I passed level II this year and this is my 2 cents.I have noticed that a majority of the candidates want to concentrate on the big sections like FSA and Equities, this is a big mistake since all the questions are equally weighted. I have traditionally been good in FSA and Equities because I have a strong accounting background but this time around these two sections were a little bit harder and I cld not score >70 in either of them, <50 actually on FSA which was a big shock for me. What saved me me then was the fact that I totally destroyed the smaller sections like Ecos, Quant. Derivatives etc, so my advice is dont put all your eggs in one basket (Lehman) just in case that year they decide to test it thoroughly (Credit Crunch).One other thing, Derivatives might be a bit of pain to study but they are the easiest points on the exam, last year they had a lot of Swaptions stuff and if you had gone through the text book questions you were having a field day.I think by now y’all know that you can never overlook nothing, any sentence is a potential exam question, for those who sat the exam this year will tell you about BOP in Ecos or Tynor Black the year before that or even worse the fact that the bulk part on Quants is some crazy ass complicated Time Series Modelling only to be questioned this year on the most basic stuff that most candidates had overlooked (not me fortunately).Ethics is also easy marks on the exam. If any of you guys would need my advice on how psychologically handle your business during the examination day drop an email on edson@graduate.org because your success has a lot to do with how psychologically resilient you are on examination day.
hey, one question since you passed. In real exam, do they mix all the subjects together or seperately? I am sure Ethics is independent set, what about equity, financial accounting and others?
i’d concur especially on one thing OP said… the hard analytic sections have really easy questions on the exam. so don’t give up on any section. or if a few sections are too much (deep pension and compensation was ridculous), at least learn the core from that section. (basically, don’t give up on any chapters. just learn the real core of that chapter)… on the exam, i was SO HAPPY to see the straight-forward analytical questions. and yeah, derivatives definitely qualify … no real opinion on some of OP’s other points. let me think about them… i would definitely grab the schweser derivatives section from somewhere. can you borrow last years or year before’s schweser book?