CFA Level 1: Your Last 4 Weeks Before the November 2026 Exam

The November 2026 CFA Level I window runs from 11 to 17 November. If your appointment is in that window, you have roughly four to six weeks left, depending on your date. This is the part of preparation where the most candidates either pass or fail, and it is mostly about decisions, not hours.

The mistake almost everyone makes in the final month is to keep studying the way they studied in month two: reading, highlighting, moving forward chapter by chapter. At this point, reading feels productive but adds few points. What adds points is finding out exactly where you lose marks and fixing those places, under exam conditions.

Here is a four-week plan built around that idea, with the reasoning behind each step.

First, know what you are up against

Level I has 180 multiple-choice questions, each with three options, split into two sessions of 2 hours 15 minutes. That gives you 1.5 minutes per question on average.

The pass rate has been close to its long-term average of about 40% all year: 45% in February 2026, 39% in May and 43% in August, according to CFA Institute. First-time candidates do better, around 45 to 50%. CFA Institute does not publish the minimum passing score, so the only safe target is to be clearly above the line in your mocks, not just over it.

Week 1: take a full mock before you study anything else

Sit one complete mock exam under real conditions: two sessions of 2 hours 15 minutes, your approved calculator (the Texas Instruments BA II Plus or the HP 12C families are the only models allowed), no notes and no phone.

Do this before you review anything. A mock taken after a week of cramming tells you what you crammed. A mock taken cold tells you where you actually stand.

Then spend the rest of the week marking it properly. For every question you got wrong, or got right by guessing, write down one of three reasons:

• Knowledge: you did not know the concept or the formula.
• Reading: you knew it, but misread the question, the units or what was being asked.
• Time: you ran out of time, or rushed because an earlier question took too long.

This takes a few hours and it is the most valuable thing you will do all month. Each kind of mistake has a different fix. Knowledge gaps need study. Reading errors need a slower first pass on each question. Time problems need timed practice and a rule for skipping.

Week 2: fix the topics that are worth the most points

Now decide where to spend your time. The rule is simple: points available equals topic weight times how much you can improve.

Take three examples, using the middle of each topic's 2026 weight range and assuming a 180-question exam:

Ethics is worth the most because it is heavy. But look at Derivatives: a small topic where many candidates score badly can be worth as much as a large one, because there is more room to improve and the core ideas fit in a weekend.

Pick your top two topics by this measure and spend most of week 2 on them. For each one, do targeted question sets, not reading. When you miss a question, go back to the specific section of the chapter, not the whole chapter.

If you are not sure which topics are hardest, our guide to the six hardest CFA Level I topics covers the usual suspects, with a two-minute check for each.

Week 3: second mock, then the next weakest topic

Take a second full mock at the start of week 3, again under real conditions. Compare your topic scores with the first mock.

Three things to look for:

• Did the two topics you worked on improve? If yes, keep them warm with a short set every few days and move on. If not, look at your error log: you may be treating a reading problem as a knowledge problem.
• Did your timing improve? Note how many questions you had left when each session ended. If you guessed on the last ten in either session, timing is now your biggest lever.
• Is there a new weak spot? Fix the next weakest topic by the same weight-times-improvement rule.

A good skipping rule helps with time: if you have no clear route to an answer after one minute, pick your best guess, flag it and move on. There is no penalty for wrong answers, so never leave a question blank.

Week 4: mixed practice, ethics every day, formulas by heart

The final full week is about keeping everything sharp at once.

• Mixed timed sets every day. Thirty to sixty questions across all topics, timed at 1.5 minutes each. The exam mixes topics within each session, so your practice should too.
• Fifteen to twenty ethics questions a day. Ethics improves with repetition more than any other topic, and it is the heaviest one. Daily small sets beat one big block.
• Your formula sheet, from memory. Write the formulas you need on a blank page, then check against the source. Repeat the ones you missed the next day. The main ones: present value and annuities, holding-period and money-weighted returns, the bond price-yield relationship, duration and convexity, forward pricing, put-call parity, and the common ratios in financial statement analysis.
• One last mock, if you have time. Take it early in the week, not the day before the exam.

The final two days

Do not learn anything new. Go through your error log and your formula sheet, and do a small set of easy questions to stay in rhythm. Then stop.

Check the practical things:

• Your exam confirmation, test centre address and appointment time.
• The identification you need, exactly as your registration requires.
• An approved calculator, with fresh batteries and spares. Practise resetting it, and set the number of decimal places you like.
• Your route to the test centre and how long it takes at that time of day.

Sleep matters more than a final hour of revision. Most of what you can still change, you have already changed.

On exam day

• Read the question stem before the details. Many questions include information you do not need.
• Watch for the qualifier: "most likely", "least likely", "best". The "least likely" questions are where reading errors happen.
• Keep to your skipping rule. One stubborn question can cost you three easy ones at the end.
• Use the break between sessions to reset, not to look up answers. Whatever happened in the first session is done.

How JephAi helps in the final weeks

JephAi was built for exactly this stage:

• Timed mock exams with a question navigator and flags, and results broken down by topic.
• Analytics that weigh your weak topics by how much they count on the exam, which is the week 2 calculation done for you.
• Exam-style questions with an explanation for every option, so each mistake teaches you something.
• Full study chapters for every Level I reading, each with its own formula sheet, for when you need to go back to a specific section.

Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial; Basic and Premium need no card. Start your free trial and take your first mock today.

Sources: CFA Institute press releases for Level I results in February 2026, May 2026 and August 2026; CFA Institute calculator policy.