Struggled With the CFA Level 1 February 2026 Exam? Here Are the Topics That Tripped Up Most Candidates

The February 2026 CFA Level 1 results came out on March 19, and the global pass rate landed at 45 percent. That means more than half of the 24,006 candidates who sat for the exam did not pass.

That number always sparks the same question from candidates who failed. Which topics were the hardest? Where did I go wrong? What should I focus on for my next attempt?

The CFA Institute does not publish a public breakdown of topic-level performance. They do not release a report showing that candidates struggled most with Derivatives or that FSA was the lowest-scoring topic, so we have to look elsewhere for answers.

In this article, we blend two sources. First, we look at the verifiable data, including the official pass rate and topic weights. Second, we analyze what candidates are saying across Reddit and other forums after the February exam. Put these together and a clear picture starts to form.

The Numbers You Need to Know

Before we review candidate sentiment, let us establish the facts.

Of the 24,006 candidates who sat for the February 2026 Level 1 exam, 45 percent passed. This is slightly above the 10-year average of 40 percent. First-time candidates passed at a rate of 50 percent, while candidates testing after at least one deferral passed at a rate of 30 percent.

The Level 1 exam tests 10 topics and here are their weight ranges for 2026.

Ethics and Professional Standards carries 15 to 20 percent of the exam. Financial Statement Analysis carries 11 to 14 percent. Equity Investments carries 11 to 14 percent. Fixed Income carries 11 to 14 percent. Portfolio Management carries 8 to 12 percent. Alternative Investments carries 7 to 10 percent. Quantitative Methods carries 6 to 9 percent. Economics carries 6 to 9 percent. Corporate Issuers carries 6 to 9 percent. Derivatives carries 5 to 8 percent.

Topics with higher weights deserve more of your study time. Ethics, FSA, Equity and Fixed Income together account for roughly half of the exam.

Here is something important to know. The CFA Institute does not release topic-level performance data, meaning they do not tell candidates whether FSA was the lowest-scoring topic or whether candidates performed best in Portfolio Management. That means any claim about the hardest topic must come from other sources.

What Candidates Are Saying About the February 2026 Exam

Since the CFA Institute does not release topic-level data, we turned to candidate forums, Reddit and social media to see what February test takers are complaining about. This is not perfect data but the patterns across thousands of posts are worth paying attention to.

Let us walk through the topics that keep coming up.

Financial Statement Analysis (FSA)

Financial Statement Analysis (FSA) is the most complained-about topic across candidate forums for the February 2026 exam. Candidates say the exam tested interpretation heavily, not just formula recall.

Here is what one Reddit user wrote. “I felt confident on FSA going in but the exam asked questions that required connecting three different concepts. I knew each piece but could not put them together under time pressure.”

Another candidate on a study group forum said this. “The cash flow questions were brutal, not just classification but constructing indirect method adjustments from incomplete data.”

We see this pattern every exam cycle. FSA combines accounting rules, ratio analysis and the ability to interpret what the numbers actually mean. Candidates who memorize ratios without understanding what they signal about a company’s financial health tend to struggle. The exam tests interpretation and that is where many candidates get stuck.

How to master FSA for your next attempt

To start, focus on cash flow statement construction. This was a high-yield area on the February exam. Understand the difference between the direct method and the indirect method, know how to classify cash flows into operating, investing and financing activities and practice constructing a cash flow statement from balance sheet and income statement data.

Another key step is to understand the linkages between financial statements. Net income flows into retained earnings, retained earnings is part of equity and changes in balance sheet accounts affect cash flow. Candidates who understood these connections reported feeling more confident on multi-step questions.

Equally important is practicing comparative analysis. Look at two companies side by side, with one using FIFO and the other using LIFO. How do their inventory values differ? How do their profit margins differ? How does this affect their return on assets? Working through these comparisons builds the interpretive skills the February exam demanded.

