Is 4 months enough for level II

Hello all, Maybe I should post this thread in Level III to ask people who passed Level II, but I’ll start here. Here is my situation. I just took Level I, I’m hoping I passed. I would be surprised if I didn’t. If I did pass, I would like to take Level II this coming June. Here is the catch. As you know, you can’t register for level II before passing level I which I’ll find out end of Jan. This means that I can order schweser only after that time, as I get it free through company, but need to show that I’m registered to take the exam. As you can see I won’t be able to start studying till beg. of February. Is it enough time? I’m working and would not be able to put more than 1.5 hours a day. Weekends I can do 5 hours or so a day. So I can put 15-20 hours a week. There are 17 weeks, and I would take a week off before the exam. In the end I can put around 250-300 hours in those 4 months. Is it enough? I have degree in Finanace and Accounting and I work in auditing, so accounting stuff is not hard for me to grasp. I’m not sure what’s on Level II to begin with. Should I aim for June 09? or skip till June 10? Any input, or pointing to right direction is greatly appreciated.

my guess is it’s very doable in 4 months and has been done countless times before if you’re not feeling very comfortable, the first ~15 readings for 2009 L2 are unchanged from 2008 (only about 10 readings have been replaced overall) – if you get a used copy of 2008 schweser or whatever you can finish a significant number of readings by the time you get your level 1 results

might as well give it a shot if you can. i know people who tried. one did it. the other didnt. but they started in January

Buy the Schweser books and start in January. That’s my plan…

ya. tried that for 2008 and didn’t work so well (failed). make sure you stick to the one SS per week schedule in Schweser and do all the CFA problems and sample and mock exams. I did all that and still failed. Stay on top of FSA and equity valuation and you should be alright. For 2009, I am just grinding it out with the CFA text

I know plenty of people that started in Jan and passed and I know plenty of people that started in Oct/Nov and failed. It all depends on how hard you’re gonna study and how fast you pick it up.

I tried to achieve this feat in 3 months (started March-08) and a full time job (not at all reclated to finance) and failed with B-10, sooo… marginally thinking 3.1 months are sufficient to cross the border and see a PASS. With 4 months of effort you will be eligible for the lucky draw held every Fall to grant to the chartership.

every year the same questions are asked… you can do it in 2 months if you ask me. it’s all about dedication. and why 4 months, cause the results won’t come out till then?.. why not start studying right now and get 5 motnhs. what’s to lose. yu are eveutually going to have to read the level 2 content regardless if you passed the level 1 unless you are going to give up on the designation after failing…

Level II looks substantially easier then Level I. It goes a lot more in depth into the methods used for analysis, and is based a lot more on things you’d actually do in real life versus BS trivia questions. Like for the FSA questions, they’ll give you a full balance sheet / income statement and make you answer questions on that (maybe make adjustments for LIFO, calculate free cash flows, etc). I’ve read enough 10-Qs and 10-Ks to know how to read and interpret a balance sheet / income statement / statement of cash flows, and I’d have much less of a problem doing that then answering some difference between US GAAP and IFRS. Level I just pissed me off so much with the trivia questions… I mean, how about giving you an options chain and telling you to figure out the implied dividend for some stock, or the breakeven for a straddle, rather then give you 4 scenarios about american vs european pricing that are ALL true in certain circumstances and telling you to pick the one that’s least likely to be true (well, I followed instructions and picked the least likely… but still…) I plan on taking the 2 weeks before the exam off from work, and start studying then. I’ll have 7 days to go thru the material, then 6 days to do practice questions and refine the weak areas, and 1 day to relax before the exam. If you’re a finance major and have good PRACTICAL knowledge in these areas, I think you’ll find II easier then I, especially if you suck at memorizing pointless things. (like I am)

it’s enough time if you have a real affinity for the material AND/OR more time/week to study than you suggested. it’s definitely do-able even on the time you mentioned, just depends on how quickly you pick up material… good news is that last 6 weeks is probably more important than any time before it.

f2d Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Level II looks substantially easier then Level I. > > > If you’re a finance major and have good PRACTICAL > knowledge in these areas, I think you’ll find II > easier then I, especially if you suck at > memorizing pointless things. (like I am) You are absolutely, 100% wrong in your assessment. There is nothing difficult about the level 1 exam, anyone with 100 hours to spare should be able to pass. EVERY single aspect of the L2 exam is more difficult than L1. You won’t understand difficulty of the L2 exam actually is until you get 1/2 way through the curriculum and realize how monumental the amount of info is that you’re required to master. There is nothing practical about L2, and and if you want to talk about trivial questions ask a re-taker about the Portfolio Management vignette last year.

100 hours… right… 2000 pages of material… 20 pages per hour + no practice problems and you pass the exam are you guys tooting your own horns or just straight up full of sh*t?

L1 could probably be passed in 100 hours (I studied more). I probably spent 300-400 hours on L2 (a bit excessive maybe, but better safe than sorry)

yeah i’m sure it’s also passable with 10 hours of study for the right person to say that anyone can pass with 100 hours of study is dishonest took me about 400 hours with no background in finance

Exaggeration, I admit. The point was to say that L2 is much, much more difficult (hence the title of this thread).

week 1: 7 days * 12 hours / day = 84 hours. I’ll read all the books (also keep in mind you can skim the subjects you know well), and do some of the practice problems at the ends if time permits. week 2: 6 days * 12 hours = 72 hours. Continue doing practice problems for the areas I think I’m weaker in, and do at least 5 sample exams (thru qbank, full length). Figure I’ll take ~ 2 hours to do each sample so I’ll spread those out over day 5 and day 6. I studied maybe 100 hours total in college over the 4 years (Half the exams I didn’t study for, and the rest I’d cram for a few hours right before the exam), and I had to take subjects a hell of a lot harder then finance, and I did fine there. My business classes were definitely the easiest. For one of my accounting classes I never even cracked the book and I averaged 98% on the exams. I’m dedicating more time for EACH of these exams then ALL of the time I spent studying in college. If I can’t learn it in that much time, then that means I’m not capable of learning it.

f2d Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > I studied maybe 100 hours total in college over > the 4 years (Half the exams I didn’t study for, > and the rest I’d cram for a few hours right before > the exam), and I had to take subjects a hell of a > lot harder then finance, and I did fine there. My > business classes were definitely the easiest. For > one of my accounting classes I never even cracked > the book and I averaged 98% on the exams. > i started in cs and ended up majoring in math. i probably spent 100 hours a month just on assignments.

So, you’re only going to spend 2 weeks studying… ?

I majored in comp sci & business. Yes, I also spent time doing assignments. And yes, I intend to study for the 2 weeks before the exam. I’ll take a quick look at the material when I get it. If it looks exceptionally difficult and has a lot of material I don’t already have an understanding of, then I might burn all of my vacation and take the full 3 weeks. I don’t think studying earlier then that is very effective. Anything I read more then a month before the exam that’s new material probably won’t stick, and anything that I already know and just need a review of or that I need to expand my knowledge on I can do relatively quickly. You also don’t need to know 100% of the material. You need a 70 for a pass. If you know 90% of the material, you should be fine.

You might as well save the other 2 weeks of vacation too then.