Why does everyone focus on alternative…i thought it had the same weightage (5-15%) as many others on the exam…one reason maybe cuz the syllabus is less (c. 100 pages)…nonetheless, im surprised you guys are leaving ethics out of the list…thought it was important…i started reading it a while ago and the first several pages are similar to level I…will move to equity and other parts soon…
You’re right. Ethics is very important too, i keep forgetting about it, i surely wont for the test though.
i’ll post a ranking of the topics for most effective study based on expected % weighting per page of material. I made sure to calculate that before i began studying.
Rank for Effective Study Alternative Investments 1 Financial Reporting & Analysis 2 Economics 3 Equity Investments 4 ethics 5 derivatives 6 portfolio management and alt investments 7 corporate finance 8 quantitative methods 9 fixed income 10
ignore the alternative investments that follows portfolio mgmt, just a habit carried over from lvl 1.
You get 2 Qs on ethics however you must read about 300 pages.
You get 1-2 Qs on Alts buy you must read only 100 pages.
What’s more, ethics is more like a tricky game.
Stydying what is required and what is recommended is not so easy. You can easily forget this stuff on the exam.
Yea, I’ve pretty much decided to ignore ethics and not read the CFAI. It doesn’t seem like the payoff outweights opportunity cost. I could read the whole entire thing and maybe get +2 questions at beest I feel
CFAI should copy this thread and post it on their website as the reason for the low pass-rate and for how not to prepare for the exam.
yeah, honestly i used to think a 40% pass rate was low considering that weak candidates were weeded out at level 1, but obviously level 1 lets a lot of wanna be’s through… i suppose that’s encouraging?
L1 pass rates are low because a lot of wahoo’s go in totally unprepared.
I’ve seen people walk in with no calculator / or some random calculator, people with no idea what the heck is going to be on the exam, people who’s company is paying for it so they are there to just " see what it’s like "
I think CFAI has definitely been very generous with the number of passes at L1, because I know at least a few people who passed that I was totally shocked to have passed. But no worries, bec they were quickly shot down at L2.
It makes sense right? Throw people a bone at L1, don’t make it too hard, give them some ego, and they keep pouring buckets of $$$ into your program + good publicity + free marketing.
@bmer4444 & lemiman, cmon guys, i know you guys must have prepared well, but don’t put rest of us down…
The content is quiet easy if we can concentrate and understand, and i agree it might be hard for those people without a financial background to clear this exam, but i dont think anyone tries to cram through the exam, the exams are more oriented towards our understanding and its analysis, not out memory
CFA says- an average of 300 hours preparing for each exam, so considering, we all have put around 150-250hrs totalling, if we put in our best efforts its possible.
http://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprogram/process/enter/Pages/completing_the_cfa_program.aspx
If you think Level 1 was lucky, or bummers(in lemiman’s words-WEAK CANDIDATES) got through, how do you explain Level 3 pass rate? which is around same, so by your own logic bad condidates can pass thorugh Level 2 also, and extending to 3, a bummer like me will get the CFA. so You are saying CFA is a degree achievable by bummers.
So guys, think through your logic and dont be so smug because you had the time to read earlier, everyone had some problems, and some might have a problem studying without being tensed, dont be so quick to judge
^ Your logic for the higher pass rates of L2 and L3 is totally flawed, because you didn’t consider survivorship bias. L3 has a pass rate of 50%, but you are failing HALF of all the strong candidates who passed L2.
To me, that says L3 is pretty dang hard, because L2 is already pretty hard.
@ iteracom, there will always be a few lucky candidates, but generalizing that and saying all the 60% who might fail, or telling the high %age of candidates who are worried about failing that they are lucky(or are weak) is very bad in my opinion. Even for the guys who got lucky at L1 and put in effort at L2 and failed, your comment is very bad. Maybe the people you were shocked passed had worked much harder than you could have in your wildest dreams and you called them lucky. Maybe i am wrong and you know exactly the hours and effort they put in (maybe they saw you as a smug and didn’t want you to get smarter and told they got lucky…)
But i respect every candidate who got through L1 for it, because i know i did a lot of effort, and those who got through easily might have god(or their actions, if you’re atheist) on their side, or pure genius.
I didn’t say L2 is easy, nor L3, i am just saying each level increases in hardness, and it’s not right to tell those who failed that they were weak and lucky at previous Level, becasue in my opinion ANYONE who puts in the time can clear CFA, so all it comes down to is if their conditions allowed them to put in the effort.
My case- Moved to London from India to do a masters course in September, had my final exam on 9th May(had exams, presentations, etc. throughout, only 2 weeks holiday), had to submit my dissertation proposal by 13th and i put in a lot of effort into it because i am going for a PhD next, and on top of it my landlord is increasing my rent 3x because of olympics and i have to shift on 27th, haven’t looked at the flat, i am moving into, just went to agency and filled the applicatoin and fee, took whichever i got fastest. And their is a high chance i might fail, and by your logic i might have failed becasue i was a weak candidate.
Just saying generalization is very bad. Especailly when your sample is a so small (few people you knew). I would have restarained from such comments, especially @bmer4444. Well i have to study now and maybe get some sleep if i can finish today’s plan. and frankly your guys comments are quiet ignorant, and it’s not my job to educate.
