How Did We Do It? Tips to Pass L2

CFA Level II
#1

For the L2 Passers, congrats! Let’s help out those who will be writing next year…

  1. What was your matrix?

  2. Study materials?

  3. Estimated hours?

  4. Any tips?

For me, I passed L1 last June on my first attempt using CFA materials exclusively.

  1. Passed L2 first attempt; all >70 except 50-70 on Economics

  2. Thoroughly studied CFA materials and supplemented with Schweser mock exams

  3. Started in February and studied approximately 350 hours but I don’t keep track so this may be off

  4. Put more weight on the heavier areas (FRA, Equities, Ethics) and master ALL blue boxes and EOC questions

#2

  1. All above >70 except Ethics between 50, 70 (Same exact matrix as Dec 2012 Level I)

  2. Schweser books, CFAI EOC questions, Some QBank questions on topic I found difficult.

  3. Around 200 hours, started first week of March

  4. EOC questions absolutely cruicial. I skipped some readings where I had experience in and went straight to EOC. If I got over 70% on that, then I moved on to next reading. EOC questions much more useful over QBank and Schweser EOC questions. EOC and blue box questions are very useful do them more than once for topics you arn’t sure about.

For Ethics, I suggest you read CFAI books. Read a little bit every night before bed. I did mostly on Schweser and got killed. No idea how I got above 50.

Naturally, you’d want to focus on FRA and Equity. Don’t skip any material on those even if it takes up 1 reading. I did that and the reading I skipped had an entire vignette in the exam.

Don’t be discouraged by your mock scores. I took 2 mocks and averaged low to mid 60. Nowhere close to 70.

#3

dont avoid any topics, and know the hard topics better than the easy topics.

#4

I took the 80/20 approach… was criticized a bit for parts of my strategy but I passed with 70+ in all except ethics, Fixed income, and Econ and 50-70 in those.

My approach:

Rough # of hours spent: 300.

Rough breakdown of time spent:

15% Schweser Videos

50% Finquiz practice problems,

20% CFAI mocks, 5% Schweser mocks,

10% reading Schweser notes and CFAI text.

In Level 1, I found that I learned most when doing the problems, not from reading or watching videos. So I figured for L2, I’ll dedicate a larger proportion of my time to problems instead. But I still need an overview of the material before I can do problems.

So before each study session, I’ll watch the Schweser videos on that section AND take notes while watching (as if sitting at a lecture in college.) I’ll spend 1 entire day a week (usually Saturday) and watch as many videos as I can this way. Then on Sunday, I’ll spend the entire day doing problems using Finquiz (not Qbank.) During the weekdays, I’ll try to get 30 minutes to do Finquiz practice problems even if I didn’t feel like it. If after 30 minutes I still didn’t want to, I’ll just go play video games, watch TV, work out, etc. without guilt. Most of the time, doing problems for 30 minutes was enough for me to build momentum to study for a few more hours.

In the beginning, I don’t even care if I got problems wrong. If I keep getting a certain type of problem wrong, I’ll go back and read the Schweser notes or CFAI books. I also did both the item set AND regular questions… the latter mainly to drill the material I just learned from the videos.

I started in late December and finished my 1st pass through the materials this way in mid April. With a few exceptions, I didn’t start doing the CFAI problems until mid-April… I wanted to save them for near the end.

Mid April to 1st week of May: I did CFAI problems on the weekdays and Schweser mocks on the weekends. I’ll go through 1 mock a day.

After the 1st week of May, I did CFAI problems and CFAI mocks exclusively. I did both the 2013 AND the 2012 mocks (I saved the 2012 one when I signed up for L1 last year.) I marked the questions I was unsure of when I did the mocks and went over those even if I got them right. After finishing the mocks, I went over all the wrong questions PLUS the ones I got right but felt shaky on. I redid those numerous times till literally the last day… I think this was what made the difference between failing and passing, since the style and format of the CFAI problems became second nature to me by the end.

Last week: I took off from work.

Last day before the exam: I stopped studying around 1pm.

#5

ethics is a waste of time. you can skip ethics though, on the exam I guessed all the ethics questions and got over 70%

#6

To those reading this thread looking for sincere advice, please understand that what is being posted here are people’s opinions and you should take them with a grain or salk. The best thing is to use the search function on this website.

#7

I think the people who do tons of mock exams are just wasting their time. It’s equivalent to shooting fish in a barrel. I only used Schweser and completed one mock exam in the last week in order to get a good strategy in place to deal with item sets (I was totally freaked out when I first saw an item set).

My best advice is to go through the Schweser books over and over. And once you’ve done that a few times, go over them again and again…

Forget the mock exams other than knowing how to deal with item sets and question formats.

