CFA® Level I pacing: a time budget per question

For CFA® Level I, budget about 90 seconds per question: CFA Institute says each session has 90 questions and lasts approximately 135 minutes. A useful personal checkpoint is to finish each group of 30 questions within 45 minutes. That keeps you on the published average pace; any time saved on straightforward items becomes room for harder ones or a final check.

Turn the official format into checkpoints

CFA Institute’s Level I exam format lists 180 multiple-choice questions across two sessions of approximately 135 minutes, with 90 questions in each session. It advises approximately 90 seconds per question. The table below applies those figures separately to each session; it is a planning aid, not an additional exam rule.

The arithmetic is simple: 30 questions at 90 seconds each take 45 minutes. Check elapsed time after a group, rather than trying to make every item last exactly 90 seconds. Easy questions can take less time; a calculation may take more. The checkpoint tells you whether the balance is working.

Decide what to do when a question stalls

Set a personal trigger during practice: if you are still working through an approach after roughly the average question budget, choose your best supported answer and move on. This is a study tactic, not an instruction issued by CFA Institute. CFA Institute says Level I questions are equally weighted and there is no penalty for an incorrect answer, so leaving an item blank has no scoring advantage. Do not spend a long stretch chasing one uncertain item while later items remain unseen.

A time check at question 30 is more useful than watching the clock after every stem. If you reach it late, use the next group to regain pace by taking the direct questions promptly. If you reach it early, keep the surplus for items requiring more careful reading and, if the exam interface permits at that point, review. CFA Institute’s candidate resources include official practice questions and mock exams, which you can use to test whether this pacing rhythm fits your reading speed.

Rehearse the full session, then adjust

In a timed practice session, record only the question reached at each checkpoint and the type of work that slowed you: reading, recall or calculation. The next practice run should address that cause. If you repeatedly fall behind on calculations, practise setting them up cleanly; if you rush stems, slow down enough to identify the task before solving it. Keep the total session clock as the constraint.

The CFA programme page gives the programme context, while our CFA practice error-log guide offers a way to turn timed mistakes into the next revision task. Use the published average as a reference point and your own timed evidence to decide where to save seconds.

Sources

1. CFA® Program Level I exam · cfainstitute.org · Retrieved 9 Oct 2026
2. CFA® Program candidate resources · cfainstitute.org · Retrieved 9 Oct 2026