CFA Level 1 Topic Weights 2025: The 4 That Decide Whether You Pass or Fail

One of the most common mistakes CFA Level 1 candidates make is treating all topics equally. If you spend the same amount of time on Derivatives (6% of the exam) as you do on Ethics (15%), you have made a significant strategic error before you have even opened a textbook.

Here is a breakdown of the current CFA Level 1 topic weights and what they mean for your study plan.

The 2025 CFA Level 1 topic weights

The CFA Institute publishes approximate topic weights for each exam level. For Level 1, the weights are:

• Ethical and Professional Standards: 15%
• Portfolio Management and Wealth Planning: 12%
• Financial Statement Analysis: 13%
• Equity Investments: 11%
• Fixed Income: 11%
• Corporate Issuers: 9%
• Economics: 8%
• Quantitative Methods: 8%
• Alternative Investments: 7%
• Derivatives: 6%

The high-weight topics: non-negotiable

Ethics, Financial Statement Analysis, Equity, and Fixed Income together account for 50% of the exam. If you are struggling for study time, these are the areas to prioritise. A strong performance across these four topics can anchor your pass even if you underperform in lower-weight areas.

Ethics in particular deserves disproportionate attention. The pass/fail decision for borderline candidates is heavily influenced by Ethics performance — CFA Institute has stated that Ethics performance can be a deciding factor when an overall score is close to the minimum passing score.

The lower-weight topics: do not neglect them

Even though Derivatives is only 6% of the exam (approximately 11 questions out of 180), it is not worth ignoring. Eleven questions wrong versus eleven questions right is a 6 percentage point swing in your score. At the margin, that can be the difference between passing and failing.

The goal in lower-weight topics is not to master them — it is to achieve a baseline competency. Aim for 60%+ on every topic, even the smaller ones.

How to use topic weights in your study plan

Start by taking a diagnostic mock exam to identify your current performance by topic. Then build your study plan by multiplying the topic weight by your gap to the 70% benchmark. The topics with the highest gap times the highest weight should get the most attention.

This is exactly what Clevency's diagnostic engine calculates for you automatically after each mock exam.