Seems to be a lot of people asking “If I do XYZ or ABC” will I pass level 2, so thought I’d give my thoughts on how to pass without committing a silly amount of hours to study:
Step 1 - Cover the cirriculum in any manner you want, be it CFAI Books, third party books or third party videos. Different people learn in different ways, so do what’s right for you - NOT what’s right for a study partner or Internet forum member.
Step 2 - Cover the CFAI EoC summary and attempt the EOC questions. If you find yourself struggling in certain area then hit more questions from another source if you can, however it’s important at this point to think about exam weighting. FRA and Equity are the biggest topics and nailing them should be a focus. These are followed by Ethics, AltInv, CorpFin and Derivatives. In combination these 6 topics are likely to form ~80% of the marks, so if you can score high on these and hit the low hanging fruit in the other topics you’ll get what you need to pass. (One extra tip I’d give is to ignore any EoC that isn’t a multiple choice Q as the time spent just isn’t efficient - higher marginal returns elsewhere)
Step 3 - Get a Formula sheet from a prep provider if you don’t already have one, personally I used Schweser, and study it before every paper you take. This may seem long to do and you will hate the sight of it within a week, but by exam day you’ll near enough have it memorised and knowing the formulae is vital to passing
Step 4 - Mocks, mocks and more mocks. The level 2 test is very different to level 1 in that anything can come up in detail. At level 1 you can probably guess half the questions you’ll end up with and you’ll see them over and over in mocks. In level 2 they can pick a tiny topic and that’s an entire item set. The more mocks you cover the more chance you have of being sat in the exam, turning the page and realising “sweet, this item set is just like the one I did last week”. Don’t aim for a number and then relax, just do as many as you can. Getting used to focussing for 3hrs straight makes a big difference on exam day.
Most importantly don’t panic. If you keep scoring poorly in a topic close to the test you’ll be tempted to review it in depth but this will be throwing good time after bad - everyone has weaker topics. You’re better off doing a whole test and learning 5 things in 5 topics than killing yourself to get an extra couple of marks in a single topic.
If you do them ‘properly’, then yes, to an extent.
What i mean is, sometimes you remember the answer and do the lazy thing and pick it instantly and move on… I did it I won’t lie but it’s not helpful. If it’s a theory question, think about it, defend why its A B or C in your head, answer it and move on. If it’s a calc, actually do the math and defend your answer - that way the methodology is ingrained… there’s only so many ways they can ask the same question. That being said, there are enough questions be ask on exam day that you might not get anything recycled off the mock except for stereotypical ‘they have to ask this’ type questions.
This was my 3rd attempt. The first 2 atttempts were purely based on shwezer notes and Qbank. The first was overconfidence coming out of L1 and had band 1. The 2nd attempt putting in a good 250+ hours effort got a band 7.
This year I studied out of CFAI curriculum , done all the notes and summaries done by myself. Twice reviewed EOC’s and Solved examples for FRA, EQTY, DERIVATIVES. Went “Back-To-School” , to the extent that studied ‘Socratic Questioning’ to get concepts right in my head. Result band 4!!!
What am I doing wrong? on the 4th should I just solve questions and Mock’s?
CFA is a love affair. Unfortuanetly one, which I cannot let go without and end.
I was a re-taker as well and happened to pass, finally.
The way I took the test this year was completely different, I spent a lot of time researching on why I got the answer wrong as opposed to just smashing out practice problems, quality over quantity is the key to this one, level one is the reverse. When you get something wrong you really have to spend 30 minutes thoroughly understanding why.
Also I think mastering FRA and reading currency is your ticket here, I think FRA and fx is rittled throughout.
The way I was taught to read fx I think changed me. I took this accounting class by John Harris (seriously think he was the reason I passed), anyway everything in your life is going to be a direct quote. I think of when I go buy gas at the gas station, it is $4 / g, so you read it as 4 dollars for a gallon of gas. Now let’s say it moved to $4.50 / g.
