A CFA study plan built on arithmetic: 300 hours, your real weekly time and four stages

Candidates read about someone who passed Level I in six weeks, copy the plan, and see it collapse in the second week. A plan that starts from your real weekly hours does not collapse, because the exam date comes out of the arithmetic.

How many hours does each level need?

CFA Institute recommends about 300 hours of study per level. The book uses 250 to 350 hours as a working range. Move towards 250 if you studied finance or accounting recently, and towards 350 or beyond if the material is new to you.

Across all three levels that is about 900 hours. At 12 to 15 hours a week, one level takes 20 to 25 weeks, so three levels with gaps for results and windows take years, not months. The charter also needs work experience, which the charter guide covers. Plan the Program as a multi-year project from the start.

Which track matches your real week?

Pick the track that matches your real weekly time, not your best week. Check your diary for the last six weeks and count the hours that were truly free. If the honest figure is 9, plan on 9. The point of the arithmetic is that the exam date follows from it, instead of the plan being bent to fit a date you picked first.

Add roughly one buffer week for every eight weeks of plan. Illness, work deadlines and travel will happen, and the buffer keeps one bad week from breaking the schedule.

What are the four stages?

The CFA exams reward practice under time pressure, so questions and mock exams deserve a large share of your hours. For a 300-hour plan, the stages work out as follows.

Practice and simulation (stages C and D) together take 40 per cent of the plan, or 120 hours. This is where most candidates cut corners, because reading feels more productive than testing. Resist that. A question you got wrong and reviewed teaches more than a chapter you skimmed.

How do the hours split by topic at Level I?

Split your hours in proportion to the topic weights for your level and year, then move hours towards the topics you rated lowest. For a 300-hour Level I plan on the 2027 outline, the starting split is:

These hours add to 300. They are a start, not a rule. If you score 2 out of 5 on fixed income, take hours from a topic you rated 4 and give them to fixed income. The exam map has the weights behind this table.

How does a dated plan look?

Tariq, an accountant in the book, had 15 hours a week and a May exam in view. He planned 300 hours for Level I. That gave him 20 weeks plus two buffer weeks, so he started in mid-December. His two mock exams in April came close together, and both scored above his earlier practice results.

Build yours the same way, working backwards.

1. Take the exam date for your window from cfainstitute.org.
2. Subtract your buffer weeks.
3. Subtract the weeks your track needs for your total hours.
4. That date is your start. If it has already passed, move to the next window or raise your weekly hours honestly.

Then place the milestones: the end of stage A, the end of first coverage, and the dates of at least two full mock exams. Put them in your diary, not in a note you will not open.

What belongs in the first fortnight?

• Download the outline for your level and exam year and check your materials against it.
• Rate yourself from 1 to 5 on every topic.
• Choose your authorised calculator and use it from the first practice question.
• Plan the practical skills module and finish it in stage A or B. Results wait for it.
• Choose one main study source and one question bank. Stop buying after that.

How do you know you are ready?

Readiness is a pattern, not a single score. Look for three things together: consistent results across two or more full mock exams, no topic far behind the others and each session finished within the time with a few minutes to spare. One strong mock after a run of weak ones proves little.

CFA Institute publishes no fixed pass mark, so no practice score can promise a pass. Your question bank is a guide to your own weak spots. Use the official mock exams to calibrate, and see ten original Level I questions to test your habits first.

If the pattern is not there, move the exam to the next window rather than sit unready. That decision costs money, which the cost guide sets out, so make it early. Chapter 7 and Appendix B of CredenTrek For CFA give a weekly plan template you can fill in.