Firstly, I am delighted to have managed to pass level one and do intend to continue. Because I have started a new job at the beginning of the year and do not have a background in finance (I studied politics), I have decided to sign up for level 2 next year, however.
I genuinely feel that my chances to pass the exam will increase with more time to prepare for the exam.
It would be of great interest to me, whether you would have any tips to share for my preparation. I do know it`s early, yet the earlier I know how to approach the preparation the better.
On that note, I have a few questions:
I only studied with Schweser for level 1 and felt pretty good. I scored >70 in 5 topics, between 50 and 70 in 4 and 1 below 50 (Alternative Investments)
Can you teach yourself (again) all the material with no background in finance? Or would you recommend taking a course for this exam?
Will there be a CFA Level II Mock Exam before the exam similar to Level I?
I am looking forward to hear from your experiences and to receive some very useful tips!
Iam in the same situation. I passed level 1, since january a started a new job and I do not have a background in finance (I am en engineer).
I decided to take the exam for level 2 this june because if I fail is not a big issue (I will just loose the money…), but If I am lucky to pass it I will not loose a whole year!
Studying for Level II exclusively from prep provider materials such as Schweser or Wiley is fine as well, although it’s highly advised you complete all the practice questions from each reading in the CFA ciriculum, and go through the blue box examples as well. Videos can help with topics you have difficulty with but are not required and could be a poor use of time for some.
Definitely to your first question. A background in Finance can certainly help in some areas, but it’s not required for Level II self study. If you have the time and desire to supplement with classes is up to you.
Are you talking about a live mock? If so, I’m not sure about that. CFA does provide one full written mock exam that you can take and is available now.
The key for Level II, especially if you’re just starting to study for the June exam, is to work diligently and efficiently when going through the readings, then, and most importantly, practice. Tons and tons of practice. Be sure you leave yourself enough time to do all end of reading questions, blue box examples, practice questions available on the CFA site under candidate resources (go through them twice if possible), and from my experience, make it a goal to get 4 full mock exams done. Practice questions, particularly mock exams, will help you get familiar with the vignette question format and learn how to quickly identify and extract the relevant information to each question. The nature of the vignette format creates more chance for error and more room for the CFA Institute exam writers to really test your knowledge of a subject by slipping in distractor information.
Pushing for Level II after getting a December Level I result is a steep hill to climb but not impossible. I tried it last year, and missed the MPS with a Band 9 fail. It was worth it though. The whole experience got me that much closer to a successful result this year.
my concern is i read a lot about how some material in the notes are not well written, and get people confused easily. I am going to take video course and combine that with practices from notes and orig??inal book. And only do notes+notes practice+video tutorial +book practice for the 3 main sections like fsa equity and fixed income. Thoughts
On one hand, I am really tempted to sign up now. Indeed I could try pushing hard for 4 months and even if I fail, this year`s experience will come in handy next year.
On the other hand, I prefer studying for more than 4 months for any CFA exam. I like to go thoroughly through the books and make notes. This time I will focus more on practice questions though; your learning curve increases dramatically once you touch mock exams. Given the difficulty of the exam and my non-existing background in finance, however, I just cant help but think its best to wait.
Any advice/tips would be highly appreciated. Many thanks.
If I were you I’d take Level 2 while still retaining Level 1 material. The longer you wait, the more you forget. Some Level 2 material is based on Level 1, especially in FRA. Not having a finance background just means you need to spend more time than finance people for preparation. If you’re ready to put in the time, doing all the exams ASAP is more efficient.
I registered for Level 2 after passing December 2015. I have covered some concept in Schweser, and will revert back to Corriculum for second reading, and dedicate the whole of May to Practice Questions and Mock. I hope these will be enough… Hopefully.
Similar to you, I am facing L2 with little background in finance. I am finding the material less confusing than L1. In L1, I felt like I was studying Greek. In L2, the challenge is more to memorize like 8 difficult formulas for one thing, and then another 6 more for a similar thing … all the way through. It’s a beast of actual depth. But there haven’t any spots where I just quit learning something because I could not make sense of it.
