Thanks for the encouragement. It sucks to have to make mistakes like I did and learn the hard way. I’m definitely going to study more in the manner you and Nana suggest.
Even if you didn’t use CFAI stuff–You did 1800 Schweser problems and 6 mocks and studied over 300 hours and STILL got only a Band 5.
One of three things is going on here:
- You’re lying about the 300 hours/1800 questions/six mocks
- You’re not getting “quality” study time (away from kids, work, AF, and internet gambling)
- You just don’t have the brainpower to pass Level 2.
I couldn’t disagree more and believe you’re detrimental to this forum. It’s likely that it will take time (years) to reap the benefits from the CFA.
I put in ~260 hours. My advice…read schweser in its entirety doing concept checkers at the end of the reading, finish with 1.5-2 months of time. Take a schweser mock as a diagnostic, you now know what areas stuck from reading and what areas you should focus on first. Do the CFAI EOC’s for these areas (on a separate sheet of paper), go over what you got wrong…now do EOC’s for other areas (again on a separate sheet of paper). You dont have to do ALL of the EOC’s for each sub-section, just do as many as you can. Take another schweser mock after 1.5-2 weeks of this review and go over your mock in full. Now start crushing Qbank, repetition of concepts is key…also try to fit in more EOC’s. After another 1.5-2 weeks take another schweser mock and go over it in detail. Now do more Qbank and more EOC’s…take the BSAS Live Exam and Schweser Live Exam if you can…now go back and redo EOC’s from right after your diagnostic (this is why answers were on a separate sheet of paper)…you should see that you do much better on them, even though youve seen the questions already, after a month you likely dont remember the correct answer, you are actually doing it right because you know the concept. In the final week to week and half start crushing mocks. They can either be full 6 hour long mocks…or do half a mock one day and half a mock the next (i did this for about 3 of the 8 mocks that I took). I think I did 4 mocks in my last week…did CFAI full mock with one week left, 2 mocks during the week, then half mock thurs, half mock friday…going over the answers in detail as always (even the ones I got right).
I did a similiar effort for CFA level 1 and for CAIA L1 and L2 (altho my biggest effort was def CFA L2 with 8 mocks, 6 schweser + BSAS + CFAI)…it’s all about practice and repetition…qbank is good for drilling concepts, EOC’s are good for the question type, mocks are good for testing and review. I only read through schweser notes once and used CFAI text as reference when something didnt make sense…mostly in derivs and FRA.
Good luck next year fellas.
Awesome dude!! Never give up on your dreams. I´m pretty upset with my result bur I won´t fail again.
Greenman:
I spent way too much time on Qbank. The 300 hours is real, but like I said it was the wrong 300 hours. Qbank was too easy. Imagine being a baseball player that practices hitting by hitting a beach ball. On gameday that little baseball is going to be awfully hard to hit. I simply did not practice the more difficult problems. The mocks provided difficult problems, but I didnt start those until April, way too late.
I did start a new job in march, so I wasn’t able to focus as I did in L1, but I try not to use that as an excuse. I spent way too much time memorizing instead of drilling. I also was distracted by Downton Abbey, I started watching the show in February. Anyway, the band 5 effort was a bucket of cold water on my face.
As for the brainpower part, I have above average intelligence, but am by no means a genius. Lack of brainpower is no excuse for not studying the right way. I’m taking a better approach next time. I’m a realist, I know it will take more effort on my part than most to pass this thing. I know I can do it.
Kids? Internet gambling? A jedi craves not these things.
If you find a reason to keep going, i wish you the best of luck! since you are working in the industry and it’s probably required or recommended that you have it, then continue to work towards it!
BEST OF LUCK!!!
Next time try to complete the larger sections with bulk marks first
I am sorry you feel this way but everyone is entitled to their opinions, that’s what forums are for, 
People’s careers and passions change over a course of few years, it’s not uncommon to start a program and realize later that they don’t actually “need” or “want” to puruse the path they originally started.
Like in many other posts and threads, YES EDUCATION IS ALWAYS IMPORTANT, and i would argue ANYTHING you study will be somewhat benefitial in the LOOOONG RUN.
But, people also have priorities and limited resources, as you should know as a CFA candidate, if people have better options for spending their time, i’d say go for it, and not keep dwelling on this exam!
