2009 - Band 10 2010 - Pass In 2009 my 40/60/80 was 70% and this year it was 69% So almost exactly the same marks. I think the key for passing this year was having an understanding of everything. You have to get all the easy marks and have a crack at the harder ones.
2009-Failed Band 3 2010-Pass Gotta have a good understanding of every single one of those readings. The one that you neglect will be the one that they use an entire 6 question item set for the test.
Take it from my experience, I did not do so well the June 2009 exam, but you’ll learn that life goes on. As long as you learn what you did wrong and prepare better for your next try. Here are my lessons learned that helped me pass the 2010 exam. 1) EOC, EOC, EOC. I only did a select few last year and learned that they are structured very similar to the test. The more questions you solved the better prepared you will be. After working through all the vignettes in the CFAI text, I was prepared for the questions 2) Put in the study time. I made sure to set aside the appropriate amount of study time and not take shortcuts. 3) Qbank - a lot of people don’t like the Qbank, but for me it really helped enforce the simple concepts. I did 4,000 questions along with the EOC’s and practice test, for me the more questions the better. Good luck everyone!
Failed first two times with the second fail at band 10 Passed third time around with 3 below 50, 2 in midrange and 5 in above 70 (so I was probably in the “just passed”) But all in all I think back, I was much comfortable with the lvl 2 materials and felt much more solid and that would be advantageous come lvl 3 as well as when actually applying to it to work. Although getting that CFA designation is important… it looks pretty bad to your boss/coworkers if you have that designation and don’t know concepts that you should’ve known. If you didn’t passed the first or second time around… that may not be entirely bad as you will have better understanding of the materials … and that should be the most important aspect of the CFA- to have a better understanding of financial knowledge (and,of course, not indicative of better performance).
2008 - failed band 5 2009 - failed band 4 2010 - failed band 4 Put in a good solid effort each time, but kept treading water. Focused this year on topics I did bad on last year, and as a result I did well on those and slipped on the ones I did well on last year. I think I am done. Did I study pretty hard every time? Yes. Did I sacrifice my life for it? No. I just hate that each year they add more and more material and don’t take anything out. In 2008 it was real estate and some other stuff here and there. In 2009 it was private equity. This year it was private company valuation. Annoying.
2009 band 9 2010 pass.
As many people on this post I failed last year but made it this time! The real key is UNDERSTANDING…just memorization as for level I is not enough to pass…With the style of question (known as vignette) it is real application of concept that is needed as figures might change and you have to find the necessary information within the text. My advice: take the time to go slowly through the material. No need to rush if you start early. Doing so also allowed to take a break between two passages. Good luck to everyone being for lvl II (once again or the first time) or lvl III. Paul
CFAdetroit - could it be that you are studying incorrectly? I failed band 9 and know that the reason for failing was my approach to the exam.
CFAdetroit Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 2008 - failed band 5 > 2009 - failed band 4 > 2010 - failed band 4 > > Put in a good solid effort each time, but kept > treading water. Focused this year on topics I did > bad on last year, and as a result I did well on > those and slipped on the ones I did well on last > year. I think I am done. Did I study pretty hard > every time? Yes. Did I sacrifice my life for it? > No. I just hate that each year they add more and > more material and don’t take anything out. In > 2008 it was real estate and some other stuff here > and there. In 2009 it was private equity. This > year it was private company valuation. Annoying. I do believe they took out a very tedious section this year I can’t exactly remember which.
2009 - Band 8 2010 - Pass
Failed Band 8 in 2009 and Band 4 now…pretty confused to be honest because i was pretty confident about my chances. Last year was definately tougher for me and i put in a lot of effort in both years. Only explanation is I fell for a lot of the institute’s tricks during the exams…anyways…I’ll get em next year!
Last year band 3. This year band 6. Last year I was shocked that I failed because I walked out of both session feeling that I nailed it real hard!! This year I knew the morning session got me for sure. It was some strange format and awkward questions all over the place. Afternoon was very good, but not enough to rectify the morning’s damage! I’m with joseph213, it actually didn’t bother me failing this year at all, and I think the reason is that I feel that going over the material one more time (slowly) will do me good in the end. Congrats to those who passed.
band 4 last year…passed this year. I did every single EOC question…that was the difference.
First time = band 4 Second time = band 9 Don’t think I will sit for the third time. I studied like mad, understood the material, but found time my biggest enemy on the exam. I read every page of the curriculum, did every problem, many practice exams, took 7 city, understood it all. And was very surprised to see the PRE POST stuff related to private equity. NEVER emphasized in class, tests, questions, etc. I failed AI. Ethics i studied like mad as well, and still did not hit over 70.
2008 - Band 8 2009 - Band 3 2010 - passed Like marco_m, I can’t stress how important end of chapter questions are. Do them over and over.
I failed last year and passed this time around. I used Schweser both times, but the second time I did not do any of the QBank. I think that the QBank can be used to reinforce concepts, but it can give you a false sense of security. For this exam, I focused on the readings (made my own flashcards as I studied) and took every mock exam that I could get my hands on and made flashcards for every question that I either guessed on or missed. I also made sure to write the section and LOS on each flashcard and later organized them so that I could focus my studies. I think working through as many exams as possible helps your endurance during the real exam and also helps you to prepare for the myriad of curve balls that they throw at you. Good luck to everyone, I know the heartbreak of failing this monster.
2009 Fail - Band 6 2010 Pass I simply underestimated how hard L2 was. Schweser CAN WORK. I know 2 good friends who only used those books and did very well. I used CFAI text because it gives more in depth background, but if you nail the formulas schweser lists, you can definitely do it. The appeal of Schweser is that it’s about half the number of pages. Which is definitely a plus for someone with commitments elsewhere.
2009 - Band 7 2010 - Band 7 AGAIN!!! not sure whether i will take it…still considering