The purpose of this post is to share my 6 weeks/150 hours study strategy to pass the CFA Level II Exams while working full time and having (somewhat) a social life.
_ 1. My Background: _
I’m working full time as an actuary so taking exams is in my job description :).
I passed the CFA Level iI in Jun’15, and the level I in Dec’13, both times having less than 1.5 months to study.
_ 2. Materials _
Schweser guides + Practice Exams
Throw away all books from CFA’s Institutes
_ 3. Strategy and Schedules _
a. General strategy
Equity Valuation and Financial Reporting/Corporate Finance account for half the score so make sure you nail those parts. Don’t spend too much time on topics that accout for only a few points
Do and understand all practice questions at the end of each Study Session
My schedule is only suggested. You can come up with your own. But whatever you decide, stick with it.
b. Weekly Schedule
Week 0- 1: Book 1: Ethics + Quantitative + Economics
Week 3.5 - 4.5: Book 4: Alternative Investment + Fixed Income
Week 4.5 - 5: Derivatives and Portfolio Management
Week 5 - 6: Practice Exams
c. Study time
One book per week seems a lot. But consider this, each book is about 300-400 pages. You can do:
30 pages in 2 hours * 5 weekdays = 150 pages in 10 hours
+100 pages in 7.5 hours * 2 weekends = 200 pages in 15 hours
= 350 pages in 25 hours every week.
Adding that to your 50 hour work week, you still have sometime left for social life. You can do it with discipline!
_ 4. Some small tactics _
a. Studying
Flashcards are extremely helpful. Try organizing them by colors ( yellow for Ethics, red for equity investment, etc) so that you can focus on your weak parts if wanted.
b. Practice exams
Do some statistical analysis after each practice exams: how many wrong answers in what topics. This will help you find out your weak topics and whether you’re improving those topics after each exams.
Would be very interesting if the CFAI only provided the materials 1.5 months before. Although everyone would just start earlier and use the previous years.
It has lot to do with the background, conceptual clarity and grasping power. My friend cleared L2 in 15 days wherein I could not clear(Band 9) even after putting in 50 days effort.
its good that you managed to pull it off with 6 weeks however i hope people understand that this is an illustration of the possibility that someone who for reasons beyond their control only had 6 weeks to study and managed to be successful and not a wiseguy approach to pass with minimal effort. Also for level three there is no way the mastery of the concepts can be attained in 6 weeks for the majority of people so dont let the L1&2 scenario fool you into over confidence that even 3 months is sufficient for level three, so point is you should study for 6 months if you can
I don’t know if Rahul Roy is for real, but yes I have seen many of my friends been there and done that. But unfortunately, I was not able to replicate the same.
=> I am not Rahul Roy type.
=> LOD of CFA is much hyped than it is (refer the actuarial syllebus and you will understand why am I saying this)
the time interval seems a bit optimistic but regarding the CFAI curriculum i must agree that is not that important. Except for the readings about pension benefits, i used only Schweser.
I did, however, do all the question in the CFAI books and all the test CFAI published on their website.
