CAIA Level II - How did you go?

Without giving away exam specifics (as per the candidate pledge) how did you guys find the Level II exam?

In my opinion it wasn’t too bad. Put in about 150 hours and I felt pretty comfortable yesterday. Calculations were pretty straight forward if you knew the formulas. The extended response section was pretty soft compared to the written section in the CFA 3 exam…

Those comparing CAIA Level 2 to CFA Level 2 are out of their minds.

I used Kaplan and didn’t feel prepared. I actually thought I was taking the wrong test at one point, which is irritating as I used Kaplan for Level I and passed 7 Outstandings and 1 Higher. Given I thought I was sitting for the wrong exam, I think it’s clear I don’t feel great about the chances of me passing.

I’m sitting the exam later this week, and constructed response is making me sweat a little. It feels like Russian Roulette. 2 questions drawn from anywhere in the curriculum and I guess you need to know it quite well. I hate these give 3 examples of something from a list. I’m too used to multiple choice where the answer’s in front of you and you can work it out.

And I’m definitely worried by AFSS’s comment I too got 7 Outstandings and a higher at L1 with Schweser and have relied on them for L2 as well.

Spin the cylinder and pull the trigger on Friday

If you have finished your CFA, you can pass CAIA Level II while stoned and drunk, there is no comparison.

Don’t sweat it.

Monito, I didn’t do one practise essay response prior to the exam so I was feeling like you walking into the afternoon session. I was pretty surprised on how simple it was…Maybe they just picked my strong areas or something I dont know…

Yeah I felt underprepared for Level 1 with just using Schweser…so I made sure that I used the Uppermark testbank this time around. So glad I did.

I hope they make this exam much harder soon. I believe the MPS has to be in the 50’s for there to be a consistent 65% pass mark.

I’m sure you nig*s did fine. I put in 149 hours and felt fine after the exam last March. Let us know how it turned out in October/November!

Ramos,

Could you please explain the process after you pass Level II? i.e when do we submit our professional referres and everything? Can I do this in advance?

Thanks mate.

How is that even possible?

I used Schweser materials, went through some of their questions and now I am going through Uppermark software. I can say that the questions in Schweser were as hard as in Uppermark, some of Schweser’s seem even more difficult.

Are sure you used correct Schweser package for CAIA Level 2?

Hi HF-Rat,

Some questions by Schweser are more difficult but some of the CAIA questions are also much harder. However, the bigger issue was that there were topics that just weren’t covered. I used the latest materials…but maybe I just didn’t read it carefully? I dont know.

On results day you’ll be able to check your pass/fail status on the website and there will be a link to apply for membership. You will put the contact info for two references then and submit payment. A few minutes (or maybe an hour) later you will get an email saying you have been approved and can start using the CAIA designation. You cannot submit your references in advance.

Thanks alot ramos for your help.

AFS i felt the other way around. i only used schweser and felt there was nothing unknown on the day. I found uppermark questions harder than schweser. I was averaging 75% across the board with schweser eocs and 65% for uppermark.

Maybe I just had a off day as I was averaging 80% on Schweser. We will see, I guess.

Okay I’ve just finished

I do see exactly what AFSS is talking about, although I didn’t think it was that bad. They certainly seem willing to delve deep into the corners of the curiculum to pull out some fact and test it. Frankly I’ve never liked the feeling I’m being test on whether I read the book rather than my understanding of the material, but it’s their exam they can go what they liked.

I really did not feel happy going into the constructed response, I don’t think I did too well in the multiple choice. But then I saw the questions in part 2 and they were so easy compared to what I expected. So on the balance a little disappointed by the multiple choice but still confident overall.

I took it two days ago. I thought the exam was reasonably challenging. The questions were similar to Uppermark test bank. I didnt like the fact that they decided to divide up the essay portion with multiple questions. We will see. Good luck to all.

Similar experience here as gangsta’s.

MC questions - nothing really unexpected there.

Essays were a bit tricky. I was expecting one essay per constructed response section, total of three. Instead each out of 3 Qs was divided into several subquestions and most of the subquestions was further split.

I felt kind of misinformed, as in reality we get over 20 qs in place of expected 3.

I used upper mark and thought it set me up well. However there were some very niche questions right from the corners of the curriculum as monito said which caught me off guard. The essay questions are a complete lottery and evolve from one topic to the next. Overall not feeling very confident…good luck to us all!

hf-rat in the exam guide online they stated that the essay questions would be split up. We weren’t misinformed at all.

Perhaps I didn’t pay enough attention to online guide :slight_smile: I knew that each Qs would be split into several sub-questions, I just didn’t expect another layer of splitting.

In my opinion this’s positive addition, as each lowest level question carries 1-2 points and candidates can get partial credit for what they know on the topic instead of losing 10 points on one random undivided question.

I actually found the essay question a lot easir than I had expected. I had been expecting something much more in the line of Define and Describe three steps in some process.

Frankly for me I found the questions fairly straight forward even though they did not exactly fall in my favoured sections.

As a final or nearly final comment beofre I move back to the CFA forums I would make the following point.

For those of you who did not do as well as they thought or are worried about passing: Think objectively about how you did and then think do you really beleive that 40% of the candidate pool did better than you?

For most of you I guess (or hope) that the repsonse is no. I know a number of CAIA charterholders and whilst a small sample is not representative I’m fairly sure that none of the ones I know would have done better than me on that exam.

Hopefully that wasn’t a case of famous last words and I’ll be celebrating with the rest of you as new CAIA charterholders in November.