CFA
CFA runs as a fast, no-penalty item paper for you, though the item form changes level by level. At Level I, you face standalone multiple-choice, one item after another. The level after that groups those same no-penalty items into sets built around a shared case. The final level keeps that set form for part of the paper, and adds essay-style questions you answer point by point against a scheme.
Every multiple-choice item pays for the right option and costs you nothing for a wrong one, so answer everything, and move on fast when an item isn’t landing for you — with so many items, the clock is your real opponent, not any single question. The essay share you write to the scheme; the numbers sit in the box below.
The institute publishes a topic-weight range for each level, so your preparation time follows those weights rather than spreading evenly across topics. You clear each level before you attempt the next, and each one covers a wide syllabus, so run each level as its own season and budget your study time against the current notice’s weight range — not against how a course happened to sequence its chapters.
The current weights and the passing score are both things you confirm in the box below.
Pick a practice sample for the level you are sitting. Work five items against the clock. On any item that is not landing after a fair try, make your best pick and move — do not linger — then check which of the five you answered correctly.
A hard item feels worth staying with until I actually work it out.
Staying with it costs the same as guessing, because a wrong pick and an unanswered one both earn nothing, and neither loses you anything extra. What staying costs is time every later item in the paper also needs, since the clock, not any one item, is what you are really up against. Make your best pick on a stuck item, move on, and spend the recovered minutes on items you can still land.
CFA: check the current notice
As read on 14 September 2026 on CFA Institute’s own site, cfainstitute.org, on the Level I, Level II and Level III exam-format pages. The box holds the numbers; the institute changes them, the shape does not. Confirm in the current notice: the current topic-weight ranges for your level, the minimum passing score, and the current testing windows and registration deadlines.