[original post removed]
My advice will be short and straight to the point. READ!
level 2 advice coming from a level 1 candidate…priceless.
Do you need help or motivation? I too passed Level 1 in Dec and failed Level 2 band 1. You don’t need help you have all the books and it’s not hard to find more practice problems than you possibly have time to work through. Plain and simple we didn’t study enough. How do you fix that? Study harder. You now know what you’re up against and you have a year to beat it.
Pass rate was 42% which includes those that have more experience than you, had a full year to study, and have taken the exam multiple times. I don’t say that to use as an excuse but put things in perspective. It’s hard, just like in real life you’re going to fail. You can minimize your failures and their magnitude but you’ll never completely get rid of them. If you ever do it’s a blatent sign that you’re not trying hard enough. How you react to your failures is what makes a difference and only you can control that.
“Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better” - Jim Rohn
+1
Although, to be completely fair, failing Band 1 pretty much puts you at the same spot as you were right after you passed Level 1, so really the only thing you can do is start right from the beginning. You said that you wanted to “have a feel” for the exam, and you got exactly what you wanted, so where’s the problem with that?
Don’t let things like “having a full-time job” / “no finance background” bother you. In fact, don’t even use them as excuses. Many people, including yours truly, have passed the exams under the same conditions.
Start over. Read a chapter, do every blue box, do all the EOCs, move on to the next chapter, lather, rinse, repeat. Nearing the end, do a ton of practice exams and review them meticulously. There is no fast track to passing L2, not unless you’re a portfolio manager with a masters in finance with a strong quant focus.
I was in some what of a similar boat as you last year…
Due to a number of circumstances I wasn’t able to focus and put as many hours as I wanted into the exam… It was a difficult year because my father passed away, and even after his funeral, I couldn’t get myself to focus at all… Reading the pages meant just reading… not understanding… But I still thought it would be best to go to the exam and get the feel for the material. In the end I failed with band 5.
Coming into this year’s exam, I studied full 6 months… Was able to focus MUCH better and understand the material at hand. I was worried becuase of my band 5… but in the end I passed! I think going to take the exam helped greatly… It made me see what the real exam was like…
It’ll be hard for you being a newlywed and all… But this year wasn’t much better for me either… My wife was pregnant from day 1 of my studies… If you explain to your wife and let her understand and if she can accept that you won’t be available for the first 6 months of next year, you’ll be good.
Just focus on your readings… and then focus again by reading again… and then again…
do the same for EOC and mocks… do them AGAIN and AGAIN. CFA is difficult because not only is the material tough… but it requires rigrous amount of focus to get through 6 months of reading and doing problems.
I wrote somewhere else how I studied and what I did… but just to summarize, I read the CFAI book twice, and also Schweser book twice… did EOC about 3 times (from beginning to end full) and did as many mocks as I could get my hands on…
I also took a class in NYSSA which I thought helped a bit.
And what radical said is true… background helps… but shouldn’t be a determining factor… I know a lot of people that have GREAT finance backgrounds that don’t pass, and people who don’t have ANY that pass.
Good luck!
Just because you are a L1 candidate does not mean you cannot tell what’s wrong with this situation. You need to study. L2 is not hard if you study.
First of all, congrats on having the courage to still sit for the exam even if you knew that you were underprepared. Some people just don’t show up so that they can save face and just tell everyone that they didn’t sit for the exam instead of having to tell everyone that they failed.
Given the amount of time you have, I think that the last couple of weeks or even the month before the exam should be devoted to just doing practice exams and problems. Have you considered any third party prep materials? While I think that you have more than enough time to study with the CFAI books only, third party prep materials go straight to the point, enable you to go through sections more quickly and give you more EOC problems to work with. I would recommend Schweser as I passed using mainly Scwheser and then using the CFAI books to fill the gaps and for their EOC problems.
Good luck.
Words of wisdom. Thank you sir for the uplift
LII needs indepth understanding & retention. Read and practice. Try focusing more on the areas with more weightage. Make yourself comfortable more with Ethics, Fixed Income, Equity, FRA & Corporate Finance. Equity, FRA, Fixed Income & CF if become your strength can make you pass the exam comfortably. Equity requirs much practice and so does FRA & CF. If you had done Ethics well in Level I, they won’t distrub you much in Level II. Economics in 2013 has been revamped to less readings as compared to 2012. Distribute your time & practice to give more attention to major weighted areas. Chapter end questions and examples are a must. Don’t go through the solutions unless you compeltely get exhausted. Refer to the text again and again in understanding examples and questions.
Good Luck!
You work for the Indian government and failed? Let me guess you failed ethics?
My advice would be to quit the program and get back to taking more bribes and extorting money out of your citizens in return for doing your job poorly.
I used to think it was imposible to get band 1…Dont worry get back strong at it, start early and eat practice problems for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
@ chicken tikka Fuckin ass**** u don’t know wat iam doin n wat kind of job Iam in… So don’t try to make judgements about my character…quitting program was never an option …not bcoz I don’t have one…but rather my aims are bigger n higher… N believe me hav some shame before pointing finger @ somebody who has been selected for united nations,is coordinator of a NGO for under preveloged children, military tenure in j& k and ivy league MBA selection for next year…but how can u understand…u would have done nothing else rather than fuckin study for 1 exam whole ur life and then passing it barely…kid get a life…know how to contribute to country n society…still u don’t get than its lack of IQ
Chickentikka - this is definitely not in the right spirits at all!
Do you understand Indian Army/Navy are also government jobs? This does not even be categorized as a Joke.
No background in finance + doing “ok” on level 1 (rather than crushing it)… this means you should probably spend 400 hours studying this time. Spread it over 5-6 months. If you put it the time, that’s most important. There are probably several different lesson plans you could use, but just put in the time. Make sure to do some practice exams in the last month (preferably lots). But most important is grinding away for several hundred hours starting after New Year’s,
Not going to wade into the Indian debate, but here’s one pointer I think everyone who’s done CFA understands:
Get your personal life in order. Life happens to everyone, but if you can’t manage those relationships with your significant other, families, friends for the final 3 months before the exam, you’re greatly reducing your chance of success. Good gfs, families, friends understand and support you, and if they don’t, you need to lay down the law if this is what you really want. There’s no escaping work, but thats what vacation days are. And maybe you don’t come from a finance background, but the CFAI text includes every single thing you need to know and is explained in excrutiating depth. All you need to do is read it. Less excuses, more productivity. Good luck.
This Chicken fella got so much beef with them Indians. Somebody needs to fry this Chicken & quick