i gave the level 2 exam last weekend. going into the exam i knew i was going to fail as i had not prepared enough but in terms of preparing for level 2 next year, could someone rate how difficult the actual exam was as compared to CFAI mocks and Kaplan Schweser Mocks (i.e. was actual exam more difficult, about the same or less difficult than CFAI/Kaplan mocks). i did not take any mock tests before the actual exam and thus am clueless as to the relative difficulty level.
I apologize if this question has been posted already and request you to re-direct me if that is the case.
I found it to be easier than Schweser Mocks. The schweser mocks are very wordy, and I found the actual test questions to be more direct. However, I do feel if you’re doing decent on the Schweser mocks you have a chance of passing.
I felt the AM half was easier, but the PM half was harder. Overall, I’d say doing Schweser/CFAI mocks and the EOC questions from the CFAI is a solid preparation. I took 4 Schweser mocks and 1.5 CFAI mocks plus all the EOC questions, if I could go back to before the exam I’d make it a point to do more.
I would also recommend reviewing all the blue box questions in the CFAI books. For the sections I took the time do this, I found the test to be much easier.
The answers you will get to your question will be biased as those of us who spend a good deal of time on these or other forums tend to be the most serious of the test takers with a deep motivation to pass.
I.E. For me the AM section was trickier than the PM section and Portfolio Mangement for me was very straight forward. They could have asked much more involved questions but they kept it pretty high level imo. Of course, I could be completely wrong and bombed the Port. Management part but I don’t believe so.
As an example, I asked a few people who sat next to me during break what they felt after each session. Those who prepared with Schweser or spent at least 3 months studying said AM was tricker which I also thought was true. Another candidate thought PM was much trickier because she felt information needed to answer some of the questions was omitted.
Another candidate who sat in front of me just plain gave up and was not present for the second half of the exam. Then there’s also the fact that the CFA institute as a body reviews the test and answers and they do throw out a question here or there because of interpretation conflicts.
Background and expertise also help considerably. The person sitting next to me was a sell side analyst who had been doing public company research and valuation reports for 10+ years and he said he flew through equity and FRA but got stuck on Quant and PM.
My background is oil & gas PE and I majored in finance and statistics so I found equity and quant to be really straight forward. CPAs who took this test imo were probably thankful at this year’s FRA sections.
Long story short, I don’t think the difficulty of this years test is significantly different from any prior year test on a whole. Accordingly, the MPS should be around the same levels as prior years which you can find a host of analyses done by various test takers on this and other forums.
in my case: schweser mocks were harder than cfai mocks, cfai mocks were harder than the real thing, but this year’s lvl 2 was a little harder than last year’s (failed last year band 9). still, it was doable, just a couple of curve balls for some sections, but if you had the rest at decent levels you could level it out.
I thought the exam was similar to the CFAI EOC’s and blue boxes, doing both of those a few times over made a world of difference. I swear a couple of questions within the item sets were almost word for word for some of the questions within EOC (not the same item set but the question within the item set). They’re always going to put item sets in the exam that you can’t prepare for so in general terms if you can do the EOC’s and blue boxes I think you’re in good shape. I never did a schweser mock but I did a couple CFAI mocks and I found those mocks to be hard to understand and the real exam to be more straight forward.
Agree. I sat last year’s L2 and failed but I remembered the test was quite straight forward. This year was slightly harder coz some of the item sets threw us off like AI & PM. But overall I think the big hitters: FRA & Eq were doable (as long as you pick out the traps).