Hi all,
1.5 year lurker, first time poster. Just got my results for L2 yesterday, and wanted to share some info.
In summary: I achieved greater than 70% in all categories, and studied only with the Schweser Essential Package.
Details: I started studying at the end of December, read through the Schweser books only once (took notes along the way), did CFAI Mock, Schweser live Mock, 5 Practice Mocks (didn’t get to the last one), about 100 Qbank Q’s (ie not many), and about 6 CFAI topic tests. I’d estimate that I studied around 300 hours and my breakdown was probably 65% reading/taking notes/reviewing quicksheet, and 35% doing practice problems. Out of the time spent on practice problems, I’d say 50% was spent actually taking the mocks, 40% spent reviewing mock answers, and only 10% on Qbank problems and CFAI topic tests.
Random info to consider: I “passed” (ie total score greater than 70%) on each of seven mocks that I attempted (timed all of them like real test conditions). On a couple am or pm sections I scored less than 70%, and on a couple am or pm sections I scored in the high 80%'s (highest score was a 92% on one pm section). On average, I was scoring around 76% on my mock exams (weakest areas where FI and Derivatives ; strongest areas quant, equity, PM). I put a lot of time and effort into reviewing my answers (even the correct ones) because often you will get a correct answer through process of elimination, but if the answer options were different, you very well might not be able to identify the correct answer. For this reason, I always go over every question (including each of the three answer choices), to know exactly why the answer choice was correct, and to ensure I know the reasons why a particular aspect of each of the answer choices was correct or incorrect. This to me is the most critical and valuable part of the whole study process (same was true for L1). Another thing to consider, going into the test I knew ~90% of the quicksheet by heart (I knew 100% of the formulas). I also made sure that I knew ~95% of all of the formulas listed at the end of each of the Schweser books.
Other: I thought the test went well during and immediately after taking it. As the days started to go by I became less sure of how I did (as I looked up a lot of questions i was kind of 50/50 about (~15 Qs), I realized I missed more than half of them)… and I became quite unsure whether or not I passed. I figured I probably passed, but if I did, I expected to see a few 50-70% ranges (possibly in Ethics, FRA, Econ, or Derivatives). Thus, when I saw that I got over 70% in all sections I was pleasantly surprised.
In closing: This post is oriented towards letting candidates know that it is DEFINITELY POSSIBLE TO PASS L2 using only Schweser materials. I never even looked at any of the CFAI books, and hardly any of the CFAI topic tests (although I ran out of time studying, and if I had more time, I definitely would’ve spent more time doing the topic tests. I originally intended to do all of them for econ, FI, FRA, and derivatives, but that clearly did not even come close to happening…and apparently didn’t matter anyways ).
Good luck to those of you taking L2 next June!