I hear people say level II is too hard for you just to read the SchweserNotes…
I mean its not possible (not for me atleast) to read the matirial multiple times! I think people were saying, work out the EOCS and Blue boxes multiple times 
But for your weak areas (for me Derivatives), I read the chapters couple of times!
I only had 3.5 months after L1 to prepare for L2. So I just sticked to the Schweser notes, read it like 5 times…did not even get time to practice the schweser mocks.
The only practice paper I worked on was the CFAI mock…that too on the last day as I was revising the material for the 5 time till the day before.
I passed the exam!
50-70% in EQUITY
<50% IN ETHICS
>70% in the REMAINING SECTIONS
So, my advice to you - Don’t fucking follow my footsteps. I was shit scared from the day I registered for the exam till the minute I recieved the pass email. Cover everything others have suggested in this forum. Afterall there is no harm in being over-prepared if you have time.
Afterall there is no harm in being over-prepared if you have time.
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I don’t want to overprepare even if I have enough time cos I believe overdoing something is doing it inefficiently. Guess I’ll just do as Sooraj said that refering to the curriculums only for some weak points…
The exam questions are going to come straight out of the curriculum. So, you don’t need to “reread it several times” but you do need to understand it to do well on the exam, in my opinion. Schweser notes alone are not enough though they can help. I would spend the bulk of my time reading the curriculum. Maybe you’d get lucky just using the notes but you have 10 months to prepare. Why chance it?
Thanks for the advice. Guess the basic problem is my laziness… never too early to start.
I did start with CFAI material but got so bored reading them for 5 days. I never touched them again. I read only Schweser notes and did EOC questions of CFAI material. That was good enought for me. It saves time and keeps you motivated.
I scored greater than 70% in all the sections. Instead of wasting time reading the CFAI material multiple time, I suggest taking mock exams. That would be a better preparation for exam.
Read it because I listened to lectures and read review guides & failed the first time, though i sat for the exam after Dec L 1, the next time i made sure i read CFAI texts multiple times so much so that i never bothered to take a single mock test and solved question bank of a prep provider and passed still not to my expectation.
Now its a different thing if some material that was tested in the actual paper could nowhere be found in the curriculum but you would be better off knee deep in the water than being drowned till the neck, which is the feeling you get after studying a prep book.
Prep book can be very confusing and you are lucky the Emerging markets section is dropped positively the worst section in the entire CFAI curriculum and the most obscurely written thing you would not get to know about. I destroyed so many brazillion hours on that section that still it didnt make any sense. So you dont have to fall in that trap hopefully. Thousand of knots of “Equity Debris” has been cut short because of dropping that section. After passing still I have deadly fixation abt. this section and forecasting the working capital scaled down for inflation. That section made me ungodly sick. Treynor Black, Black scholes, BSM , swaps is nothing in frnt of that thing.
Now I think Interecorp. inv is little dicey and not the whole matter has been tested, but you never know.
I think you’re better do your first read (either from CFAI or a provider) as fast as you can, because that will probably be the least useful part of your preparation.
Then go crazy on EOCs and blueboxes. If you really know them all, I think you’ll probably have a sure pass. Try to solve every EOC/Blue Box, and review the text (even Schweser) for what you don’t understand. Later on, do the same for practice exams. That’s probably the quickest way to have anything closer to a reasonable assurance of passing.
About the overdoing comment, be careful because once you reach a 51% probability of passing, you still may fail. Every extra hour will probably increase that probability a little bit, even though you’ll face diminishing returns. If you go light to avoid overdoing it, you might have to study an extra year, and that will be less efficient. Try to find some balance.
Since this is hard to quantify, it’s probably better to study too much than too little. Also, the extra knowledge means extra skills - for most of the curriculum you won’t be wasting time by learning it a little better - you’ll be getting more financial knowledge. Even though that’s the main motivation for most, the process is not just about getting a piece of paper.
Thanks… Now I believe I have totally underestimated level 2…Have browsed so many posts and found out there are quite a few people having been fighting for the nth time to get passed, let alone those ain’t on the website. Got no reason to procrastinate anymore. 
You’re right it’s not just about passing each level and finally earning that paper(although I feel it is a bit too bold and of course too early for a lever Ier to talk like that). The process of learning and practicing counts more… Well, after all, six-months study is more memorable that the waiting for the result day
From my experience, it is a muth that you necessarily read CFAI materials… I am yet to read… But I plan to do so for level 3… Mainly because level 3 is subjective…
For level 1 i used schweser notes and mock exams…
For level 2 i mainly used schweser videos and schweser eoc and mock and practice exams… I used very little notes… Used the videos and must have seen everything except ethics twice and some topics thrice or more, mainly equity and fra… And solved as many problems i could get hold of… And cleared
“Is reading the CFA II curriculums for several times a must?”
No.
Who has time to read the material several times? I guess even I hadn’t been working full time during the whole program I wouldn’t be able to read it more than once.
I did review certain readings up to 2 times, but probably no more than 5 readings.
My advise…read it once…go to the practice problems. Only if you feel your too weak in certain topics you go back to them…