[Greenman72]

I posted this on another thread, but I think it needs to go here.

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I am a CPA, and I am currently studying for Level 3 of the CFA exam. For those who say the CFA is harder than CPA, you have absolutely no idea.

Just so you know, I did not major in accounting. I have neither a Bachelor’s nor a Master’s. I took the minimum number of hours that I could in order to be eligible for the CPA exam. I never took Advanced Accounting, Business Combinations, or Business Tax. (I did take Individual Tax.) Even without those classes, I passed the CPA after only studying about 200 hours, for all four parts of CPA combined.

I do have a Master of Science in Finance. I have taken about 60 hours of finance, statistics, and econ, compared to only 30 hours of accounting. Here’s how much I studied for the CFA exam:

Level 1 – 200 hours (the same amount of time as all 4 parts of CPA combined)
Level 2 – 250 hours. Failed, then studied another 400 hours.
Level 3 – about 300 hours so far. I hope to get in another 200 before test day.

If you add it all up, I will study about 1400 hours for CFA. That’s seven times as much as I studied for all four parts of the CFA exam combined. And I studied far more Finance in college than Accounting, so Finance comes natural to me.

I’m not trying to dissuade anybody from doing it, but I want you to know that the CPA exam is a cake walk compared to the CFA exam. The CPA exam is four little bite-size pieces. The CFA exam is a monster that will consume your life for several years.

 
CFA Review Test Bank

[Jaimcpa]

My friend who double majored in accounting and finance took the cpa and cfa in close range of each other (didnt work then). I called him the other day asking about this, he studied almost the same amounts on both of them and maybe a little more for cfa (1-3 cumulative). He had becker review and I forgot what for cfa. Finance was more of his passion and he was the top of all his classes. He believes the cfa felt harder but said looking back, if you put in effort and actually care, your odds of passing either are the same. Get a review course and apply yourself. He also said the going through any cfa review course is like a self taught masters in finance. He is the type of guy that can read something once and understand. His grades and ranking proved that to me (we were in same accounting courses sometimes. Now he is trying to get the rest of his accounting credits at a different MAcc program than me). What I'm trying to say is everyone is different. You would think it would be a little easier for you but its not. Idk why and I'm not gonna sit here and pretend to know. Just try to remember everyone is different.

Also, I should mention he is in his 30's and has a bachelor's in math and completed half a year of his master's in math before deciding to switch.

FAR- 73, 10/07/2013
REG- 8/31/2013
AUD- TBD
BEC- TBD

MAcc
Main: Becker Self-Study 2013. Supplements: Ninja / Wiley TB / CPAExcel (Bought before I received an offer).

[Jaimcpa]

My friend who double majored in accounting and finance took the cpa and cfa in close range of each other (didnt work then). I called him the other day asking about this, he studied almost the same amounts on both of them and maybe a little more for cfa (1-3 cumulative). He had becker review and I forgot what for cfa. Finance was more of his passion and he was the top of all his classes. He believes the cfa felt harder but said looking back, if you put in effort and actually care, your odds of passing either are the same. Get a review course and apply yourself. He also said the going through any cfa review course is like a self taught masters in finance. He is the type of guy that can read something once and understand. His grades and ranking proved that to me (we were in same accounting courses sometimes. Now he is trying to get the rest of his accounting credits at a different MAcc program than me). What I'm trying to say is everyone is different. You would think it would be a little easier for you but its not. Idk why and I'm not gonna sit here and pretend to know. Just try to remember everyone is different.

Also, I should mention he is in his 30's and has a bachelor's in math and completed half a year of his master's in math before deciding to switch.

FAR- 73, 10/07/2013
REG- 8/31/2013
AUD- TBD
BEC- TBD

MAcc
Main: Becker Self-Study 2013. Supplements: Ninja / Wiley TB / CPAExcel (Bought before I received an offer).

[stjohns796]

I was searching for CPA CFAs on linked in and came across this thread. As a CPA and level 3 CFA candidate – anyone who thinks the two exams are comparable has never seen any of the CFA material. Level 1 of the CFA has more material than all 4 parts of the CPA combined. Level 2 is twice the volume and complexity of level 1.

Instead of undergraduate level questions on lease accounting, they are graduate level questions on shorting inverse payer swaptions. It's honestly not even close to the same. Someone mentioned 7x the hrs….as someone w an acctg background, it has easily been 10x the hours for me. And I had an advantage as pretty much every topic covered on the CPA is also on the CFA… except in a more difficult manner.

Sorry for the rant!

