After reading negative comments about Darren before purchasing Wiley for Level 2, I decided to skip his lectures for ethics. I decided to give him another go for the quality of financial reports section which he covers. I thought to myself, surely this guy couldn’t be that bad?
Well, I was wrong! Couldn’t really follow where he was going in his lecture despite not being on overly technical topic and he was more or less skimming the material.
Anyway just a bit of a rant, I’ll be skipping his lectures from now on. Fingers crossed I’ll be able to pick up the fixed income material well enough from the study guide
That hasn’t been my experience at all. I know the FRA lectures you’re referring to and I think those dry readings are the issue and not Darren. I was actually going through his Fixed Income lectures today and I thought they were superb!
You make a fair point. I was comparing him with the lecture Peter Olinto did for ethics which I felt was a dry topic made interesting to watch, but that would probably be an unfair comparison.
It gives me a glimmer of hope that you found his fixed income lectures superb as it was an area that challenged me in L1. Did you read the study guide before watching Darren’s fixed income lecture or vice versa?
Yea Peter has his own approach and I would venture to say few lecturers can rival his work.
You know I have rarely read Wiley’s study guide. I first watch the videos, do the lesson assessments, and jump to skimming the CFAI reading, doing the BBPs, and then wrap up with the EOCs. That’s what works for me at least!
He has the ability to keep you interested in the lecture is impressive. I do really like Basit as well since he does a great job of explaining the more technical subjects, but he can get a bit boring which I negate by taking a short break during a long-ish lecture e.g. the 2 hour lecture for multi national operations.
I quite like the Study guide. Felt that I haven’t missed any of the CFAI material when I’ve been doing the EOC questions.
Darren Degraff is one of the best instructor in WILEY. Watch his videos assuming you know he is the best and you will be fine. Infact, Most of the instructors at WILEY are unbelievably awesome. Some videos could be quite long though, but there is no shortcut.
But if you are unable to understand the concepts in Prof. Darren Degraaf’s Videos for CFA Level 2 Exam, then you might have to look out for other options for your study.
