As disappointed as I am, I am ready to register for level 2 exam again but I don’t know what I am going to study or what I am gonna do. I already spent more than 800 hours, solved 10 mocks and done all the EOC and the questions on CFAI. So any suggestions would be appreciated.
Anyway, my real question is that is it necessary to buy the printed books again when you have previous ones? They say there are only 5 new topics so I don’t really know what to do about it because you have e-books anyway. But at the same time, I don’t want to regret that just because of 150 dollars, I fail the exam again. so yeah I don’t know what I’m doing!
I took level 2 twice and I literally started fresh and restudied everything…HARDER. you’ll be amazed at how much you’ve retained. Here is what I did:
1.) started in the fall and read ALL CFAI books. Every single reading.
2.) made my own notes, especially heavy notes on my weak topics to help me better understand.
3.) did all EOC multiple times and most blue box examples
4.) read through Schweser notes as a reinforcement
5.) I didn’t do any mocks, but it’s not something I’d recommend. Everyone is different and I didn’t find that I needed to test myself via mocks. I studied so much that I knew my weak areas.
went from band 8 fail to over 90% pass.
dont waste time and “review”. Hit it harder than the last test and pass.
I would use the 2018 books, but if there are any changes/additions to the readings for certain sections, just read those sections in the E-books. See these links for changes:
Maybe you should try to broaden how you study. I.e. make a million note cards with definitions and even practice problems. I found that putting problems on notecards was really helpful, especially in topics like derivatives with multiple steps to value a swap, etc. Even when you’re familiar with the numbers, you’re going to have to learn where to put them all.
Notecards to me are the GOAT. Especially for something like a CFA exam where there is so much retention.
Maybe go through each LOS and mark ones you feel you know, ones you are a bit iffy, and ones you could definitely use some work on. Then start from the ones you have most trouble and work up.
Since you are re-taking I dont know how you feel about re-reading everything from the start, but when I was doing it I made a notebook for each topic, then as I went through the readings (and I used videos by Mark Meldrum) I hand wrote all the relevant notes for each LOS. When it came time to review those notebooks were a godsend because (mostly) all the relevant info for each LOS was easily accessible.
Try a 3rd party provider like Schweser etc. Sometimes you need to ask for directions and can’t do it yourself and that’s ok. That’s what they are there for.