i have couple of friends started preparing for level 2 and when i asked them about curriculum they told me it is far far tougher than level 1. what does it mean?? curriculum is too much and questions are much more advance than level 1?? can anyone explain?. i m level 1 aspirant but i have got scared of all those wording ‘far far tougher’???
“Tougher” is relative word. It may be tough for one, not so tough for the other. But why do you get scared now. Finish level-1, then you will be able to tackle level-2. But, ofcourse, it is tougher as compared to level-1 because of more depth. That’s it. IMO, If your preparation is strong at Level-1, level-2 would be not so tough for you.
My view is this: Level 1, you have to know something about analysis. Level 2, you have to BE an analyst.
It is far tougher, but definitely not something you should be worry about now man, one thing at a time.
For level 1, I read the books and did 1.5 sample exams and after the exam I knew that I passed. But, for level 2, I read all the books, did 5 practice exams, and I can’t be sure whether I passed or not. I would say that I spent 3x the amount of time on level 2…
it really depends. I had to study more for Level I because I knew nothing about FSA and Corporate Finance, and had very basic knowledge of Economics. Level II material might seem more difficult because it builds on Level I material. I like Black Swan’s suggestion, though. It’s not the time to start worrying yet …
I have an MBA. I studied 2-3 weeks and winged Level 1 without even knowing the syllabus. I luckily passed. For Level 2, I put in a solid 3 months. Daily 2-3hrs, a lot more closer to the exam. I put in 250+ hours. Now waiting with crossed fingers for the results. In short…Level 2 is a different beast and needs to be slayed differently. Don’t be scared, there is no rocket science. But a loooooooooot of syllabus for Level 2. It takes a lot more time to cover it and learn it.
Obviously GetSetGo is maybe not the best benchmark to judge the experience by. Dude, if you pass, I may owe you some legitimate props, where’d you go for MBA?
MBA course work kind of covers most of Level I except for Ethics and SPC, derivatives, and alternative investments. But MBA does not help you much with Level II except for a very small part including Porters’ five and business and industry analysis. For me, I went through Schweser notes for Level II and by the end, I had forgotten a lot of it. Second time through, things were a lot clearer and fun. I did take an advanced FSA course, that helped a lot with accounting and analysis of combination, M&A, and foreign subsidiaries. As for Defined benefit plan part of FSA, you need to remember a few things. Because I never took any course related to derivatives, this was the toughest for me to remember all the mechanics of FRA, Swap, etc. As a lot of folks advised, do not worry too much about level II now. Get done with Level 1 and that will instill the discipline to go through level 2. I think Level II is a lot more fun than level I overall in terms of things you learn.
> I think Level II is a lot more fun than level I > overall in terms of things you learn. what is this fun you speak of? I must have missed that section…
I knew this was coming. At least it was fun to know the binomial pricing of options. Also, FCFF, FCFE, other fundamentals used for valuation was fun to learn. I wish I had more time to go and study some more of the continuous model for pricing options. There was a recent thread on level III about pricing a complicated instrument. I would love to be able to solve those. Some taste of hedging like delta hedging was kind of fun. Accounting shenaginans was another section that finally brought home the usefulness of the analysis of financial statements. Just because things are hard does not mean they are not fun. Come on, are you just doing this for passing the levels or learning so that you can be a better analyst? If you are not enjoying some of the material, you may be on the wrong path and wasting your time. It was also in level I, but were you not amazed by the journey from combination of securities to minimum variance frontier to CML to SML to CAPM. I think that was pretty cool. I know this is pretty theoretical, but we do not have any thing better than this to show for in the finance when it comes to finding the returns for various securities. Coming from engineering background, I am amazed at the maturity of the markets to be able to price and sell risk. It is possible this was not a big deal for people already in the industry, but the securitization of mortgage and other assets and then slicing and dicing them to sell various pieces to appropriate investors is pretty amazing stuff. With all the doom and gloom in the financial sector, people may tend to belittle these things, but I am still amazed and thrilled to learn some of the things as part of CFA curriculum.
I love this guy.
This stuff was pretty much all covered in my MBA curriculum, other than the ethics. Still, I had to study. “But MBA does not help you much with Level II except for a very small part including Porters’ five and business and industry analysis.”
JoeyDVivre Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I love this guy. really,the way buddham explained the thing is awesome.
altho i know i passed L2 last month, i gotta say things are much tougher than L1. I remember times before exam my practice exam score was near 70%, but in L2, i put in more time and my scores was in the 55% zone luckily, schweser exam is tougher and not a good reflect of the cfai exam…
monki Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > altho i know i passed L2 last month really? that is impressive. i wish i signed up for the early grading option. i’m kidding. confidence is a good thing and i envy it. i agree with buddham. i’m probably not as enthusiastic as he/she is (especially with the first half of 2008 being what it was), but i do love this stuff. as far as the test being harder: the thing that made it harder for me was just the fact that there were only 1/2 the number of questions as level 1. a lot less room for error.
> > Just because things are hard does not mean they > are not fun. Come on, are you just doing this for > passing the levels or learning so that you can be > a better analyst? If you are not enjoying some of > the material, you may be on the wrong path and > wasting your time. > I was just teasing you buddham…I agree many of the areas you mentioned are interesting to learn about.
Buddam, >>Coming from engineering background, I am amazed at the maturity of the markets to be able to price and sell risk. It is possible this was not a big deal for people already in the industry, but the securitization of mortgage and other assets and then slicing and dicing them to sell various pieces to appropriate investors is pretty amazing stuff. With all the doom and gloom in the financial sector, people may tend to belittle these things, but I am still amazed and thrilled to learn some of the things as part of CFA curriculum. >>> I am from engineering background too…and a disclaimer first I have no experience in finance and I am writing CFA exams to give me a ground when I go to get a formal degree in finance later in my life… The securitization that you mentioned, derivatives thrilled me too. But, with recent subprime mess, do you think financial engineering still isnt that mature enough or lot of scope for improvement ? Not to throw software engineering terms but I feel there is a lot of “coupling”. Especially what I am perplexed at is - the very principle of financial engineering ( here dispersion/transfer of credit Risk ) that is causing unclear effects on financial institutions. As an Engineering background person, a cause should have only expected effects and side effects…
level I is a mile wide and an inch deep level II is a mile wide and a mile deep
sct123 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > level I is a mile wide and an inch deep > > level II is a mile wide and a mile deep well put, will be reusing this