NANA
I went from band 9 in 2012 (with only alts >70%) to all >70% in 2013 bar Ethics. Below is what worked for me but please do take all the posts in this thread with a pinch of salt as preparing for this exam is different for everyone.
I started in September and took my time reading through FRA using Schweser but with CFAI text open at the same page. This was extremely valuable for FRA because I read Schweser once in 2012 and I just didn’t get a lot of it, in my opinion the focus of FRA in Schweser is all wrong, the CFAI won’t test you on the bare facts, they will test you on how changes and adjustments to multiple accounts will affect ratios. You really really need to be prepared to make adjustments on the exam. In 2012 I focussed mainly on the 2nd study session and wasn’t as up to speed with the others. The 3rd FRA study session is critical to understanding the topic and scoring well on FRA come exam day. I did all the BBs, EOCs and I supplemented/rewrote my 2012 flash cards. All this took a long time, time I just didn’t have for 2012.
Then I started at the beginning and worked my way through the syllabus end to end using a similar approach, making sure to set aside time along the way to revise using flash cards and questions.
I did the schweser mocks early and split into parts so I could do them as part of my standard prep after work and didn’t need to put aside at least 3 hours. Do not use these as a gauge of performance on the exam, use them to revise what you’ve learned and tweak what you didn’t quite get.
Final 4 weeks I focussed revision and CFAI mocks, Samples and EOCs.
Main tips:
- Know Equity and FRA as deeply as humanly possible. Passing L2 without really nailing these 2 is not easy. The knowledge is transferable too.
- Don’t ignore any sections. Whilst inevitably you will have to favour some over others, you are throwing away easy marks by skipping sections. It’s really tempting to skip economics, quants etc but you run the risk of a 1/6 or a 0/6 item set which could really throw you off course on exam day.
- Spend some time on derivatives so you really get the mechanics. You get to a certain break point with them where you know and understand the calculations and you can walk into the exam confident of nailing the item sets barring any crazy left field questions. These marks are also marks that not everyone will get.
- Don’t get hung up on the wordings of the LOS. ‘explain’ LOS end up with ‘calculate’ questions. The institute aren’t scared to throw curveballs or bend the rules.
- The EOCs vary from the exam/mock questions as the EOCs generally aren’t trying to trick you. The EOCs are for learning so they design them so that if you make an obvious mistake, you can tell from the answers and recalculate. The EOCs are essential for prep but use them to learn, not as a gauge of exam preparedness.
- Don’t let yourself be led by the answers. When doing questions/mocks/the actual exam, I didn’t even look at the answers to calculation questions until I’d calculated the answer myself. In 2012 I’m quite sure I fell into a lot of traps.
- Do ALL the BBs and EOCs, particularly for the heavyweight topics or areas you’re struggling with. This will take a LONG time and when you’re on question 10 of 30 in the open ended FI EOCs it’s really tempting to skip to the exam format Qs. Don’t. It’s worth doing even the ridiculously obtuse questions once.
- Mocks exams - It is important to spend more time marking than taking the exam. On Level 1 you can pass the exam by reading the syllabus and then just doing as many exams as you can find in the last few weeks. For Level 2 you really need to review and do deep revision on weak areas to get the most out of the mocks.
- And lastly but definitely the best piece of advice I can give. DO THE SAMPLE EXAMS! Twice! This alone picked me up 4-5 marks last year that very few people will have got. All of April and May next year this forum will be buzzing with people comparing schweser exams vs finquiz vs qbank vs elan etc.etc. Do the mock twice, do the samples twice, do any mocks you’ve saved from previous years.
The 1 thing I will say is that no matter what, you’ll never get to a point where you’re walking into the exam and feeling totally confident. I thought I’d failed again this year.
Apologies for the war and peace but I’m at work hung over as hell.
I don’t understand how I got Band 8 you got Band 10.
>70: Alt, Corp Fin, FRA, Equity
50 – 70: Derivativs, Ethics, PM
<50: Econ, FI, Quant
I used CFAI books. Started studying mid Feb. Didn’t thoroughly study Quant and Economics. Scores reflet exactly how I felt after writing the exam. Going to start studying in September.
