Hi All,
I recently took the level II exam for the first time and failed band 4. I don’t believe the material was the problem. I honestly think it was do to my poor ability to answer the questions in which they are constructed. During my mock exams, I didn’t read the questions the way I would on exam day because I was tired and burnt-out from studying since November. I made dumb mistakes by not reading the entire vinette and missing key facts which led me to wrong answers. I thought by knowing that I mad dumb mistakes, that I would correct them on the exam (not the case at all). Can people who have passed and people going to pass (you) let me know some good test taking strategies. I have been a poor exam taker ever since the SAT’s (if you guys can remember those days).
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks
I think you just answered your own question 
Make sure you understand the overall concepts of what’s going on. The Schweser material/videos have their shortcoming but they do teach the concepts well. If you get jammed up on a problem but understand the concept, it helps you make a better choice/guess on the exam. I also searched for the topics that I was strongest on at the start of the exam, but that approach might not apply to everyone…
But did you read the entire vinette first or did you you answer question by question looking for the answers?
I read q first. Then vignette. Don’t forget to read the entire vignette cuz I found myself often stopping once I got the necessary information and moved onto next q which is a huge mistake.
What mocks did you take and how did you do on them?
Step 1: Read 1st question.
Step 2: Start reading Viginette from beginning to end.
If answer to 1st question pops up, answer it, read 2nd question, then continue reading vignette while looking for answer.
Read the first question, then look at the vignette.
A lot of the vignettes are set up so that the first paragraph corresonds to the first question, the second paragraph corresponds to the second question, and so on.
After you read 2nd question and you find the answer for that question, do you solve for it? or do you continue to finish reading the whole vignette and then answer questions 2-6 after?
would you then not read the whole vignette if you found the answers to each question as you were going through them?
I’m just trying to get a better strategy as the one I had didn’t work…
Read questions first to give you idea of what to look for, skim/read vignette and look for possible information to answer question then answer question.
The strategy that worked for me 2nd time round was:
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quickly skim the 1st paragraph or so of the vignette, i found this useful to set the scene, eg the names of people in some cases, the accounting standards in others.
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read the 1st question, but not the answers.
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go back to the vignette to find the data to answer the question still without looking at the 3 options
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repeat for the other 5 questions
The caveat with not reading the answers is that it obviously doesn’t work for every single question. it works particularly well for calculations. Some would say that on exam day you’re wasting time by not reading the answers because in some instances you can select the correct answer without doing a calculation. Anyway, the system worked well for me on exam day and when studying.
when I did mocks, I realised that I was sruggling with time. Nothing more annoying than you know how to approach the questions, but run out of time. It’s usually the calculations questions slow you down.
In the exam, I limit calculation questions to maximum of 2 tries. If I don’t get right answers I move on and come back to them once I . Chances are you will get clearer mind to tackle them again. I solved a few in this way. I ended up 40 mins spare time in AM and 20 mins spare in PM session.
Hope it helps
Man, by the sound of things I went about this in the wrong way! I had a look at the first question in each item set and then searched ONLY for the information I knew I needed and used it to answer the question. I couldn’t tell you what a single one of those 20 vignettes were about.
It worked.
I’m a slow reader (so i’m always fighting hard against the clock). The way i tackled L2 was:
=> In Ethics and FRA: Read the whole vignette, then read the question, then re-read the text to find the answer.
=> Everything else: Read the question; then read the text until you find the question.
To answer correctly in ethics and FRA, you need to understand the whole text (you might find some info in the last paragraph that might help you to answer the first question).
The remaining topics (as far as my official exam/mock exams/sample exams go) almost always proceedin chronological order. ie: you will first find the data to answer the first question , then immediately after that you’ll find info to answer question 2, then 3, and so forth. It’s very unlikely that you will have jump back and forth throughout the vignette to gather the info needed to answer any specific question.
It’s not ideal to go about it this way, but it’s definitely a good heuristic to apply if you’re consistently running out of time. Good luck
Thanks for all the input!
I am a slow reader as well. I think I will try to read Q1 and then read the first paragraph of the vignette to answer Q1 and get all the information for the vignette. After that, I will read Q2 and then finish reading all the rest of the vignette and underline/highlight what I think are important factors. Then go back and answer the following questions 2-6.
Does anyone have any comments regarding that strategy or something better they feel is a more efficient strategy?
thanks
How did you do on the mock exams? I think people answering this question may not be relevant to how you should function. I tend to be a fast exam taker and finished the exam with about 40 minutes left each morning and afternoon session. What method did you utilize on the mock exams and were you successful using this method? If so, then this is likely how you should answer the questions on the real exam since the mocks are practice exams for the real deal. There are probably many different styles to answer the questions. I personally would read the first 3 questions than read a bunch of the vignette and then jump to answering a question if I had the relevant information. You said you didn’t answer the questions the same way you did on the mock exam. If you were successful on mock exams you should utilize the same strategy for the real test.
The reason why i said i did a different strategy on the mock than the actual exam was that on the mocks (scored 58%-72%), I would not read the entire vignette. I would look at the question and answer the sequentially and try to find the answers somewhere in the reading. I would make lots of dumb mistakes. I thought that if i see these same dumb mistakes (missing a certain key word or number), then I would eventually pick up on it by the real exam. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to happen. I still need to figure out the best way to attack the vignette style questions. Do you read all of the vignette swatty27? I am not a strong test taker or reader. I believe that I do know material for the most part, I just need to execute better. And that is where i’m at…
I encourage my candidates to read the questions first, then read the vignette with a purpose: to find the information necessary for each question.
I think that it’s more efficient to do it this way: one read through the vignette. Reasonable people might disagree, however.
Read all six questions and then read the vignette? Do you feel it is necessary to read the entire vignette? I made some dumb errors because I left out important material information in calculations, but i’m wondering do i need to read the entire vignette to answer all six questions correctly?
Read all six questions and then read the vignette? Do you feel it is necessary to read the entire vignette? I made some dumb errors because I left out important material information in calculations, but i’m wondering do i need to read the entire vignette to answer all six questions correctly?