A client's son....the genius...

I work at an investment advisor as an equity analyst and we had a client stop by a few weeks ago. He brought his son in as he wanted to show him the office…we began chatting and he claims that he studied three weeks and passed L2. Granted, he does work in finance (but hes only been doing it for a year)…but man I just still find it hard to believe when I hear stuff like that.

The question is, when you hear people say they passed the exam in under four weeks pf prep…do you believe them? Are they just able to absorb this material by touching the book? Or is it luck?

It’s probably not luck as presumably they felt comfortable with the amount of prep going into the exam. I think it’s a mixture of being exposed to the material before (whether as an undergrad or professionally) and just being extremely bright, with the ability to absorb material quickly.

I think it’s a whole bunch of malarkey! The CFA material is not something desgined for you to absorb by touching.

liars

One of my friends also told me that they only studied a month and passed…I dont know to beleive him but he graduated from a top university

Don’t let this get in your head. When I was in school doing my Master’s degree one of the Dean’s gave us this bit of wisdom regarding exams.

Right before the big tests there are ALWAYS people that will tell you they haven’t even opened the book yet, or that everything is super easy and they don’t even need to study. Don’t believe them. Everyone wants to pass just as badly as you do, and so after they’re done all their big speeches they go home and hit the books, and worry about failure just as much as you do.

I cannot say it is impossible since I don’t know anything about his background.

My friend was so excellent, he did the CFA L2 with only 1 week of studying and passed with 70%+ in all topics. He also took all levels of the ACCA and passed them all in the same year.

I passed FRM part 2 when I thought I had no chance as I had not prepared properly.

the point I am trying to make is that there is always the chance that some guy passes thinking their a superstar when they’re reallly the luckiest idiot in the world…

and besides who do you want managing your money: the guy who worked for 2 weeks to pass the exam or the guy who worked for 6 months.

Hard work and dedication will outperform a show off overtime everytime

I was talking to someone who casually passed level 1 in 6 weeks the other day. I was picturing 6 weeks of evenings and weekends which seemed quite impressive, however in 6 full time weeks you could easily put in 350 hours. i didn’t get a chance to clarify.

With regards to that person:

In some sense though 200 hours over three weeks, might be better than 600 hours over 6 months for ceartin types of learning styles.

Eh, who cares. If you have to brag about CFA study time, maybe something else is missing from your life.

I agree. It’s probably because he is gifted with an extraordinary good memory. My young son seems to be in this category, … but I am not. Gotta do the hard work! lol