You havn’t even gone through L2 and L3 yet. Once you’ve finished L3, you’ll realize L1 is NOTHING in comparison, and you’ll be singing a much different tune.
yo—pitmaster-------read the ethics---- you can’t use the CFA logo unless you are a member, and only on letterhead or biz cards…
not only will you miss the question, you are in violation. 
that is the new logo, isn’t it?
Well i haven’t touched the equity book yet.
I am sure L3 is much harder, but please don’t put down the guys who are just trying to give their best in the time they get, especially in the thread in which the OP is confessing to be in a bad situation, and telling him that he is going to fail, and others who are motivating each other to keep studying for this very hard exam.
If i clear all 3 levels, and if view threads like these where people confess their unpreparedness, i will tell them to still give their best instead of telling them they are weak, it’s a different thing if they were asking me “should they quit their job to prepare”.
If you would tell the people it would require a HUGE effort to pass and odds are astronomically against them, and you can be much more helpful.
I would again repeat for all guys who came to this thread looking for support, even the smallest possibility means there is a possibility, and it would feel that much better to clear the exam instead of having prepared whole year for 2-3hrs/day which basically guarantees passing CFA… and even if they fail it will be that much easier next time, so don’t give up if you can see the smallest possibility.
And yeah my Masters is in Investment and Risk Management, which covered all the topics of Equity in much more depth then CFA, and i don’t know anything about what nanoblade knows, so i would never dream to tell him “you’re pretty much done”
Maybe you feel good trolling the threads of people struggling and putting them down…
Sorry if my replies were offensive, but why push the people on the brink of giving up on the other side when they might have a small chance of passing?
I understand shit happens where you’re not able to study or life gets in the way, but alot of people seem to just leave it to the last minute expecting to be able to cram for the exam and pass. I wouldn’t expect to pass if I was in that situation. In fact, I have been dedicated to studying for 5 months and am not completely confident I’ll pass. I Wish them luck, but they can’t be surprised when they fail.
I am not dumb. I have a background in accounting and finance. I put a tenth of the effort into university courses as I have put into the CFA and I averaged 90%+ in those accounting and finance course compared to getting in the mid-high 70’s now on the CFA mock exams.
I got 75% on the last mock. If 70% is the pass mark that doesn’t leave much margin for error. If I was doing another course that I just needed 50% to pass and I was averaging getting 55%, I wouldn’t feel extremely confident in my chances of passing.
To say the program is easy, which someone did a couple posts up, is completely false. And my statement that the level 3 is easier for people to pass isn’t totally dis-proved by the pass rates
June 2011 CFA Exam Pass Rates
- Level I: 39%
- Level II: 43%
- Level III: 51%
Historical pass rates can be found here:
http://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprogram/Documents/1963_current_candidate_exam_results.pdf
I was not saying the level 3 was easy. I said I have read many times that level 2 is the hardest. That comes from people who have passed all 3 exams, they say level 2 is the toughest one. That is just anectodal evidence, I understand, but it is also backed up by the pass rates. These people that just give one month to study are setting themselves up for failure. Sure, some will pass (mostly by luck?), but they’ll probably then end up doing the same thing next year and failing level 3.
If you disagree and think you can realistically pass with 1 month study, well you’re entitled to your opinion, but the evidence isn’t too supportive of your side.
completely agree with you. i have heard the same about L2 being the hardest before i started L1
I agree if one starts from scratch for CFA L2, 1 month is mission-impossible.
i’ve read throughout the year as much as possible, but couldn’t practise much, and did the same mistake i did in level 1, trying to perfect some topic before going onto next, instead of getting >70% and moving on, which i think would have been much more efficient. I wanted to be 100% sure of passing, should have found this forum for strategies earlier…
My course was very easy to score too, but the course was so designed that it introduced us to all the topics and tested just the basics, but teachers encouraged us to go very deep, and i fell in love with stastical modelling, so much that i will be going for PhD. for which i saw no logic earlier(opportunity cost is very high for PhD).
Anyways best of luck man, not that you need it if you score 75% in mocks consistently. But that’s the beauty of CFA, you cant be sure you’ll pass till you get the result.
edit:shortened, time is precious for readers too
I said survivorship bias hugely skews the data here. You can’t look at this on face value.
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by his (bmer4444) logic, Level 1 is the hardest. at least the pass rates don’t totally disprove that. nice.
Either way, no one knows how the exam is going to be regardless of how your mock exams have been scoring. We can only make an educated guess. I’m going into this exam working hard for the last 9 months and I still don’t feel confident. You never know what they will test come d-day. So, let’s just all stay positive, keep working hard, what we did is now in the past, just learn from it and keep pushing forward!
I was mostly responding to this post who seemed to think all the pass rates were the same. I said from anectodal evidence from talking to charterholders I have heard the 2nd was the toughest for them. The 3rd level pass rate is by far the highest, so it seems to me if you get to that point, and put in all the required hours to study, that is the most likliest test to pass.
That being said, none of the levels are easy. They are all damn hard. So if you think by spending 1 month studying for the exam your setting yourself up to pass, I think you’re dead wrong.