The November 2026 CFA Level 1 exam window runs from November 11 to November 17. Standard registration for this window closed on August 11. If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’ve already registered, and the real question on your mind isn’t “should I sit for November?” anymore.
It’s this: “I have about eleven weeks left. What do I actually do with them?”
That’s what this CFA Level 1 study plan is built to answer.
Not a vague “study 300 hours” instruction. Not another generic checklist copied from a forum. A day-dated, subject-ordered, mock-exam-backed CFA Level 1 study schedule that starts from today and ends the week you walk into the exam.
If you’re not registered for November yet and you’re weighing whether to push to February 2027 instead, our guide on CFA eligibility and registration will help you decide. Everyone else — let’s build your timetable.
How Much Time Do You Actually Have Left?
That number matters because it tells you exactly which of the three standard CFA timelines you’re on. Our detailed breakdown of CFA Level 1 study hours by background calls this the accelerated track — 25 to 30 hours a week, no slack, no “I’ll catch up next month.”
If that sounds intense, it’s because it is. But intense doesn’t mean impossible. It means every week needs a job to do, and this plan gives it one.
One honest caution before we go further: this schedule assumes you’re starting from a relatively clean slate or have only lightly touched the curriculum so far. If you’ve already completed a full first pass through most subjects, you’re ahead of this plan — skip straight to the revision weeks near the end.
What This CFA Level 1 Study Schedule Assumes
First, it assumes a target of roughly 300 hours between now and exam day. That’s the figure the CFA Institute itself points to as a reasonable benchmark — you can confirm exam policies and official curriculum weights directly on the CFA Institute website.
Second, it assumes you can commit 26–30 hours a week. If you’re a working professional and that number feels unrealistic, don’t panic — you have a specific, narrower version of this plan waiting in the “If You’re Short on Time” section below.
Third, it prioritises the subjects that carry the most exam weight and the steepest learning curve — Ethics, Financial Statement Analysis, Equity, and Fixed Income — over subjects that are shorter and easier to pick up later. That’s the same “Big Four” logic we use across our CFA Level 1 preparation guidance, and it holds even tighter on a compressed timeline.
The CFA Level 1 Study Timetable: Week by Week
Why Quant and Ethics Come First
Every year, candidates ask why we don’t start with the “interesting” subjects — Equity, Derivatives, the stuff that sounds like actual investing.
Here’s the answer. Quantitative Methods is the toolkit every other subject borrows from — time value of money, hypothesis testing, regression. Skip it early and you’ll be relearning it mid-way through Fixed Income anyway. Ethics, meanwhile, isn’t something you cram in the last week. It rewards repeated exposure over months, not days, because the exam tests judgment, not recall.
Start late on either one, and you’re fighting the clock twice.
Why the Middle Weeks Are FSA-Heavy
Financial Statement Analysis is the subject most candidates underestimate — and the one that quietly decides whether November goes well or badly.
It’s dense. IFRS versus US GAAP treatment alone can eat a weekend. Weeks 4 and 5 give it the room it needs, back-to-back, before you move into asset-class subjects that assume you already understand how a balance sheet behaves.
Why the Last Three Weeks Are Not for New Material
This is the part candidates get wrong most often.
Reading new content in the final two weeks doesn’t add knowledge. It adds noise on top of everything you haven’t reviewed yet. Weeks 9 through 11 in this plan are deliberately review-only — mocks, error logs, and formula consolidation. Nothing new goes in after Week 8.
Subject-Wise Hours for an 11-Week Timeline
The Final Three Weeks: Mocks, Error Logs, and Exam Week
Take at least 6 to 8 full-length, timed mocks before exam day, starting in Week 9. Treat every one of them exactly like exam day — same time of day, same break length, no phone.
Build an error log, and actually use it. Don’t just record your score and move on. After each mock, spend two to three hours going through every wrong answer and writing down why you got it wrong — a concept gap, a careless read, a timing issue. Then revise that specific concept before your next mock. Candidates who skip this step tend to repeat the same mistakes right up to exam day.
Don’t study new material in the last 48 hours. Review your formula sheet, skim your error log, and rest. A tired brain forgets faster than it learns.
Confirm your logistics early. Know your test center or online proctoring setup, your ID requirements, and your scheduling window well before exam week — the CFA Institute site has the current policies, and it’s worth a final check the week before.
Common Mistakes That Obstruct a November Attempt
- Starting FSA and Equity at the same time as everything else, instead of sequencing them, and running out of runway on both.
- Treating Ethics as a last-week subject. It punishes cramming more than any other topic on the exam.
- Taking mocks without reviewing them properly, which turns a diagnostic tool into a wasted afternoon.
- Underestimating how much the last two weeks matter. Momentum built over ten weeks can evaporate in a distracted final fortnight.
- Studying in isolation with no external check on progress, which makes it easy to feel busy without actually being on schedule.
If You're Short on Time: A Working Professional's Version
If you can only manage 12–15 hours a week, don’t try to compress this entire eleven-week plan into the same window. Instead, prioritise the Big Four — Ethics, FSA, Equity, and Fixed Income — and treat Corporate Issuers, Alternative Investments, and Derivatives as “read once, revise lightly” subjects. You won’t master every corner of the curriculum, but you’ll defend the 45–50% of the exam that those four subjects collectively represent.
This is also exactly where structured coaching earns its keep. A well-designed course strips out the trial-and-error of figuring out what to study first, gives you a realistic mock-exam engine, and keeps your error log honest when your own motivation starts to slip in Week 8. Our CFA Level 1 online classes are built around exactly this kind of compressed, exam-focused timeline, and if you’re Mumbai-based and prefer face-to-face accountability, our classroom CFA coaching in Mumbai runs on the same structure with in-person doubt-solving built in.
Eleven weeks is enough — if you stop treating it like four months.
Build the schedule, protect your revision weeks, and take your mocks seriously. That’s the entire game from here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, if you can commit 25–30 hours a week and prioritise the highest-weight subjects first. It’s a tight timeline, not an unrealistic one — candidates clear Level 1 on three-month accelerated tracks every cycle. The margin for wasted time, though, is close to zero.
Start immediately, and start with Quantitative Methods and Ethics rather than jumping straight into whatever subject feels most interesting. Every week you delay is a week you lose from your revision buffer at the end, not from the middle of the plan.
Standard registration closed on August 11, 2026. If you haven’t registered, check the CFA Institute website directly for any late registration options, or consider planning for the next available window instead.
Aim for 6 to 8 full-length, timed mocks, concentrated in the final three weeks of this schedule. The number matters less than what you do after each one — a mock you don’t review properly teaches you almost nothing.
Either can work, but structured coaching tends to save the most time precisely when time is scarcest — it removes the guesswork of sequencing subjects and keeps your mock schedule and error log on track. If you’re weighing your options, our guide on what actually matters in CFA coaching is a good place to start.
Losing the last three weeks to new material instead of revision. Candidates who stick to a hard cutoff on new content — and spend the final stretch purely on mocks and error logs — consistently outperform those who keep reading until exam week.