REG 78; BEC 84; FAR 94; AUDIT 93

[LatinoTurkCPA]

Can anyone answer this question. Reading back to old posts found through google from around 2006 and prior a lot of people used to say that CFA isn't that hard, but fast forward to today and lots of people talking about how hard the CFA exam is. Did the CFA exam content changed dramatically since then?

F: 76 8/31/13 Wiley Test Bank
A: 77 11/4/13 Wiley Test Bank
R
B

MBA 06/2012 - ?

[Kay]

@LatinoTurkCPA:

I heard the passing score is 70% of the 95th percentile score. Taking this into consideration, one possible answer is that 95th percentile score is much higher than the average candidates' scores, so passing rate decreased as compared to the past exams.

Currently:
CPA - Class of 2013
ALMI (Associate, Life Management Institute)
CISA - Passed in 2011, Certified in 2014

In Progress:
ASA (Associate of Society of Actuaries) - EXAM P (O), EXAM FM (O), EXAM MFE (X), EXAM MLC (X), EXAM C (X)

[SFLocal]

The CFA has aspects similar to the CPA exam in that it tests topics covered in BEC, FAR with a tad of AUD (types of audit opinions and relevance). The bear of the test focuses on valuations which is the bulk of the quantitative math problems. I took some of the masters level finance classes on bonds and derivatives intended for the CFA path for credit towards my MBA. The material was very hard! While we get one question about Black Scholes Merton for options on the CPA exam, the CFA's have to calculate options values for the calls and puts by hand. Bond valuations are manageable until they test for convertible bonds.

BEC - Passed!
REG - Passed!
AUD - Passed!
FAR - Passed!

[Mayo]

“Can anyone answer this question. Reading back to old posts found through google from around 2006 and prior a lot of people used to say that CFA isn't that hard, but fast forward to today and lots of people talking about how hard the CFA exam is. Did the CFA exam content changed dramatically since then?”

Yes, it's much harder now.

CPA vs CFA is always a dumb comparison. CPA exam material is predominantly rules based while the CFA exam is predominantly analytical.

It is literally apples and oranges. I actually enjoyed studying for the CFA exams, while I want to gouge my eyes out every time I get close to any CPA exam books. In my book, that makes the CPA exam much harder. Plus, throw in the format (four parts with expiring exams), and it becomes very difficult to balance. I could take 3-4 years off between levels in the CFA, and just pick up where I left off.

Apples and Oranges. Can we stop talking about this dumb comparison? I think it really makes accountants look insecure.

Mayo, BBA, Macc

[wowurrcool]

@Mayo Agree with your entire post, especially the end.

FAR - 87 (7/19/13)
BEC - 82 (8/29/13)
REG - 86 (10/18/13)
AUD - 91 (12/06/13)

Becker. Licensed VA CPA 12/31/13

[Anonymous]

I just tried CFA level 1 exam in Dec 2013, and I did not make it through.

I honestly thought I passed, because the questions didn't seem to be hard at all.

@Greenman72: What exam materials did you use? Care to share your studying methods with me please?

[fuzyfro89]

@CPA ROOKIE: I passed L1 last summer and am registered for L2 this June (haven't started much yet though.. darn my procrastination). My employer paid for my exam fees and study materials (over $2k!!), so I better perform or my manager will be annoyed.

I used Schweser for L1. I know others are out there, Stalla comes to mind, but I have very limited references on other courses so I just decided to pony up the $1,200 for Schweser books, lectures, and question bank.

My degrees are in Acct & Fina, so not too much was out of left field for me. I did have to re-learn a good amount though. I think what helped me was having my CPA background, since most finance people struggle on the Financial Reporting part, but I got through it in around ten days (probably 5-6 hrs/day average).

Having your CPA behind you will help, since you also do some basic finance and econ in BEC.

To answer your question, study methods should be similar to CPA, but with more reviews built in along the way since you are likely doing CFA over a period of 2-6 months. Also, memorization won't get you as far (unless you can commit things to long term memory easily), since L1 probably has the equivalent of FAR & BEC material in terms of volume. Versus CPA, you need to focus more on understanding concepts and doing lots of practice questions. You're right, the questions don't seem all that difficult. After all, you have a 1/3 chance of guessing correctly! The CFA really is NOT trying to trick you, but you need to read carefully to make sure you understand what it's asking. I remember taking L1 last June and doing a bunch of work, only to realize I didn't read the prompt and wasted time.

Good luck, if you decide to retry!

 
CFA Review Test Bank

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