How Difficult is Level III Compared to Level II

No jokes please, only serious comparisons. :L) - no this time, I am not confident I will pass LII. All your predictions of LII were correct. The whole year was liking living in a prison built in hell where you are tortured every day at a random time for anywhere from zero to two hours. And on days when you are tortunred for < 15 mins (Backwardation) - no lunch Tortured for > 90 mins (normal contago) - you get a full chinese buffett with fish

I didnt think LII was that bad at the time so of course I thought LIII was much harder…

LIII is easier than LII, especially if you are a native English speaker. There are fewer topics and less reading. There are no overly complicated topics (GARCH anyone?) and three years of previous AM exams are provided by CFAI. That being said, it’s probably harder than LI and you’ll need to make a serious effort to pass on the first try.

Depends on what your strengths are. If you can grasp the bigger picture and roll all the different concepts you’ve learned and apply them in a conceptual manner to portfolio management, L3 isn’t that bad. If you are great at memorizing formulas and are more quantitative in nature (not as it applies to the Quant study sessions), then L3 might pose more of a challenge for you. Then again, ask me in August and I may have a different opinion.

LIII is 2x as hard as LII. LII was 2x as hard as LI.

why not wait till results are out I thought L3 was hardest, I feel least confident about it. But my main problem is that I didn’t do as much practice as for other levels. I just read over material and did end of the chapter problems. In terms of material comprehension, L3 is much easier, but exam itself was pretty tough.

You feel better taking L3 as even if you fail L3, you will done with 1 exam left. If u fail L2, you have two miserable years to go. I would say the pressure associated is totally different.

You need much more “exam skills” in L3 as your performance in essay session will be greatly affected by many other factors in addition to your familiarity with the materials.

Level 3 much harder than level 2 I think. Less quantitative, but more things to know. The individual / institutional portfolio mgt topics were more painful than any other level 2 topic. I work as an equity analyst so maybe the FSA/ equity invt topics, which have big weights in level 2, were easier for me.

I found level III the most difficult. After level II, I believed the worst was behind me, but the unpredictability of the morning exam in level III is what makes it most difficult. Also, Level II is really an extension of the topics covered in Level II. Level III is mostly new material with the information covered in Level I & II as assumed knowledge.

2x LII difficulty sounds right. Lots of reading, but fewer topics to be examined on. From an examination perspective it’s hard core. You have one paper with 60 multiple choice and one essay paper. So you can’t afford any mistakes. FoF is right when he mentions assumed knowledge. I was cross checking my LII and LI text books whilst studying for LIII this year. Not that much, but I still did it (CML, SML…)

The biggest shock to me on L3 was the time crunch in the AM. I was literally stunned when I heard a proctor say 15 minutes left. I really thought I had close to an hour remaining. I never really practiced time management on 1 or 2 since I always finished with plenty of time to check my work. I thought 2 was worse, but I’m weak at straight memorization and strong with putting together big picture. But the time… man.

overall i’d say 2 is harder than 3. but 3 is just a completely different animal. you read the stuff on your first read and say wow, this stuff is so easy and intuitive. then you start hammering problems and reviewing and you say holy sh&t, i only have a month or 2 left and there’s really a LOT here. and then it all comes together somewhat, but the test itself is a time jam in the AM. the PM side on this one to me seemed pretty fair, comparable to the easier half of the L2 test, and far less tricky in terms of catching you in little gotcha traps. overall for both 2 and 3, you need to know both the big and small topics pretty intimately, anything goes, and 3 is no coast out by any means. i feel terribly for any non-native english speakers or total math nerds. 3 would be very hard for either of those. i also found 3 to overall be more enjoyable to study than 2 or 1. i’m sure when i repeat next year, it’ll feel less enjoyable? :slight_smile:

depends on your strengths I would say. If you are more numerical and quant driven then you will find it much harder.

Level I - a mile wide and a foot deep Level II - a mile wide and 100 feet deep Level III - a mile wide and a mile deep

LIII by far is the hardest. dont listen to anyone that tells you otherwise. the most difficult part of it is remembering all the crap they throw at you, even after you just read it. 80% qualitative! it is a nightmare that i am certain to go through again next year.

chedges Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > depends on your strengths I would say. If you are > more numerical and quant driven then you will find > it much harder. Ako Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > LIII by far is the hardest. dont listen to anyone > that tells you otherwise. the most difficult part > of it is remembering all the crap they throw at > you, even after you just read it. 80% qualitative! > it is a nightmare that i am certain to go through > again next year. Sounds like it totally depends on individual aptitude then. While there is only 50% chance that I will pass L2, my conclusion is, for my personal aptitude (I like formulas, but hate memorizing stuff), I will find L3 more challenging. I thought L2 had lots of formulas, but you could put your head around it as you had to really understand the core behind the formulas as opposed to memorizing them. FCFE anyone? It sounds like L3 is pure memorization of concepts. Kind of like Corporate Governance topic on L2? Corporate Governance was intuitive but the fact remains when you have 18 study sessions all conceptual and intuitive, your mind cannot cope up unless you can memorize things well. Would that be a fair conclusion?

I thought the essay/short answer portion of Level III was more difficult than L II, but the PM multiple choice section of LIII was easier than L II. If that makes sense. Think of it this way, in the essay section, they basically ask you the same type of questions that they would ask in the multiple choice sections…the only difference is you don’t have a menu of three items to pick from. You can’t use the process of elimination, you can’t reverse engineer the answers by trying each option…it adds a new wrinkle to the whole thing. I wasn’t really prepared for this format, and as a result, I’ll likely be in here again next year.

For me, level 2 was the hardest material, but level 3 was the hardest test. The essays are extremely difficult because you have to learn the material AND learn how CFAI wants you to frame your answer in order to recieve the most points. Of all 3 levels, I felt the least confident about level 3 walking out of the room. ITs a mindf**k because you feel like you did “ok”, but know that the pass rate will be around 50% and you dont know if “ok” is enough to get you in the top half of candidates.

I thought L3 was more difficult, because to do well on the written section, you really have to know your stuff. Picking the best answer out of 3 is completely different than having to recall advantages/disadvantages of a certain strategy. The afternoon session is comparable to L2, though.