I’m recommending the start of this post to track the differences between the CFA texts and the Schweser material. I failed level two last year and studied only schweser. I avoided the CFA material and i think it cost me in many ways. I think all who took level two last year are well aware of some of the areas that Schweser did not cover well and the CFA explicitly tested (ie Treynor Black). I suggest that as we all make our way thru the texts (and schweser) we should try and track the weak points of schweser in order to aid studying. I haven’t seen anything as of yet, since i’m just starting on the texts, but encourage others to post.
major difference – soft dollar stuff in the ethics section – schweser has like 2 pages of just definitions and 4 easy questions, when the CFAI text has like 20 pages with a LOT more detail and specific examples. CFAI is a must read for soft dollars
Don’t even bother with Schweser for ethics other than practice questions. Read the Code of professional conduct (or whatever is it called.) Know it inside and out, take a lot of practice questions, and you’ll do fine.
goes to eleven Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Don’t even bother with Schweser for ethics other > than practice questions. very true. it’s the same as schweser’s L1. the practice questions however, are very important and helpful
CFAI certainly is the business on ethics. And since it won’t have changed much there isn’t even the excuse that it took time to write. On the plus side (Level II) Schweser does have a non-descript lady on that front that some might find appealing.
I think a better title for the thread is “what does Schweser not cover sufficiently?” Schweser is meant to be a summary of the actual readings, the CFAI text.
at least for quant, i’m finding schweser end of chapter questions to be less involved and overall, easier… maybe it is because cfai has open ended questions and all of shweser’s are multiple choice. having finished quant, i feel like schweser did a pretty good job. one thing though, the text seemed to have more on durbin watson test for serial correlation than schweser. i feel like it’s going to be on the test. maybe i’m paranoid. christ, it’s only november.
Hi All, so what’s the bottom line of this discussion? Do we need to study CFAI material only for the Ethics topics or for everything or not at all??? It’s only November it’s true, but the earlier one knows that …the better! bye, JL
I purpose of this thread is the continuously share with each other the areas of Schweser that are lacking. Personally I would like to use the CFAI text as little as possible, so I think this thread is a great idea. It’s pretty clear that the consensus regarding ethics is to use the CFAI texts. Please continue to post your thoughts!
Ethics use CFAI, i agree with the above,
Quants: * Schweser does a pretty good job in covering the CFAI material, though the DW test got more emphasis in the CFAI texts. Any other opinions? Economics: FX Schweser doesn’t mention transactions costs, whereas CFAI texts do? Further, isn’t TRIANGULAR ARBITRAGE rather spartan in Schweser?
You might read carefully the LOS (which is supposed to indicate what will be tested) before complaining about lack of (or meager) coverage in Schweser’s Study Notes… unlike last year, the LOS do not even mention “testing (eg D-Watson) and correcting” for heteroskedasticity and serial correlation whereas last year we had to “calculate and interpret a Durbin-Watson statistic.” These details are important…
i am using sch notes for certain long readings this year for LII, but I am also skimming along CFAI text as I am reading the notes. I noticed Schweser leaves out all the paragraphs that are not directly related to any LOS. In reading SS10 in equity i came across two or three topics in every reading that were not covered in the notes, so i suggest skimming the book as you are reading the notes. for practice qs, I do all CFAI text qs, and another thing: for ethics MCs give BSAS q banks a try, they are much closer to the real ethics MCqs then Schweser (somebody pointed out Schweser is not good for ethics mcs, this is true)… you can find the BSAS q bank at bsas.org in january
I think “suggested steps” in TIME SERIES ANALYSIS in the curriculum is worth reading. Schweser omits some points, which breaks the logic links.