Ethics 5% QM 5% ECON 5% FRA 15% CF 5% EQ 20% AI 10% FI 20% DI 10% PM 5% My pick is that FI gets the full weight as the material is new and QM/PM getting the min weights as QM is not that important and PM gets tested heavily in level 3. AI has a lot of testable material including real estate valuation so I think it will get 2 item sets. I’d be VERY surprised if Ethics ends up at 15%… OR the following topics get the min treatment (EQ/FI/DI)
I can’t see them weighting Ethics as heavily as Econ, Corp Finance, and Alternative honestly.
I can see CF I guess, but not the other two. I’ve also basically skipped over any in-depth Econ review, so I hoping for one item set. I know they added new material, so I’m just crossing my fingers I can get by with what I know
20% FI seems high… I’d rather bet 15% FI and 20% FRA. Otherwise I pretty much agree with you, apart from PM maybe which I think should get two sets.
Ethics 10
QM 5
Econ 5
FRA 20
CF 10
Equity 20
AI 5
FI 10
Der 10
PM 5
should add that I’m a retaker 
The changes this year to FI made the topic more quantitative… And in all honesty FI is much more important to investment management that FRA…So it deserves a higher weight IMO.
^Funny. For me, I find the quantitative part of FI easier than the qualitative. I have no problem pricing the value of a bond with a call option using the binomial tree but ask me what happens to the price of a bond when the yield changes from flat to upward sloping or increase curvature or whatever and I have trouble with that.
I love FRA so I hope you are not right :). Was the previous year weights same as these in your post or you are judging according to new topics?
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but won’t we be technically in violation of Standard(VII) if we come on here to confirm our guesses after the exam?
I find that funny.
Also, I’m hoping for max on Equity, Ethics, Quant, and PM. It’s an odd combo but I score best on those topics for some reason.
My Guess:
EQ, FRA: 20% each
Ethics, CF, DER, FI: 10% each
AI, PM, ECO, QM: 5% each
Yes, it amazing how they can take a half sentence in the curriculum and turn it into an impossible qualitative Q…
I’ve heard that last year the CFAI fixed the weight for Ethics at 10% (equivalent to 2 sets) but this year the weight goes up to 15%. So we don’t know whether they will give us 2 or 3 sets of Ethics. Personally 3 sets for Ethics are too much for me.
Does anyone think the topic weight in 2015 mocks gives us some hint ?
I think no as long as we don’t discuss specific questions. Every year L2 candidates post their results on AF, you can see what were the topic weights.
CFAI changed the weight ranges this year
Fixed income is a tough one. I agree with Gebura’s weights. Corp fi and derivatives have been 10% for the last 7 years or something like that so you’d think that holds. Alt inv, PM, quant and econ 5% each. Ethics 10%. Does FRA dip down to 15% so fixed income can be 15%? Maybe. Past people have said that new readings get asked quite frequently so maybe fixed does get 15%.
My thoughts on the topic…
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For some reason I thought the weights shown on exam results were “fixed” and that CFAI adjusts weights afterwards (so that no one really knows the actual weights). I thought this was the case because the weights, or the max points, have been the same for the past couple of years. I guess not based on what everyone’s saying.
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I don’t think Ethics can go to 5% because on CFAI, it shows minimum is 10% (http://www.cfainstitute.org/programs/cfaprogram/exams/Pages/level_II_exam_prep.aspx)
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How do you know which areas are new this year in fixed income? Maybe I shoud pay more attentin to those areas since fixed income might have more than 10%.
Here is a differnent way of looking at it.
So the minimum percentages of each topic summed together equal 80%. Therefore, there are only 4 “surprise” vignettes.
You know going into the exam that there are definitely the following number of vignettes:
2 Ethics
1 Quant
1 ECON
3 FRA
1 Corp. Fin.
3 Equity
1 Alt
2 FI
1 Derivative
1 PM
In addition to those certain vignettes, your 4 surprise vignettes can’t contain more than 1 of any topic except Corp. Finance, Equity, and F.I., those have a max of 2.
I know it doesn’t mean much to look at it any differently but it was a fun way to take a 5 minute break from studying 
To add to the above post, of course nothing is in stone but Equity at 3-5 is likely to have at least a 4th vignette, so only 3 left to allocate out. Some likely topics to get an extra vignette might be FI, Deriv, CF, FRA. Bit of a wild guess, we’ll find out soon enough.
I don’t think so Danv, historically FRA has had the same number of cases and even tho they’ve upped the weighting on FI, most likely they will go with the same weights on FRA and go easy on the FI since it is new material.
i heard over the past while Quant + Econ has always added up to 15%. Either 1 quant, 2 econs or 2 quants and 1 econ.
People tend to leave them and get burned
OP, your guess isnt even valid. Ethics starts at 10%.
20% - FRA, EQ
10% - Ethics, Corp, FI, Deriv
5% - Quant, Econ, AI, PM
The consensus here has it pretty well locked down imo. If you look at past years’ score breakdowns, the weights dont really shift much over time, and rarely more than 5% at once. FI has to go up to at least 10% and I think that 5% comes from PM. I wouldnt be surprised to see PM material that overlaps with other sections on D-Day tho (particularly quant).