When I was looking for a prep provider after passing level 1 in December, I was high appreciative of the people who wrote reviews of all the different providers. So I feel the need to repay the favour and write my experience with Wiley:Silver package which included videos, study guide, mocks, and q bank.
Videos: This by far the best part of the package. Given the material in level 2 is a big step up, the lectures on the most part explained concepts extremely well. This made understanding the reading as a whole a lot easier when reading the study guide after the lecture. All the lecturers were great, particularly Peter Olinto. He manages to keep your attention and prevents you from getting distracted. Basit was a close second. Although he doesn’t come with the bells and whilstles like Olinto, he does a great job breaking down very complex topics in bite size pieces, this was especially the case in derivatives. His lectures can go up to 2 hours, and with his voice, it’s easy to lose concentration. To combat this, I just took breaks throughout to keep the mind fresh. I personally wasn’t a fan of Darren so I skipped his ethics lectures, but he did a decent job with the fixed income topics without being great.
Study Guide: The study guide is a great supplement to the lectures. The content of the lectures are predominantly based on the guide, so once you’ve watched the lecture, reading the guide is a lot easier and a form of repetition. If I were to purchase the guide as a stand alone, I would have been too happy with it as there were lots mistakes in it, luckily the lecture videos point them out.
Mocks: To my surprise, Wiley mocks were an absolute shocker. It included topics which were no longer tested, poorly written questions and answers etc. Definitely the biggest dissapointment after having such a good experience with the lectures and study guide combo.
Q bank: Never used it so I cannot comment on its usefulness.
Another thing I’d like to add which I liked about Wiley is their study planner. You enter the date you want to start studying and finishes, it then tells you which videos you need to watch each day. I thought it was fantastic in ensuring that I was keeping pace to finish the curriculum in May.
As a side note, I did all end of chapter questions after finishing each reading, never looked at a blue box and did 6 Schwesser mocks.
Hopefully some of you will find my review to be useful in choosing a prep provider for level 2, whether it’s WIley or someone else 