First of all, congrats! We have a little over four months left and, allegedly, much more material to cover. How are we planning on going about this?
Personally – I didn’t do any studying after the December test. I’m registering for L2 today and ordering Elan, as well. Is it okay to just focus on Elan notes or is CFAI the way to go? What is everyone else doing?
In the same boat as well, I am using Schweser L2 2014 notes and the 2014 Qbank. This time I will make flashcards, take much harder mocks, I hear Elan is the best for that and I asked in NANA’s thread if buying the prep course videos or a 3 day course etc, would help out alot. Dedicating a serious 25 hours a week and using up my weekend time much more productively. My girlfriend will be pissed but shes a law student so she knows the drill. Either way, come June, I will be sitting for CFA level 2 exam
Nice, man! Yeah, I’ll need to adopt a similar work ethic. What made you go with Schweser over Elan or another company? Have you started studying already?
Nothing really, it seemed everyone was using Schweser on this site so I gravitated towards that. I will probably venture into Elan and Stalla this time as well.
And for studying, honestly, very little, I could just not concentrate knowing the results of L1 were still up in the air. Now that it’s certain, I know which areas I need to really hammer down. So flashcards, study prep courses, training videos are all in the game plan right now. How about yourself? And congrats by the way! We are both one step closer as the email stated ; )
I’m going to order the CFAI material and probably just use that unless there’s just too much of it to get through. In which case I might buy Schweser or something for L2. I just used CFAI on L1 though and it worked out. Of course, I know L2 is much harder and less time to prepare so we’ll see…
Thanks! Haha, same here. I didn’t want to go back to L1 material after starting L2 – would feel like a douche. I’m registering for L2 first thing tomorrow morning. Currently trying to figure out the best option among test prep companies, though I hear good things about Elan. For L1 I pretty much just went through Schweser notes and completed 1200 QBank questions, so this time around I’ll probably incorporate the flash cards, videos, and mock exams as well. Might be a smart idea 
Yeah, CFAI is probably the most thorough but knowing myself, I would get impatient if I didn’t jump into practice questions and mocks as soon as possible. I hear we’re already pretty short on time for the June test.
I’ll take level2 by June
*Going to study from the curriculum + Schweser as I did in Level 1.
*Spend 3 months on reading curriculum, making notes, doing practice questions
*Spend last month on doing revision and doing mock exams. I did not do a single mock for L1 and was very fearful. In hindsight, I should have done at least 1 just to get a feel of it but I studied everything in very detail from the curriculum so that was helpful
*Bring a crate of energy drinks. I would need a lot of energy to get through the bad boy that Level 2 is.
Good Luck to all for L2 exam
Finish the curriculum and all EOC questions by May so I have a full month to review and do mocks.
June 2015 for me; will register in July. I barely got by on L1 and don’t want to rush into possible dissapointment. Mind you, I’m a securities ligitation attorney working 60+ hours a week. I studied from 10 PM to 1 AM during the week and 4 to 5 hours on weekends. See you all in the L2 Forum this summer. GOOD LUCK : )
I’ve already been reading Level II Port Mgmt and started Accounting but I’ve been kind of “half-a**ing” it until I knew my results. I know it’s a long shot but I’m going all in and see what happens. I don’t care what sacrificies I need to make I will do so.
June 2015 for me as well. I need to finish my MBA this spring and find a job first. I barely made it as well and I want to enjoy for a little while and see if I really need the CFA. However, I did enjoy the material! Thank you all for the good experience!
guys, how many hours would you throw in a week ?
level 2 should take 4-600 hours depending in where you come from i suppose ?
first of all i would like to congratulate every one who cleared CFAL1 this time around.I know all of us are eagerly waiting to hit the CFAl2 materials as soon as possible(assuming we will take CFAL2 this june).My strategy will be to read Schweser notes+Eocs from CFAI text+Q bank +Schweser Mocks+CFAI mocks.I know many people will advice all of us to read the CFAI text instead of Schweser notes for CFAL2.Surprisingly one of the professors at my college advised me to follow Schweser text instead of CFAI notes as according to him “it is better to read schweser text twice/thrice instead of reading lengthy CFAI notes once in the same time frame.”Thus i have decided to only do EOCs from the CFAI text while schweser will take care of all the reading/understanding the curriculum.
6/7
I will take L2 next year.
I doubt I have enough time for prep this year, since I have new job and it takes huge time to adjust.
Congrats to you all guys!!!
BTW I scored more than 70 in each section exept ethics.
First off, congrats to us all. Let’s all nod our heads and acknowledge the accomplishment.
With that out of the way, for those who say they’ll take level 2 next year because of little prep time this year, there’s a good chance the material will become unfamiliar by this time next year hence making the whole thing extra strenuous. Hence it’s better to feed off the momemntum and the “feel-good” vibe of having crushed level I. I’ll be doing just that and here’s how I’ll go about it;
Read the summary and go through EOC questions of all the readings from the CFAI books. I learned this from taking Level I twice. I didn’t touch the CFA books during my first attempt for Level I and relied solely on Elan. Elan is fantastic and I can’t blame them for me failing on my first attempt (Band 10). For the second attempt, all I did was go through the summary and EOC for each reading and the CFAI mock exams. That was enough to give me a more than comfortable pass. The reason I’ll implore this trick for Level II is to gauge how indepth Level II goes. I think I have a solid grounding on the basic (Level I) and from the summary, I can guage how deep it goes and fill up the gaps by browsing through the curriculum.
Elan’s Eleventh Hour Guide (EHG): I’ll buy that ASAP and go through it right after going through the summary and mock exams, and multiple times over in the course of my prep. EHG is the bomb! It will definitely let me know of areas I need to focus on more and combined with the mock exams and practice questions, will give me a true feel for this bad boy - Level II
Ethics straight out of the CFA books. Same with any other areas I don’t grab.
That’s how I intend to tackle this beast. I will give it the respect and time it deserves but approach it from an inside-out perspective because starting from outside (reading through the CFA books) will not only be challenging from a time perspective, but will also make the final preparation in May even more daunting.
Please let me know your thoughts on this and how you intend to go about this bad boy.
GOOD LUCK TO US ALL.
respekt
Good idea - i am doing the same
I was not working for about 4 months prior to the Level 1 exam which made things easier for me i think.
Now i am back at work - will need much longer for level 2.