With that, my advice (really, my advice to myself 8 months ago) would be to make things easier on yourself and some some light reading (like, via an old Secret Sauce or set of readings) on some of the more critical areas – the ones that get you points:
Equity – Free cash flow
Equity – Multiples
Equity – Residual income
FRA – multinationals
FRA – pensions
FRA – inter-corporate investments
Fixed income – arbitrage-free valuation framework
Fixed income – Bonds with embedded options
Less weighty, but good to crack early:
Economics – FX
Derivatives – Forward-rate agreements
Derivatives – Options (Black-Scholes)
Derivatives – Swaps
Portfolio – Active portfolio management
The equity stuff is very straightforward, and the economics, derivatives and portfolio stuff builds in L2. Some of the other stuff feels new to me. It definitely would have been nice to even have FRA – Pensions locked down cold before I started. It’s not impossible, but there are just so many moving parts.
I used Schweser almost exclusively at all three levels. Everyone is different and there are also those that don’t necessarily use third party prep providers appropriately. I always read Schweser first, did concept checkers, then did CFAI EOCs. If there was a knowledge gap that the EOCs exposed, I’d have a look at the CFAI curriculum to supplement.
In the event that a CFAI mock exposed another gap, I’d revisit the CFAI curriculum addressing that topic.
Passing each exam using a provider like Schweser is aboslutely possible if you do it right.
I like your approach, Cgottuso8190. Mine is similar. Everything is possible if one invests exact unit of time, willigness and keep focused on target. IMO, the beginning of studying for each exam is the worst phase. Once, when you start feel that you got it, everything becomes easier.
The road has started I have now completed the Schweser readings and will now read the books for a second time + making notes (basically making notes of the parts I have highlighted while reading the material for the first time).
My plan is to complete writing the notes + solving the EOC questions from the official curriculum by the end of March.
If anyone could give me tips on how to master Ethics, I would be very grateful. It is definitely the topic I struggle most with, but also the topic on which I feel you can easily score > 70 %.
I tried the December L1 to June L2 turn around and it was really tough. I work full time and have a family and I knew trying the 4 month study plan would be really difficult. I went ahead and signed up, studied, and took the exam. I failed with band 10 (UGH) but I think the experience gained by sitting and seeing the L2 exam was invaluable. It’s format is very different and I’m glad to have had the experience. I am studying again now and it’s going well; I made some minor adjustments and plan on going in to this test with a lot less stress and more confidence gained a lot through sitting for the exam last June.
Having sat for the exam, I would not know what to do differently. I am glad that I started taking mock exams somewhat early (1 month before the exam with topic tests 2 months before the exam), because they exposed many gaps.
The issue that you will encounter when starting early is that you will realize that you have forgotten a lot by the time you start doing mock exams. In addition, extreme fatigue can kick in any time during the the final stretch. It’s important to keep going though, because the last few weeks before the exam are critical and the most important ones! I am not 100 % sure, whether starting early is an advantage. It can become a big disadvantage if you are burning out towards the end. It did not happen to me, but I can easily see/understand how it can happen. It’s never too early to start, but at the same time you want to have enough gas every day!
This forum really helped me throughout my preparation and I am very grateful for that! I do not regret having skipped one year; it was the right call for me. Due to my background, I definitely need more time than others.
Overall, I am cautiously optimistic. I feel pretty good about the AM session and not that bad about the PM session. Nice to see (or not;) ) others feeling the same way. Only the CFA gods can tell whether I have made it or not.
What will never cease to amaze me is the fact that no matter how many hours you put in, the CFA program will always be able to catch you off-guard. But, as I have been advised, never make this your headache during the exam. Take an educated guess and move on quickly.
If anything, don’t treat Lv2 lightly. The way I see it, Lv1 is to sort out the riff raft from the real mccoys. I think things step up a bit in Lv2. I passed Lv1 in 2015 on my first go but failed Lv2 in 2016 (Band 8) and just took it again last weekend. I think I did well and think (hope!) I passed. Some concepts do carry over to Lv2 and/or build upon them so you really can’t just forgot Lv1 stuff. In the end, you need to put in the time and effort. I don’t think I did that well enough the first time and hence my failure. Just my two cents…
Formulas are a little longer, maybe an extra step or so to go through to calculate an answer, but it is really not that much harder than Level I honestly. Things do build on Level I knowledge so if you barely cleared it as opposed to a candidate who destroyed it, ie more than 7 out of 10 topic areas >70 percent in, you are at a disadvantage in a linear fashion i’d say. The main killer I think is that it has HALF the amount of questions. If it had 240 questions over 2 days like a week apart, with covering more of the curriculum, I think you would see MPS and also pass rates go up for sure. Definitely an element of getting used to the format of the vignettes because knowing how to take the test is significant and materially important to your score. A lot of people over-look this aspect and suffer the consequences.
