I had to take a few hours to process this information. I received a band 9 fail with this breakdown.
>70%
Corporate Finance
Equity
70%>50%
Alternative Investments
Derivatives
Economics
Ethics
FRA
Quant
<50%
Fixed Income
Portfolio Management
This was tough, some topics improved while some lowered but my band of 9 remained the same compared to December 2016.
Normally I would sign up and go for December 2017 however a lot will change in my professional life. I start a new job in a new city out of state (which I have to move) and my job begins on July 31st. I got a job as a Credit Analyst for a bank, there will be a lot of new information to learn I am sure. It will also be a commute to work so that will chew away at my free time. I am torn between focusing on my job, learning it to the best of my ability and signing up for July of 2018 but starting to prepare in October or just going for December 2017 exam, what does everyone think?
I have 2016 Kaplan material, will that suffice? In addition, I am debating watching Mark Meldrums’ videos with video notes as my only source or using it in conjunction with Kaplan.
Any insights to my problem would be great! I know that I will pick myself back up and try again, I just don’t know when.
Congratulation to all who passed!! I hope to be in your shoes within the new future!
My areas are FRA and FI as well! This was heart breaking. Is anyone else getting this close? I keep thinking of quitting to focus on making money (rather than studying and wasting time), but this might be more worthwhile for the future. This is sooo frustrating and painful. What are you guys thinking?
I was Band 9 last year in L2, and passed this time by doing well on FRA, EQ, CF, and FI, and QM even though I had < 50% on Deriv, PM, and Ethics… I think the first five mentioned are core subjects that don’t change much, and you can get a good return on invested study time… whereas ETH, ALT, and Deriv outcomes are less correlated to study time. Know those big five so well that you can get at least 4 of 6 questions per vignette no matter what they throw at you, and you’ll be ok.
I was Band 10 last year, took a deep breath and cleared L1 Jun 2017.
Generally speaking if you want to be sure than Dec 2017 will be dicey with the job scenario you painted. Even if you pass L2 will be no picnic in 4-5 months.
For preparation keeping in mind Jun 2018, I would stick to CFA material - it clears the concepts much better. Go to Kaplan only for areas where CFA is very verbose, like AI. End of section questions from Kaplan are good. End of Chapter are misleading as they are very narrowly focused on the chapter material.
Do as many Topic tests and Mock as you can (CFA) - they can be harder than real test but you do not want to be under prepared.
FRA was the difference between making it or not for me. I would suggest focusing on later aspects of FRA (Long term Assets, Liabilities etc.) as that is the meat of the questions.
I think any of the prep providers would be fine for level 1… just learn the material, that’s all there is to it. Don’t think of it like you need to pass an exam, go into it because you genuinely want to understand the curriculum and I think you’d be in a better position to pass on your next attempt. I second Greenman’s post in the link he sent… level 1 should be a relatively easy hurdle for people to clear if they truly put their mind to it.
I may suggest you think hard about whether to try to do Dec 2017 given the things you mentioned you are about to go through in life. June 2018 might work better for you, but keep in mind that next year’s exam won’t be until June 23rd, 3 weeks later than normal…
Sounds like you are mostly there in the knowledge and just need to clean up a few things. I’m a proponent of repetition and lots of practice (end of chapter questions, mocks, online topic tests, etc…).
I can’t recommend Mark Meldrums videos enough. He might be arrogant (I didn’t think so) but he really knows his stuff and more importantly he knows how to teach. After paying exam fees, I wasn’t about to spend hundreds on prep material so it was the text book or him. Easy call there. Passed without a single section <50% and half >70%. Didn’t spend an extra dime, just used EOC questions and the mocks given to us. Just a heads up though, I don’t think he updates them regularly so any significant changes to the curriculum could be a problem. If you can carve out the time and put together a solid study plan I’d say go for it. Hope this helps.
Slightly off topic but did anyone else not get their results emailed to them? Had to check online the next day.
I guess some people need tough love. However, I do not feel like giving up and quitting. I would feel like I wasted all the time and money I have spent so far.
Thanks! I think I am more of a hands on it auditory learner so I think watching videos and being “taught” the material will be an advantage. How did you break down watching his videos? Did you divide it per day or per reading? Please message me if you can.
I think I am going to test the waters with work. I want to see how the first 2 weeks go. I will start to study but won’t make the commitment of paying for the exam. If I think it will be too overwhelming I can always back out.
A bit surprise you didnt pass; I guess the cut-off is higher than I thought. You’ve taken it twice with 6 months in between and failed. My advice - Give it a year and MASTER the material. Aim for getting >70% in ALL of them. If you have this mindset which was my goal, there is no doubt you will pass. No, I did not get >70 in all of them, but because I had this goal, it made me have this bull mentality studying and going into the exam. My next advice which maybe unpopular is study the CFA materials itself. I used Schweser books and attended the classes when I took it the first time and I failed years ago. I decided that condensed material is not for me. The CFA materials (thru vitalsource online) made learning the material so much easier. It flows easily and you understand why this is so and each subject relates to the other. It explains the logic behind formulas and gives you real life applications which Schweser notes lacked. Its like reading a long novel except it is a technical financial novel which you are going to get tested on. I just used my Schweser notes for references or to boost what I learned from the CFA material. My third advice is try and practice a lot of Ethics questions. I noticed some of the Ethics questions came from the CFA practice questions they give you as a trial. Take as many Ethics questions you can find and retake them few months later and right before the exam to refresh memory.
Just one more thing - If you take the exam in December and passed, do you think you can turn around in 6 months and pass Level 2 which requires more commitment and much harder level of knowledge and still pass? It will be hard. Just do 1 again in June next year and use another year to study for Level 2. Just my opinion. You will be more relaxed and not be bothered by life’s distractions.
Thanks for the advice Dreamer. I am still up in the air between December and June. I think with starting a new job soon the December exam will be asking a lot. However, I do not want to take my foot off the gas and lose momentum. I would change my study strategy around. I never though I have been the person who learned well by reading. I learn best in a classroom setting so I will focus time on Mark Meldrums videos. Still debating on which exam to take though. My job will be my number 1 priority and I am not sure how much free time I will have to put towards studying.
Sorry, I was confusing u with somebody else - Someone who also failed said his wife miscarried so I thought I was reading his post when replying to you - I erased that part of my comment.
Whenever you decide to take the test, put everything into it. Aim for mastery. Goodluck!
This was heart breaking. Is anyone else getting this close? I keep thinking of quitting to focus on making money (rather than studying and wasting time), but this might be more worthwhile for the future. This is sooo frustrating and painful. 