Take it among the crowd, some of the 55% who failed this time are here feeling ignored and in need of a motivation boost - myself included.
To reignite the fire, I have put the below template for posters to use, I will start mine off. People who passed, feel free to contribute your nuggets of wisdom:
of L2 Attempts Already: 2
Started revision for L2 2018: April 2018
Recent strategy: provider material and topic tests.
Will start revision for L2 2019: November 2018
New strategy: CFAI EOC and Topic Tests the
Where went wrong: didnt know the material well enough tbh.
I think your new strategy is spot on - focus a bunch of effort towards CFAI EOCs. All of those, all of the CFAI topic tests, and the two CFAI official mock exams are critical items to complete before the actual exam. Supplement all of that with additional mock exams from a third party provider (I used Schweser and did all six available, plus the live mock). In particular on the topic tests/mocks - always take the time to review each answer, right or wrong, and understand why you missed something - and I mean fully understand exactly what you got wrong and why. Go back to the books if you have to. And then go back to topics that continue to be issues and review where you’re getting tripped up.
Start early and read the CFAI texts…all of it. As a retaker a lot is still fresh in your mind and you’ll pick up some things that Schweser or other third party providers may omit or not go in depth. For example, I felt like PM was an area that I wasn’t comfortable using only Schweser because I wasn’t picking it up. So after reading the CFAI text, doing the examples and then the EOCs I felt more comfortable with PM. I could then use Schweser as my final review.
Also, I made a lot of self made typed notes for sections that I bombed last year on my first attempt (Econ, quant, PM). Those helped a lot and did much better this go around.
Bottom line: Start by reading the CFAI material, take some notes and do the examples and EOCs. Then move on to a third party provider. It’ll take a lot of time, but I found that to be a better strategy on my retake and I passed.
Here is what worked for me on levels 1 and 2 : Read the Schweser material once and as quickly as possible and then spend as much time as you can just hammering questions, practice tests, mocks, etc. An in person 3 day review class helps a lot. If you spend 150 hours in the final 6-8 weeks practicing questions your odds of passing go up tremendously. Switching from Schweser to CFAI questions gives you a good range of topics. Some find reading the CFAI texts helpful, but for me I thought the additional time it takes to read the CFAI would be put to better use hammering questions. Schweser gets you to the goal line as well. Good luck to retakers.
Edited to add : Don’t sleep on any one topic or sub-topic. The amount of info they throw at you is tremendous and if you go into the exam with more than 1-2 blind spots you could be exposed. I think this years exam proved that with a higher MPS and lower pass rate.
I created the 4th Attempt topic so I feel the pain here. I’ve always used CFAI material, supplemented with Wiley 11th hour. I guess its time to change it up! I’ve heard rumors that Level Up may be releasing level II videos and a bootcamp, anyone know if there’s any truth to this? I’ve heard great things about Marc LeFebvre.
At this point, still debating if I should give it another go.
I just used the CFAI material + what’s available on the CFA website (EOC and the 2 mocks)… the course is designed in such a way that it should suffice. Just take your time to get every letter from the CFAI (I studied for around 800 hours on a 5 month timespan)
Ain’t no not gonna spend no more money with additional prep.
Awaiting L3 results, but my view on the L2 exam I took in 2017:
I often see people spend too much time on understanding concepts thoroughly. It goes against conventional wisdom which says you must understand things thoroughly, know the concept - don’t memorize.
I disagree with this notion. My view is this - you are taking an exam. Know when to understand, know when to game the system. Know when to memorize through repetition. There were plenty of concepts I could answer on that exam without truly understanding. I am fine with that. I know on the whole my prep left me in a good place and I studied smart & efficient. Picking up concepts along the way and also blunt force memorizing too.
That memorization comes from questions and questions alone. You can read the schweser chapter 5 times over (inefficent), or you can read it once and go straight to the questions, pound them - get them wrong. Work out why they are wrong and decide to either thoroughly learn the underlying concept or learn the mechanics. Learn by doing!
Too often people that fail (including myself) do so simply because they have not seen enough questions.
2/3/4/5 mocks is not enough. You need more. Far more. You need to see every variation of the same LOS tested from various providers so nothing stumps you on game day.
There will be people that disagree with above, or pass doing one mock. Or just EOC’s. These are outliers (you are looking at a small sample set in this forum). The vast majority of people that pass, hammer question repetition like there is no tomorrow.
For next year, you need to shift your study style up a gear. Get through the material then get straight onto those questions and go non-stop till game day. By the final week you should have seen so many variations of every question that you are simply unflappable.
Band 10 last year on my first attempt and passed this time around.
What I felt helped me the most is when I read through Schweser I created cheat sheets for each chapter on Excel with bullet points and formulas to help me understand the concepts but also so that as soon as I was done with the readings I could move on to only doing practice problems and not feeling like I had to go back and reread chapters. I finished the readings with about two months left so I just focused on doing QBANKS, EOC, and Mocks. If I didn’t know an answer I’d check my cheat sheet and to help me remember and if it wasn’t there I’d go back to the book and add it to my excel. This saved me a lot of pointless rereading and let me keep focusing on getting stronger on my weak points.
I flunked L1 in 2015 .Retook it in 2017 and passed .Appeared in L2 in 2018 and passed.The one thing I learned is never ever ignore any topic or sub topic .Anything can be tested .And yes practise a lot .
Doing as many questions as possible is the best way to prep for the test itself, especially for Level 1, but the fact of the matter is that same number of potential item sets to practice on for Level 2 just doesn’t exist in the same amount.
I personally thought the questions on the topic tests on the CFAI website were very similar to the type of questions they asked on the actual exam in pattern and depth (I actually thought the EOC were more detailed - so of course wouldnt hurt to do those either). I was a bit surprised at how many questions they offered, but what was especially helpful was how after you answered each one it highlighted the LOS it was based on - then you could see certain types of things they expected you to be able to do from each LOS.
That being said, I would focus on really looking at each LOS and mastering what they expect from you, starting by filling in any holes in your knowledge, then strengthening the ones you feel more comfortable with. Particularly with the list LOS (signs of a currency crisis, BSM assumptions, APT assumptions, regression assumptions, etc), if I had a free moment I would just randomly challenge myself to write all of them out as quick as I could (BSM was annoying cause there are about 10) to see if I could recall, sometimes even twice or three times a day at just random times (I did this with a lot of formulas too). Over a long period it ingrains it in your memory and if it shows up on a question you’ll be able to answer it quickly like second nature.
yes, absolutely, do as many as you can. I won’t sit here and tell you I got through all of them, maybe got through 85% of the blue box and all of the EOC. I did some of the blue box and all of the EOC multiple times. Both are extremely important IMO.