#8

i’ve never seen a more misguided statement

as is the common agreement, do not undestimate ethics and do all the ethics problems and do a read through of ethics in the official text. yes it may be time consuming but you do not want to even allow for the potential of messing up ethics.

you want to put yourself in the best spot possible to do well on the exam. some may have guessed all ethics and gotten over 70%, but i am not sure that you want to gamble on that kind of luck for an exam you put so much time into.

#9
  1. What was your matrix?

>70 in all but FI, between 50 and 70

  1. Study materials?

Schweser and CFAI. I read all the content from schweser (only pension from CFAI)

  1. Estimated hours?

I started in the first week of january, even before knowing i passed DEC level I. it proved a good strategy, which made me study 5 months in a row, about 350 hrs.

  1. Any tips?

first pass: Read - after every reading, do all CFAI EOC and Schweser EOC.

In the second pass, read all summaries and do all blue boxes from CFAI

third pass, read all summaries again and redo all CFAI EOC

then Dive into MOCKS in the last 4 weeks, reviewing between then your weakest areas.

#10

I finally passed on my third attempt.

My advice is to make sure you know Equity and FRA inside and out. After that just be reasonably proficient in the other sections and you’ll likely squeek by.

#11

It was my first try, like L1 i used Schweser for reading, did EOC on CFAI book and watched the Schewser videos. The last week was critical for me because I actually nailed down a lot of concepts that showed up on exam day. Did both CFAI mock exam and one schwser mock. Also did a lot of Q banks. I will say that most people probably fail cause of FRA; you can’t overlook that section…

#12

I passed level 2 this time after getting destroyed last year (band 4) - tried to do Dec L1 and June L2 and ran out of gas.

If I can make one comment and one comment only it is this: DO NOT SKIP ANY SECTIONS! Do not try to guess on what you think CFAI will test, you have to know it all, not 100% of course, but you should be able to achieve at least 4/6 on each item set from each section.

also it is absolutely mandatory to read Ethics from the CFAI book and do the problems, this helped me a ton. You have to nail Ethics it can make or break you.

I studied from Schweser for the rest, never opened a CFAI book other than for Ethics, but that is also because I took a Kaplan review course using the books and other review materials. Took 6 practice exams the last week.

#13
  1. My matrix was…not strong.

<50% - AI, FI, PM, Quant

50-70% - Corp Fin, Derivs, Econ

>70% - Equity, Ethics, FRA

  1. CFAI texts - mostly EOC questions.

  2. ~30 hours over a week long time period.

  3. Based on my woeful underpreparation and resulting ugly matrix, I’m guessing that this advice was spot on:

#14

Started with the recipe for success - EOC from CFAI, Videos, Notes and end chapter questions from Scheweser.

2 Months before the exam - Could not recollect or had the courage to revise EOC from CFAI, focused solely on Scheweser - Notes and end of chapter questions along with the videos. Exception was Ethics, which I covered from CFAI.

Did not attempt a single practice test.

Level II actual exam questions were no surprise, 99.9% covered in Schewesers.

Passed Level I in Dec 2012 (50 to 70 in quants, rest above 70) and Level II in Dec 2013 (50 to 70 in Eco and AI, rest above 70)

This has worked for me so far.

#15

streched my body to the maximum i could

#16

Used CFAI books only, and read thru every reading, including the EOC questions. Also, during my reading, I would take detailed notes in what eventually amounted to two large binders. Then, after my reading was complete, I would condense those binders into a smaller one by hitting the big items and bits that were difficult for me to understand (more conceptual stuff), while also going thru the Secret Sauce and MindMaps (attended the online crash course). Once I had all of this information condensed, I would read thru it once more before spending a month on practice exams. I used the CFA mocks from years past, Schweser practice exams, and any other relevant practice exams I could find (they’re out there – just have to look for them).

Seems like a lot to do in order to prepare, and it is. Did this same approach for L1 and straightlined 70%+. Almost straightlined L2 this year.

In all honesty, it’s a crapshoot for L2: FI was weighted at 18, while Derivs was weighted at 36. I scored very poorly in FI when I thought I did great, and murked Derivs when I thought I got raped. If you adopt the attitude that you can always do more, it will behoove you in the long run, especially on test day.

Don’t skip any readings. Work as many practice tests as you can. Do every single EOC question (and revisit again when doing practice exams – they’re like mini test questions after all). QBank for L2 is almost useless.

Finally, I was pretty strict on how I tracked my progress. I put together an excel spreadsheet tracking hours spent per day/ week/ month, estimated time to completion, average pages/ hour, etc. etc. Helped to judge how quick/ slow I was going. I’m more structured, so that helped for L2. For L1, I just went straight thru the readings and somehow ended up with a month for practice exams. PM me if you’d like the spreadsheet.

