I just started my preparation for the March level II exam. I am using the textbook and Schweser’s Qbank and sample exam book to prepare as I did for level I.
For those who have taken the second exam, can you please provide some tips on how to prepare successfully? I assume this level will require more time to prepare than the first level. How straightforward are the essay questions? Level I seemed to be broadly tested but the questions did not go very deep in term of knowledge requirement. Should I expect a deeper knowledge of the subject tested on level II?
I used Uppermark and the testbank and read all of the academic articles - didn’t refer much to the official textbook for the rest. I hammered the testbank and also the CAIA study guide…
The MCQ section can delve into some very far corners of the curriculum so be aware of that. The essay questions can start on one topic and evolve into others. Also testing Ethics in essay format requires alot of practice - it’s not as straightforward as you’d think
I got it. I plan to practice the essay portion thoroughly. I believe reading the actual textbook will prepare me better for the tricky and unusual questions than any test provider. At least that is what I have found with the other designations.
Did you find Uppermark’s test bank questions to be at par with the exam question difficulty? Was the CAIA sample exam usefull at all for level II? I thought CAIAA did a poor job with the level I sample exam.
I am also taking the schweser online question which will serve as a good source for review.
I thought the LEvel 1 sample exam was okay, but at Level 2 forget it. It’s still worth doing the questions, but with only 50 there’s not enough to get a representative spread and test where you may be weak.
I’m not a fan of the essay section, it feels too much like russian roulette in that somehting could come up out of any part of the material and there’s too few questions to spread across the learning outcomes.
I would concentrate on learning the material globally to reduce the risk of really being caught out. I normally don’t like telling people this is the way to study, but when I did Level 2 this was the area that worried me the most.
I tried practicing questions, but kept finding questions I had difficulty with because I had not learnt that area well enough to answer. The key is really to know as much as you can and focus on answering the question, don’t add detail from you personal experience.
Overall I think CAIA has some work to do on the Level 2 exam to improve it, but this will come with time.
On older forums, they often said UM Qbank was harder than the exam, but that doesn’t mean if you ace Qbank you are guaranteed to pass like L1. You should still know all 200+ LO’s to cover the dark corners of questions.
+1
Agreed, don’t add details from personal experience. Just like university, this is still theory vs. practical.
Yeah the sample exam for L2 is too short, but you’ll need to take it to see the question format. As I said, the essay section will start with a question from 1 topic and evolve into others (which is something they don’t prepare you for brilliantly with UM or CAIAA), so you really need to learn the material all over I’m afraid.
I didnt really think Uppermark nor CAIAA gave a decent breadth of practise questions for the second section, so for Ethics, I ended up practising MCQ questions from the testbank and tried to answer them as a constructed response with the choice of answers hidden. I ran out of time to try that for the other topics…
Also try not to over focus on the second part. Its an area people get very stressed about as its hard to prepare for. The second section is 30% of the exam total so if you can get a strong score in the MCQ and can score well in Ethics in the second section then you would already have a very good chance of passing