Finally, focus on the specific areas that appeared most frequently on the February exam. These include inventory costing methods, long-lived asset accounting (including depreciation and capitalization versus expensing) and income taxes (including deferred tax assets and liabilities).

Derivatives

Derivatives is the second most mentioned difficult topic in post-exam threads. Candidates say the abstract nature of the content, combined with the lower weight, led many to underprepare.

Here is a common sentiment from Reddit. “I skipped Derivatives in my final review because it is only 5 to 8 percent. Then exam day came, and I had four questions I basically guessed on. Those four questions could have been the difference.”

Another candidate posted this. “The put-call parity questions were not straightforward. They required multiple steps, and I ran out of time.”

Derivatives covers forward contracts, futures, options, swaps, payoff diagrams, pricing and valuation and put-call parity. These concepts are new to many candidates and the learning curve is steep. The concepts also build on each other, so if you do not understand forward contracts, you will struggle with futures. If you do not understand individual options, you will struggle with combinations like straddles and spreads.

How to master Derivatives for your next attempt

Begin by drawing the payoff diagrams. Actually, sketch them out instead of just looking at diagrams in the curriculum. Draw the payoff for a long call option, a short call, a long put, a short put, a forward contract and a combination like a covered call or a protective put. Candidates who did this reported better performance.

Another key step is to learn the formulas but understand the logic behind them. Take the forward price formula as an example. It is simply the spot price adjusted for the cost of carrying the asset until delivery. If you buy a stock today for 100 and you are going to sell it in one year through a forward contract, you need to account for the interest you could have earned on that 100 and any dividends you would receive. That is all the formula does and once you see that logic, the formula becomes easier to remember and apply.

Equally important is using simple analogies. A forward contract is like pre-ordering a video game. You agree today to buy it at a certain price when it releases next month, locking in the price. If the market price goes up, you still pay the lower locked-in price. If the market price goes down, you are stuck paying the higher locked-in price. That is the essence of a forward contract.

Finally, practice put-call parity until it becomes automatic. Put-call parity is the relationship between put options, call options and the underlying asset. Several February candidates told us this was the difference between getting options questions right or wrong.

Fixed Income

Fixed Income rounds out the top three most discussed difficult topics. Candidates report that bond math and duration questions were particularly challenging.

One candidate wrote on a forum. “I spent too much time on the duration calculation questions. I knew the formula but kept second-guessing myself, and that ate up time I needed for other sections.”

Another posted this. “The yield curve questions were not just about shape. They asked about implications for bond pricing under different scenarios, and I was not prepared for that level of interpretation.”

The difficulty in Fixed Income is that the concepts are mathematical but also conceptual. You need to understand the formulas, but you also need to understand what the numbers mean. Candidates who can calculate duration but do not understand what duration tells them about interest rate risk will struggle with the interpretive questions.

How to master Fixed Income for your next attempt

Always draw a timeline. For any bond pricing question, sketch the timeline with coupon payments and the face value at maturity then label the time periods and the cash flows. This simple step prevents you from mixing up the timing of cash flows, which is a common source of errors on the exam.

Another key step is to think of duration as sensitivity. Duration tells you how much a bond’s price will change when interest rates move. A bond with a duration of 5 will lose about 5 percent in price if interest rates rise by 1 percent, while a bond with a duration of 10 will lose about 10 percent. This mental model helps you reason through questions even if you forget the exact duration formula.

Equally important is getting comfortable with your financial calculator. Know exactly how to use the bond function, including how to input the number of periods, the coupon payment, the face value and the yield to maturity. Know how to solve for yield to maturity given the price and know how to use the cash flow function for bonds with uneven cash flows. Speed on these calculations saves valuable time on exam day.

Finally, understand the yield curve. The shape of the yield curve tells you about market expectations for future interest rates. A normal upward-sloping curve suggests expectations of rising rates, while an inverted curve suggests expectations of falling rates. The February exam included several questions on yield curve interpretation.

Quantitative Methods

An interesting pattern emerged in the discourse. Quantitative methods (Quant) has a lower weight of only 6 to 9 percent but candidates report that it caused disproportionate difficulty because it underpins other topics.

