Best possible way to prepare for Level 2

CFA Level II
#1

Dear all, Iam planning to take Level 2 in 2018. From your experience of writing Level 2 exam this year, please indicate the best possible way to prepare for level 2 exam. Given my full time work schedule, it will not be possible to patiently study the entire curriculum. Can I mainly rely on third party study materials ? Kindly guide. Thanks.

#2

In my opinion after taking it a second time, I have realised truly how important reading from the official curriculum is. Everything in the test comes directly out those books and if you have the time I would suggest you reach each and every one, cover to cover.

#3

Thanks rexthedog for your guidance. Wishing you the best of luck this time.

#4

You should 100% read from the original material, but only for concepts that you don’t understand while studying the Schweser (or other third party) books. Reading the full CFAI books will drive you crazy because there’s too much material to cover. I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re working full-time in addition to studying.

Maintain your own notes such that everything is in one place. This is super helpful when you review. Do all the CFAI topic tests, the mocks, and the third party mocks. It’s one thing to memorize a formula, but totally different thing to know how to apply the formula. Everybody knows the CAPM equation. But if in the exam they give you a bunch of different risk free rates to choose from, you might get stumped if you don’t know which one to use. I had every formula in the Schweser quicksheet memorized, and somehow I still managed to screw up a few questions in the exam. Don’t underestimate the qualitative definitions. What’s the Friedman doctrine? Segmented markets hypothesis? These are free points in the exam if you simply memorize them. Don’t underestimate the lightly weighted topics such as AI and Quant. It feels awful to totally get rekt in a section, even if it’s only 6 questions. It also hurts morale for the rest of the exam. Everyone knows FRA and Equity are important. But in some cases FI could be 20% of the exam, and D/CF could both be 15%. Start early. January is probably a good time. Earlier is better.

All said, don’t worry about knowing 100% of the curriculum. There is some margin for error. It’s better to know 90% of the material really well that you can retain than trying to cover 100% but only retaining 70% of the material because you crammed in too much in the last few days. Just some things I learnt studying for lvl 2 over the past six months. Good luck!

#5

Thanks Tactics for your elaborate guidance. My best wishes for your success in exam.

#6

Also, a friend introcued me to Mark Meldrum videos. If i had known about him earlier I would have followed his full video series which was absolutely terrific. They are long videos though. Up to 4 hours sometikes, but if you have time it’s well worth it. He covers the whole CFA book including all blue boxes.

#7

Thanks rexthedog. I will certainly try it out.

#8

Hi Rex,

If I fail I’m considering these videos for DERIVATIVES. But pls tell me: does he go into such details as explaining the exact payoff for the derivative strategies, or BSM, or synthetics?

I mean is it just about the main concepts, or really every detail?

because for now I used the curriculum, but I had so many problematic things which I couldn’t figure out, so I just googled them, or posted on here, but somehow I’m not sure I found out the correct answer.

#9

In my opinion, there would be very little need to read any books in conjunction with these videos, they are that exhaustive. If I had started his series say back in October, I would have watched each video, pausing to take notes with my book open in front of me to work through the blue boxes he does but that would be it. It really is a complete coverage of the course.

Anything other then that (for really tiny minutia) you could get exposure from repetition of mock exams etc. He is great, but the videos are very long. Whilst he covers all the CFA material, you can tell his teaching style is intended to make you really understand why things work the way they work as opposed to just learning to pass a test.

DM Frankliving, he knows best as he extensively used him. He introduced me to his series, albeit a little too late.

#10

Thanks for the information rexthedog. Will certainly explore the option.