easy means you’re not new to the topic and you can cover the topic more quickly, difficult means you’ll need more time to study the topic),
- check off the readings you have already studied (if there are such),
- choose if you want to take any weeks off studying and say when exactly,
- opt in for some aids to help your motivation such as benchmark study times or your Chance-to-Pass score,
- check off and star the lessons listed for each reading in your study plan to develop your own study process,
- fill in your study plan with study materials & review apps to support the productivity of your work,
- get your review sessions scheduled (i) weekly, (ii) after topics, and (iii) right before the exam,
- edit each study week using drag & drop in the PLAN tab.
NOV 2023 AVAILABLE TO LEVELS 1&2
Here’s a sample level 1 CFA exam study schedule as displayed in our new Study Planner 4.0:

FIND your Study Plan in the PLAN tab View all the weeks of your CFA exam prep, see how much you’ve done and how much is still ahead of you, as well as customize your schedule using your Study Plan personalization options and the DRAG & DROP for both topics and study weeks.

CFA Exam Study Planner: STUDY View You will be asked to focus on your current week of studying. You will know what to study (left-hand menu) and how much to study (benchmark study times). Here, you'll also find your study lessons, including videos, tests, PDFs, etc. At the end of the week, your hard work will be evaluated (hit the SUM UP button).
CFA Exam Study Planner: PROGRESS View You will be able to see your progress by topics and weeks. Each week your Chance to Pass score will go up or down.

CFA Exam Study Planner: REVIEW View To learn, you must review. Use the special view of your Study Planner to review your study lessons, rewatch videos, revise formulas, etc.

Special offer for candidates who start studying in March
Editor's Note: This post was originally published in April 2014 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
Last Update: Feb 17, 2023
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Comments
is this study plan updated for 2022 curriculum?
We always do our best to update our study plans for you as soon as possible. First, this study plan was updated for Feb 2022 level 1 candidates. Now, it's also available to those who take their CFA exam in May 2022 and it takes into account the changes present in the new 2022 CFA exam curriculum. Hope it all helps!