Given everybody’s experience, if you have to retake the Level II exam, is it necessary to purchase all new materials for the next year’s exam (such as Kaplan Schweser books)? I know there are some differences between each year, but in the grand scheme of things, is there a major difference? I would plan on purchasing additional practice exams and questions, but are the 2011 books now completely useless? I feel like my time would be better spent actually studying the material (i.e. my notes, highlighted sections) and taking practice exams and going over new questions, rather than spending all my time simply reading, re-highlighting, and taking even newer notes for the 2012 update. Thoughts?
This year they’ve added 1 section on hedge funds, and eliminated 5 readings. It’s honestly the same test but condensed a bit. I’m just using my 2011 books.
I used the 2010 Scheweser L2 books/videos to study for the 2011 test and passed. Just make sure you’re aware of where the curriculum changes are so that you don’t study anything you don’t need to and you make sure to put extra time into the CFAI books for the stuff that is new.