why CFA I pass rate last year was going down? does it mean the exam is more difficult? is it really hard to finish all the questions within the time frame? i heard that the speed of reading and understand the questions is important.Any website provides sample questions like Schweser and Stalla?I have Schweser, is it enough to pass Level I?Thanks.

although the exam is not easy, if you study 250 hrs with Schweser as I did you may have a good chance to pass

I just passed Level I and I've found that people who study the suggested 250 hours generally pass.There are many theories for the declining pass rates, but people generally refer to:1) The increasing number of test takers, which means that more people without industry knowledge are taking the exam. 2) People are studying less. Not exactly sure where this theory comes from, but it may be as a result of companies paying for registration fees, which allows people to sign up on a whim. 3) People are increasingly relying on the review courses instead of the original material This is the party line for CFAI, but there are rumors of the test being structured to specifically cover material that's not covered in the review books. While I don't think there's any proof of this, I saw some examples of this on the December Level I (then again, maybe I was just paranoid).Time constraints are a large concern for most people taking the exam and the typical test taker feels like they have to rush to finish in time. I just thought that the test doesn't give much of an opportunity to try and dig for answers -- if you know how to get to the answer, there's plenty of time to do the math, but if you don't, then you don't have time to think about it. I used Schweser and it was fine. Just make sure to use the most recent version of the notes because the exam material seems to change periodically.