#17

Passed first attempt, >70 on everything except <50 on ethics (LOL, not that I didn’t study ethics for multiple days…my advice is that ethics always involves judgement so don’t overkill this and focus on destroying FRA/Equity/Fixed Income/Derivatives).

Started studying in October, went through CBOK slowly and took detailed notes that took up 4 large notebooks, focused on mastering Equity & FRA first. Supplemented with Schweiser, especially helpful for smaller topics (Quant & Econ). Took mock exams from both CFAI & Schweiser in the last month and focused on end-of-chapter questions in CBOK.

University of Calgary had a very effective review course starting in January for 3hrs each week through April - really helped me stay on track plus in-person instruction helps clarify the tough stuff like FRA/swaps etc.

Studied every evening and all day each weekend for the last 3 months. approx. 400hrs+ total. Probably overkill but wanted to make sure I murdered this bitch! on to the next one…

#18

I started studying on May 1, but took the whole month off of work and studied every single day, which I think made it a lot easier becuase I wasn’t distracted. Total I probably studied about 150-175 hours but I think you gain the equivalent of like 100 hours by 1. Studying every day and 2. Not filling your brain with anything else. All I did that month was study and play poker (aside from two weddings). The downside was that in the last week I was so sick of the material I literally could not do any studying other than reading the secret sauce. In any case, if you can take that much leave (I actually negotiated the paid leave with my firm) I think it’s a good idea, and then the suffering lasts for a much shorter time.

I watched all Schweser videos other than Ethics but only fully read 3 of the books, and picked sections of the others that I felt like I was shaky on. I also watched the 3-day workshop by Andrew Holmes which was helpful in organizing the stuff in my brain before I started doing practice questions in the last 1.5 weeks.

I did a couple mock exams and then stopped because I felt like reading the vignettes was a waste of study time and concentration because of all the extraneous information. I think you only really need to do a couple so that you know how the questions are structured, and then you can focus on Q-bank because they test specific points of knowledge (did 1000+ questions).

I concentrated on Equity and FRA and felt like I knew the concepts really well – on everything else I knew them at varying levels, and was weakest on Deriv. and PM, which I ended up getting in the 50-70 band on, along with AI (everything else >70). I spent only one day on ethics total a few days before the exam, and just focused on the stuff that was different from level 1 – seemed to me like it was pretty much the same and I was scoring high on practice questions, though I thought the questions on the exam were brutal.

I did not touch the CFAI books at all and threw them away the day after the exam. Yes, there was stuff on the exam that wasn’t covered by Schweser, but you are not going to know everything anyway so why torture yourself by trying to deal with two sets of books? Finally, I think taking level I in December was actually really helpful because the base concepts were fresh in my mind, think I would have had to study a lot more if there was a year or more between exams.

Agree with poster above, these are just opinions and it is what worked for me, and by no means was I 100% confident walking out of that exam that I passed.

#19

I passed Level 2 first attempt June 2013 after having passed Level 1 first attempt in December. I’ve been working in investment banking in Calgary, so it was hard to stick to a firm study plan when I knew that I might be at the office during that time.

  1. I got <50% on ethics, but >70% on all other topics. I was surprised by the ethics mark, but it the rest went about how I had hoped.

  2. I used Elan for Level 2 after having used Schweser for Level 1. Overall their videos and books were fantastic, although they were ludicriously awful in terms of their release times. Especially on the practice question side of things, they would frequently set a deadline for release, miss it, then just change their PDF online to reflect a new, considerably farther away deadline.

  3. ~300 hours. I watched all of the Elan Videos while taking notes in the text (unlike Schweser, Elan does not have distinct material for videos. It’s literally them talking their way through the books). After each reading I would go through the CFAI EOCs as well as the Elan questions once they came out. M-F I was studying maybe 0-3 hours depending on when I got off work (I wouldn’t study if I worked past 11pm). On weekend if I wasn’t working I would put in very heavy sessions - it was typical to go ~6am - midnight if I had a full day off. I was done the material by April and then spent all of may doing mock exams/review, which gave me enough time for 10 mock exams.

  4. The biggest thing I can recommend is rolling review. Each week set aside a couple of hours and do questions from all previous sections you’ve covered. I did not do this, but I really wish I had. Given the volume of material you’re covering, it pays to keep everything fresh. The last thing you want is to get comfortable with something a few months out and then totally forget how the material by the time you start final review.

#20

I think your strategy is good, and everyone uses it should do quite well.

ALTHOUGH i didn’t follow your strategy because i was lazy and found the CFAI texts too wordy… lol