So I left it all a bit late as usual thinking since Level I only took a few weeks how bad could Level II be! Well it’s currently feeling orders of magnitude harder.
I’ve put in 60 hours of study so far, covered the big guys (Equity, FRA, Corp Finance) as well as some practice questions on them. Figure I can put in another 120 hours in the next 2 weeks but I’m struggling to come up with a plan of attack to get everything done, is anyone else in the same boat!?
My main issue is that I can sit down and spend a day or two reading the book, everything makes sense at the time, but then you come to questions and suddenly it feels like reading was just time wasted because the questions are so hard!
Anyway, words of encouragement or advice from people in the same boat now or in previous years would be much appreciated.
its doable, i started a few days back, had finished only 2 SS earlier, my method is- get the basics and then work on problems, dont get stuck in theory.
I am sleeping 4-5 hrs, eating sparsely, drinking gallons of coffee & energy drink and smoking like a chimney. So i think i am quiet fucked too.
I gave more time for L1, had my final Exam for Masters on 9th May, so couldn’t do anything for past few months.
I think having a plan is essential, i tried without it but used to get very tensed inbetween and couldn’t concentrate. So i’ve made a plan which will enable me to get basics theory and practice problems for all topics and leave 2-3 days for Mock Paper at the end and revision, plan calls for 15-16hrs/day.
I wouldn’t overlook topics like Ethics and Corporate Governance. Good that you got Equity and FRA out of the way. If you plan on skimming through all the topics, it might help to divide them into two groups:
QM, Economics, Portfolio, Derivatives - I noticed that, while each topic is certainly different, there’s significant overlap especially with regards to regression and currencies. Studying these as a group might help save time (i.e. if you dont understand it the first time, it will appear again in another topic and you might gain some insight that you did not have from going over it in a different topic).
Corporate Finance, Equity, Fixed Income, Alternative Investments - CF, Equity, and AI have alot of discounted cash flow themes explained in various ways, but you should be able to see how they are all common. One reading in Fixed Income (Credit Analysis) spends a good amount of time going over corporate governance, so this will link with the Corporate Finance topic.
We have 14 days: Maybe 5 days for each group, a day for FRA, a day for Ethics, and 2 days for Mocks?
Yes, we are screwed right now, But the good news is : We still have 14 days ( 336 hours ) with us. We all know that this exam is really really difficult… So there is only 1 way left to defeat it now and that is : through PERSEVERANCE
Make a plan for d remaining days and follow it religiously. Dont worry about time. Just give ur best to understand all the concepts and give up everythng dat u hav , ur food, ur sleep (as much as possible) , frnds , cell phone and facebook.
This is the time bro… Make these 14 days memorable !!
I’m in the same boat as most of you’ll…completed first reading of Alt inv, derivatives, most of FRA, some part of quant (2 readings, although i didn’t understand much!) and portfolio mgmt…left with corp fin, equity, ethics, economics, fixed income and some parts of quant and FRA…plan to do fixed income now and then do the rest and take a morning session of a mock to check where i stand…I’m already forgetting half the things I read in other topics…i realise this cuz when there’s a reference to certain topics in other places, i fail to recollect, although immediately after completing a reading, i generally do very well on the concept checkers and challenge problems in schweser…i started off two weeks back and currently hoping that i complete the first reading in a few days…targetting 24th!..then take a session and re-read the topics…complete that by end of the month and do 2-3 mocks in the remaining 2 days…
just like aditya, even I’ve been smoking like a chimney and drinking lots of tea…im just not putting in enought hours per day though…should motivate myself after reading this thread…
@lemiman…i haven’t finished the first reading…and im goind super slow like there’s a year left for the exam…damn!..ethics, equity, corp fin, half of fixed income and a bit here and there left…will have to complete them in the next 4-5 days…I’m wondering if I’ll be bogged down by low scores in the mock exams without a re-read…what do you’ll suggest?..how many schweser mocks apart from the institute mock?..
Yeah, I think you missed the point. We haven’t even read half the material for the first time, let alone had time to re-read!
Right, so now done with Quant/Econ/Equity/Fra/Corp Finance and done all the EoC questions. So just left with the last 2 books to read, which I’m hoping should be nice and easy, oh yeah and Ethics. Hopefully will be finished reading by the 26th in time for a mock exam and a full week of Secret Sauce + mocks & practice questions.
nanoblade, good luck to you. unless the material is very familiar to you and/or you are some sort of genius, you’ve set yourself up for failure. your OP mentions how at first reading everything makes sense but when you do questions, they are difficult. well, i guess that’s why CFA is not like undergrad - a couple of days of cramming just won’t do. sorry you’re learning that the hard way.
Yea man, don’t want to be a kill-joy, but you still got 2 books to read to finish just the first read-through… you’re pretty much done. Unless this is all a fakery and you’re just trying to get people to study less haha
Had the feeling yesterday that I was screwed, keep pushing through that and work your way into “the zone” Still lots of time left, I’m just starting my reread and it seems like all new information to me and taking just as long as new information so just put in as much time as you can.
Equity, FRA, corporate finance, alternative is where you want to focus. All quite relative and make up 45 - 85 % of the exam, nail those and you’ve got a really solid chance. Throw econ in there as well as it’s only 80 pages and a lot of it is Forex stuff so.
And I remember reading iteracoms comments when i was doing level one and thinking he was being a little dramatic abuot level 2. Feel kinda silly now. The material is not overwhemingly hard, but the amount of material… Sheesh
