Are you in need of some high quality revision tools, but unwilling to pay the price? Analyst Notes might just be the solution for you.
I have researched many different CFA® exam prep providers over the past years, but Analyst Notes is one that really surprises.
I would go as far as to say pretty much anyone studying for the CFA® level 1 exam would benefit from at least getting their question bank. Despite costing less than what some people might blow on a good meal ($69), it has got enough useful features to really lift your game for the test, and if you upgrade to the pro package ($99) you are in good hands.
Why is Analyst Notes so cheap?
Analyst Notes operate on a basic premise that the CFA exam review process should be affordable for everyone. In contrast to many of the new entrants into the CFA exam prep market, Analyst Notes have been around and perfecting their services for 14 years now. They are so confident about their service, that they invite you to try it out free of charge to judge for yourself.
Analyst Notes Interface:
The platform is responsive. I tested it out on a range of different laptop browsers and using an Android and an iOS smartphone.
The user interface is pretty straight forward. You navigate around the platform from a menu at the top, enabling you to shift between CFA exam study notes, question bank, mock exams and a dashboard drop down menu with more options.
The dashboard drop down menu, enables you to shift between your ranking, exam manager, study progress, favourite questions, recycle bin, notes and bookmarks.
The design is elegant and simple, without too many gimmicks and graphics getting in the way. This is a clear reflection of Analyst Notes purpose and experience in providing you a tool that will above everything else improve your chances of exam success.
Analyst Notes CFA Exam Study Notes:
The study notes are based on the current CFA Institute study guide for the upcoming test, and have been proven and perfected by the use of tens of thousands of CFA exam candidates over the years. They are designed to dramatically cut the time required to prepare for your exam by studying smarter. Studying smarter is one of the primary competitive advantages that we emphasize on financial exam academy. You cannot do anything about your level of prior experience and knowledge, and in many cases there is an upper limit on the amount of time you can allocate to your studies. So if you want to improve your exam performance you will need to either study harder and/or smarter during the time you have available for your studies.
The study notes are intuitively designed to master each LOS, one at a time as you progress through the curriculum. For each LOS you will only find information relevant in answering that particular LOS, dramatically cutting the amount of time required to get through the material, while focusing in on the most testable material. A nice feature is the user comment field below the notes for each LOS, enabling users to discuss what they are struggling to understand, this enables you to learn from the questions asked by past candidates.
Once you have completed reading the note relevant for a particular LOS you can decide whether to answer some relevant quiz questions, print the note for later review, mark as complete, bookmark or even add your own private notes.
Analyst Notes Question Bank:
Analyst Notes provides one of the most extensive question banks out there, with more than 8,000 exam style multiple choice questions distributed across all of the individual study sessions in the curriculum. If you were to answer all 8,000+ questions at the speed required for the exam (1.5 minute per question), it would take more than 200 hours to just get through the questions once, without any revision. Suffice to say, you have got all the questions you are ever going to need with this package.
You can either run through the questions study session by study session or through the LOS specific quizzes integrated into the study notes. The platform will automatically time your attempts so you can monitor if you are keeping up with the required exam speed.
Another neat feature is that the platform enables you to decide if you want to answer (1) all relevant questions in a study session, or if you want to (2) exclude recycled questions, (3) only answer those questions you have never seen before, or (4) only those you have previously answered incorrectly. If you are familiar with our 3 step study approach, it should be obvious why we really like these features.
Analyst Notes Mock Exams:
Analyst Notes provides candidates with no less than 10 mock exams. Please note however that each mock exam represents a 3 hour session, so in essence half of a complete CFA exam. As you may or may not know the CFA Institute provides one additional complete mock exam free of charge. So including this package you will have 6 complete mock exams at your disposal, which is again all that you are ever going to need.
Analyst Notes release the first mock exam early, so you can get a taste of what is required for the test, while the remaining 9 are released in the months leading up to the exam.
Each mock exam is timed at 180 minutes for 120 questions, which is exactly what you are going to face at the morning and afternoon sessions of the actual test. If you need to break up in the middle you can save your progress and return to the test later. We do however recommend that you try and replicate the full exam experience as closely as possible, by completing a full 6 hour exam, with a 2 hour break in the middle as many times as practical to get the experience under your skin.
Analyst Notes Performance Analytics:
Studying for the CFA exam can be a lonely experience, and you are never really sure if you are truly on track and have done enough to really compete with other candidates. Despite the low price tag analyst notes do actually provide some simple and easy to use performance analytics, that will give you a rough idea about how you compare to other candidates. To be fair these are not the most sophisticated analytics available in the market place. But once again Analyst Notes strikes the right balance by just providing you the essentials, rather than a more extensive suite of performance analytics that might potentially divert your attention and lead to information overload. The key data points provided is your ranking against other candidates answering the exact same questions. E.g. if you ranking is 60% on a particular study session, it means that you answered more questions correctly than 60% of the other candidates answering the exact same questions. We know that the pass rate has been just marginally above 40% at recent level 1 tests, so this is a really useful statistic in gauging whether or not you are likely to be in the passing category on any topic within the curriculum that you answer questions on. It will also help you pinpoint which areas of the curriculum are your weaknesses, not just in an absolute sense, but in comparison to other candidates.
Summary:
So, as you saw me raving earlier in this review, I think analyst notes should be part of the exam preparation arsenal for most candidates, unless it makes absolutely no difference to you how much money you spend. The pro package contains interactive study notes, more practice questions than you could ever want or need, plenty of mock exams, helpful analytics to keep you on track. So not only is it one of the cheapest options out there ($99 at the time of writing this), it is also one of the most efficient at helping you obtain the desired exam result.