Here is what we mean. If you are uncomfortable with math, the risk is not simply missing a few Quant questions. It is losing the toolkit that also powers return calculations, discounting, risk measures and data interpretation across other topics like Fixed Income and Equity.

A candidate on LinkedIn shared this view. “The curriculum will test your endurance more than your intelligence. Quant felt manageable in isolation but under time pressure across 180 questions, small mistakes compounded.”

How to master Quantitative Methods for your next attempt

Build timeline-first habits for every TVM or return problem. Draw cash flows, label timing and label units. Use a small, high-frequency formula routine covering returns, present value and future value relationships, expectation and variance basics and the hypothesis testing workflow. Practice retrieval instead of rereading.

Another key step is to drill calculator muscle memory daily for 5 to 10 minutes until TVM and basic statistics become automatic. The TI BA II Plus and HP 12C are the only approved calculators, so know yours cold.

Ethics

Ethics carries the highest weight at 15 to 20 percent but it received relatively few complaints in the post-exam discourse. Candidates who struggled with Ethics tended to report that they did not practice enough questions.

One candidate posted this. “I thought Ethics would be common sense. It is not. The scenarios are detailed and two answers can both seem right. You have to practice a ton of questions to see the patterns.”

Ethics questions are not about memorizing the standards word for word. They are about applying the standards to real-world situations and the exam tests your ability to identify the most appropriate conclusion based on the CFA Institute Code and Standards.

How to master Ethics for your next attempt

Practice volume. Aim for 200 or more Ethics questions before exam day. The standards become clear through repetition and you start to recognize patterns while seeing what the examiners are looking for.

Another key step is to study the reasoning behind correct answers. Do not just note that you got a question wrong. Understand why the correct answer is correct and why your answer was wrong. Ask yourself what principle you missed and what fact in the scenario you overlooked.

Equally important is paying attention to the details in scenarios. Ethics questions often include small details that determine the correct answer, such as whether the member disclosed the conflict in writing, whether they obtained consent before trading or whether they gave priority to client trades. These details matter.

Everything at a Glance

Based on the verifiable data and candidate discourse, here is what we can confidently say about the February 2026 CFA Level 1 exam.

The topics that generated the most complaints were Financial Statement Analysis, Derivatives and Fixed Income. Quantitative Methods also caused trouble but more because it underpins other topics than because of its own weight. Ethics received few complaints from candidates who practiced enough questions.

If you failed the February 2026 exam, compare this list to your own score report. Did you struggle with FSA, Derivatives or Fixed Income? If yes, those are your priority areas. If your weak areas are different, prioritize based on your personal score report first then use this list as a secondary guide.

A Note for Resitters

If you are preparing to retake the exam, you already know which topics hit you hardest, and that is valuable information that first-time candidates do not have.

For each topic you struggled with, go back to the curriculum but focus specifically on the examples. The examples show you how concepts are applied, and they are often the basis for exam questions.

Do topic-specific drills, aiming for 100 questions in that area before your next mock exam. Do not move on until you are consistently scoring above 70 percent in that topic.

Try to teach the concept out loud. Even if no one is listening, explaining it to yourself reveals gaps in your understanding faster than re-reading does. When you find yourself stumbling or saying “and then something happens,” you have found a gap that needs attention.

Conclusion

The February 2026 CFA Level 1 exam had a 45 percent pass rate and first-time candidates passed at a much higher rate than those who deferred.

The CFA Institute does not release topic-level performance data but candidate discourse across Reddit and forums points to FSA, Derivatives and Fixed Income as the most difficult topics. Quantitative Methods also caused trouble because it underpins so many other areas.

The candidates who pass are not the ones who find the exam easy. They are the ones who identify their weaknesses, practice deliberately and refuse to move on until they understand. Master these challenging topics and you are not just improving your chances of passing Level 1. You are building a foundation that will carry you through Level 2 and Level 3.