You’d never say to yourself, wow the US dollar really got cheap. You would say, wow gas got expensive. Think about that everytime you do a currency. I used to turn the bottom currency in to a “g” sign so I would read it correctly. Making sure you are saying what’s cheap and expensive in terms of the base currency, I think it is a big deal to make sure your thought process is right. Then make sure you are setting up the equation right–making sure the base currency is canceling out the currency you are multipling by (meaning they are the same), then the units you are left with is the currency in the numerator.
I think this got me 10 more problems, because I wasn’t spinning my wheels and had more time. Spending the time to make sure you have back falls and things you can 100% rely on in times of panic really calmes you down helps you out and the buying gas trick always helped me. If it helps, i have heard of people writing their home currency and replace it with the home currency in the vignette so it feels more natural to them.
I didn’t repeat mocks myself, but I made sure I spent time reviewing the answers I got wrong in depth immediately after scoring the test. I also tried to skim through all the questions I’d got wrong in previous mocks every couple of days in the last week - hoping to make sure I knew how to do them if they came up in the exam!
Although it’s hard to get into the mindset, you need to realise there’s nothing wrong with scoring poorly in a mock. The whole point is to get bits wrong and doing badly just represents a bigger opportunity to correct your knowledge on what you don’t know!
I failed band 8, was my first time taking level 2. I agree with the original posters suggestions, I think equity is pretty easy once you learn the concepts and practice but I think the real key is to be an FRA master at this level. I would read the FRA CFAI text multiple times if I were you and I would do all the blue boxes and end of chapter questions at least 3 times. Is this overkill? Might sound like it but getting over 70% in FRA is key. Your goal should be to master FRA, equity and ethics because that is guaranteed going to be at least 50% of the exam.
How many mocks did you do while studying for your 3rd attempt? I failed Band 5 in 2013 while only doing about 5 mocks. This time around, I did 11. Additionally, I took a prep class, completed EOCs, read schweser materials, read CFAI curriculum for Ethics only, made my own notecards, and did Q bank (about 2000 questions). I found the Q bank to be only marginally helpful on the exam. The questions are good for driving in very basic concepts, but they weren’t challenging like the mocks and CFAI text. Yes, 11 mocks is quite a number of mocks, but hey it worked. Hope this was useful, and best of of luck!
People… just read CFAI books, do the BB and EOC questions twice and the 6 exams provided by schweser. Thats all you need . Dont complicate things , know your formulas and you will pass.
dealdone It is painful, take a deep breath and move on. Key to level 2 is studying hard and taking plenty of rest in between. Other than that start early that is now onwards. Write down the formulas or copy and print on a nice sheet (make multiple copies) leave a copy in your bath room to bed room. Leisurly start solving one essay question a day from past exams. By end of the year you pretty much remember every formula in equities and corporate finance. Accounting and derivatives (not very complex in my humbled opinion) you master through practice. Good luck,
I only did 2 mock exams and managed to pass with above 70 on 7 of the 10 topics (85% of the exam) and all the heavyweights were above 70. The way I studied was I read the prep provider notes and after every section went through every gray box example and EOC question immediately afterward for every section. When it was all said and done I completed the EOCs and gray box examples 3 times. I didnt even touch schweser q bank.
There are many different ways to study and pass this exam so do whatever you feel most comfortable with and as long as you stay dedicated and focused you can pass it.
This might be too simplistic but I think what you need are repetition and practice until you’re able to grasp and understand each and every topic. I studied primarly using the CFAI material and did EOC questions thrice. Even though it was my third time to answer the EOC questions, there were still a lot of questions that I can’t answer so I had to study the topics related to the questions over and over again. I took Schweser practice exam books 1 and 2 the last 8 Saturdays and reviewing the answers on Sundays and revising during the 5 days in between. The last three weeks leading to the exam day, I concentrated in FRA and Equity because I knew that that these were the heavyweights. And also make sure that you have to concentrate on all the new readings that were added for the year. Just Practice and Repeat and you’ll be able to pass. You can do it.
Try to memorize the key formulas - especially in Equities. It felt so good during the exam when I saw a problem and remembered the formula. Once you remember the formula, the questions are easy. CFA exam was definitely easier than the Schweser exams in my opinion.
