I failed level II last year after scoring >70% in four sections of the exam including equities and FSA but did badly in other parts so y’all might wanna listen to my advice. The CFA exam is pretty straight forward and passing is really up to how much you understand the concepts,having said that you need to be very carefull not to rush through loads of practice exams without grasping fundamental concepts.In my personal opinion if you find that Book 7 questions do not help you understand the underlying principles you are better off with CFA end of chapter questions.In the exam, time is not an issue at all at least for me, I had 45 mins to spare after both sessions. FSA and Equites are the easiest of them all and if anyone need any advice I am more than willing to put my 2 cents.
Hey scott, thanks for the heads up mate. I was really concerned about the timing aspect of the exam since I start feeling all dizzy and nauseating after looking at a 3 page long vignette.
pleaseguide me as well
I have spoken to a couple of poeple that scored more than 70 in FSA, Equity etc but scored <40 in topics like Ethics … I assumed that Ethics is easy marks and therefore was not planning to spend much time on it … After the advise of my friends that failed last yr and this posting i’m far more inclined to cut my number of practice papers down, really review some key concepts and spend some time of the topics that i concidered easy marks
Do NOT underestimate Ethics…it is not the easy points that it is on LI! I’m one of those ones who scored >70 in FSA & Equity and still did not pass.
I recall a few guys last yr who scored > 70% in the golden trifecta (Ethics/FSA/Equities) and still failed. Now that scares the shite out of me. Mindblowing.
thank you for your posts I know I have been dreading FSA and Equity valuation. I thought L1 ethics would be similar to LII but from what I am reading I have to assume level 2 ethics is significantly harder. Last year I found Schweser’s level 1 ethics questions more difficult than the CFA exam. Did you find that to be the case for level 2?
Thanks for the advice Scott. Level I was pretty straight forward, so I assume Level II will be the same, but it’s nice to hear from someone who has taken the exam. I found Ethics for the Level I exam to be straight forward also, but by no means “easy”. I remember having to think about the situation because most of the questions were not just recalling. The Schweser questions were tricky in that they focused on a lot of detail and were sometimes confusing. However, I think seeing the harder Schweser questions helped for the exam.