I passed level 1 Dec’15. I registered for Level 2 straight away for Jun’16. Ive got all the books will be using kaplan Schweser as my main books, using CFAI to fill holes.
Is it going to be a stuggle from now?
What are the hardest topics?
How many hours should i Study?
What topics to begin with?
I started 1 month ago, and have been slowly progressing.
Covered about 12/52 of non-ethics study sessions. Aiming to have them all done by end of April so I can focus on practice after that.
It is much more difficult than Level 1 - I can barely recall any of some of the topics. The review period will be key
Officialmax90 - I am in the exact same situation as you and starting today as well. My goal is to start with 3 hours each day M-F and aim to put in 5-7 on Sat/Sun for now. I would like to be through all of the reading by end of end of March/Mid April so I have at least 6 weeks of practice problems and review.
same bro, 3 hours and maybe 10 hours on the weekend (5 on Sat and 5 on Sun). finish studying by end of march and hit mocks ands qbank for 6-8 weeks solid!
what topics did you start with?
Same for me, I will start today with QUANT and then move to FRA and Equities. It will be tough, and I am going to read only schweser notes and Qbank as I did with level 1.
And you?
I would be very happy if I could achieve 3 hours a day, but having started a new job a month ago I don’t think I will.
Hey taytus, I think I will start with Quant it makes sens, then FRA, then Equity it seems like the hardest topics, Im aming for 25 hours a week till exam date, so around 400 hours,
method I think will work
read schweser notes twice.
CFA EOC’s and the end of each chapter and Qbank.
8 weeks out till exam day, purely Mocks.
I’m in the same boat. I started studying Saturday. I went through ethics and started with quant. I’m about halfway through quant now.
I studied for L1 in 4 months and I know that L2 is a different animal but I still believe that with good time management and smart studying, it can be done.
I’ve used the 300 Hours study plan (link below) for L1 and now L2. It will give you a pretty good idea of how you can manage this based on how many hours you can study per/day and per/week. It will give you a schedule and will also build in time to review and take the guesswork out of figuring out if you can do this.
http://www.300hours.com/articles/300-hours-rough-guide-to-a-solid-cfa-study-plan#.Vq-HIdLlvmg
I did the exact same thing last year, but missed passing with a Band 9 result. 4 months is not a lot of time, but it’s doable if you work hard and efficiently. Make 20 hours a week a minimum goal, and squeeze in more hours if/when you can. Study from Schweser and don’t get hung up on understanding every reading perfectly. Pound through the readings, take some notes if it helps you, then follow up each reading by doing the CFA EOC practice questions. Make it a goal to complete all readings and EOC practice by April 1st. Then spend the final 2 months on review and cementing concepts into your head, flash cards, formula memorization, and finally and most important, PRACTICE! Do all of the CFA sample questions on their website (twice if time allows), and try to get 4 full mock exams done. Test question practice is critical to success, as this is not a plug and chug exam. Read/Re-Read Ethics in the final couple of days.
Good luck!
Day 1 for me too.
Are you guys thinking about using video lectures to supplement the readings?
I’m using the Wiley videos. I had very good success using them for L1 and I think they helped me stay out the weeds and focused on the big points of what to study. I’ve been watching the videos and following along in the text and then doing the EOC ?s and test bank ?s afterwards. So far, so good…
Thanks! with the canadian dollar dropping in value all these additional resources are costing me more than I want them to. May have to bite the bullet on this one!
If you have already purchased other resources, you can always just buy the videos as a stand alone. That’s what I did for L1 and after buying the package this time, I’ve realized that I wasn’t really missing much just buying the videos last time.
Thank you for telling this! I started a month ago going through videos, now start doing questions only to feel i remember seriously nothing and had to start reading books and notes over and over before tackling practice and I am progressing soooooooooo slow. Jesus. 17th week, I finished only 2.5 readings.This is gonna be fun.
using the videos, great to explain topics when you get confused, but if you go through videos and think you got the topics under ur belt and ready for practice, get ready to be very disappointed
how many readings are you covering a day/week? I set the same goal but god it is slow procee i am making
Regarding watching all the Wiley videos while going along from the study guide, I wouldn’t recommend it. There isn’t enough time, based on my experience from last year. Instead, I’d recommend focusing on the videos for readings you may struggle with, and/or topics that are more heavily weighted. Thankfully, Wiley still offers the video lessons recorded by Peter Olinto a few years ago (when Elan was still a standalone company) on FRA, Equity and Derivatives. Basit’s lessons are good as well, but tend to be VERY detailed thus quite long, possibly too long depending on how many study hours a week you have available.
Focus on videos for FX in Econ, Inter Corp Investments, Currency Translation, Business Combinations and Pensions in FRA, the DCF readings in Equity (DDM, FCFF/FCFE, RI) and Forwards, Futures, FRAs, Swaps and Options in Derivatives. For Derivatives, focus on mastering how to both price and value the various contract types. Other videos can be filled in as a supplement for readings you may need more help with.
Videos are nice, but you HAVE to leave enough time for lots of practice questions/mocks.
No real goal on number of readings each day. There are 5 Schweser books and 8.5 weeks until 4/1. My rough math leaves me with just under 2 weeks for each book to do the reading, Schweser EOC questions, and watch videos. My goal is to keep moving forward and try to comprehend as much as I can. I certainly understand certain topics will take longer than others, but at this point I am just trying to get familar with the content.
Finish schweser and the EOC’s in schweser by 4/15. Dedicate 1.5 months to CFAI EOC’s, Schweser Mocks, CFAI mock, and some qbank. Track your performance on sections to know what you should practice more of and prioritize. Definitely possible to finish schweser from now to 4/15…Back in 2013, I did alt inv, derivs, and half of port mgmt in january while overlapping some studying with CAIA L2. In February, I spent all of my time on CAIA L2 until the exam on march 9. I re-engaged CFA L2 on march 11th and finished up by April 15…I think you’ll be ok…just remember to have at least 1.5 months for testing/practice/drills, etc.