Elan 11th hour n videos r good, i passed relied on CFAI books n Elan videos n 11th hours. I did not used videos as much but focussed more on CFAI boooks EOCs n BB
I’m new to the forums and got my Level 2 fail yesterday. Band 9. I passed L1 in December, and started studying for L2 at the beginning of February. I used Schweser Notes, did the Schweser mocks, and the CFA mock. I’ve just re-registered for 2014. I’m trying to come up with a reasonable study plan this time around, and give myself plenty of time.
So, two questions:
-
In the forums, lots of people seem to swear by the official CFA books, and I’ve noticed mixed reviews of Schweser. If folks could chime in with their thoughts on other prep. providers and their materials for Level 2 vs. Schweser (Elan, Analyst Notes, FinQuiz, Boston Society Mock, etc.) - I’d appreciate that.
-
I know there’s tons of time to go before it’s mock time again, but is it worthwhile to re-do practice exams I’ve already done? I don’t know if this is accurate, but I’ve heard from people that Schweser doesn’t change their mock exams much from year to year.
Thanks.
-
It’s completely up to you. I am not saying one or the other will guarentee a pass but you need to at least do the EOC questions from CFAI texts only to know for sure what they are looking for and what kind of “twisted” questions are they gonna ask. But if you just use Schweser books and you understand everything from cover to cover, i don’t see why wouldn’t you be able to pass.
-
YES, a million times YES! Start doing mock exams early and re-do them! You will be surprised how easy is it to forget why you got them wrong or you may look at the questions with new set of eyes. Re-do the practice questions at least once if not twice for certain high difficulty questions. Spend more time looking over the answer key and DO NOT glance it over and think “oh this is way too tricky they’re not going to ask THAT” - well they always do.
And yes, schweser doesn’t change all their mock exams from year to year, so if you have purchased book 1 and 2 from 2012 i would say probably the same as 2013? My advice is to skip a year.
This is amazing… don’t know why I didn’t think of this… I was definitely not beasting it.
Could not tell if this was sarcasm or not…
Another question. CFAI now includes the ebook curriculum with registration. For me, reading the ebook is awkward, since I’m used to printed books. CFAI offers an option whereby you can purchase the 2014 printed CFAI curriculum for $150. I have the printed CFAI curriculum from 2013, and just flipping through the ebook, I noticed that (at least for Econ and Quant), those readings seem to be the same.
Is it worthwhile to shell out the $150 on the printed 2014 CFAI curriculum? In other words, is it possible that certain changes were “snuck in” to readings that otherwise appear the same (something that wouldn’t appear in an obvious LOS change)?
My failure is my preparation.
Passed Level I in 2007 with about 20 Hrs total prep time. Took Level II in 2008 with maybe 40 Hrs total study, fail Band 9.
This one felt like starting from scratch. Waaaay too little preparation time. Registered on the deadline date. I didn’t really pick up the books until May and I spent 80 Hours tops, most of that in the last 2-3 Weeks before the test. Study was mainly reading the chapter summaries and going through the EOC questions.
Failed Band 6. 51-70% on everything but Portfolio Management <=50% and Ethics >70%
There are no medals for study time efficiency. I’m pissed, mostly at myself and I won’t be looking for excuses next late July 2014. I’m starting now with daily 30-60 minute study with the expectation to get >70% on everything, taking no chances.
Going to use ANKI extensively. Sticking with the curriculum and lots of practice questions. I’ll take all of the mock exams available with test-like conditions to fine tune the last month.
============================
Using the data in a separate thread, I analyzed passers vs Band 6-10 fails. The areas with the highest ratio between those who passed and scored >70% compared to those in Bands 6-10, scoring >70% are:
Portfolio Management 4.9 (46% vs 9%)
Quantitative Methods 4.1 (39% vs 9%)
Alternative Investments 2.9 (54% vs 19%)
Economics 2.75 (43% vs 17%)
These are the areas where those who pass distinguish themselves from those who fail.
=============================
Another takeaway: Of those that reported study time, only 6% of those that passed studied less than 150 hours and only 15% studied 150-225
You have to put in the hours. An hour a day from here out…
I used CFAI only and passed L1 in 2012. This year I followed the same and failed badly. In fact I knew that I would fail after walking out of the exam room. I did 1 mock exam, did not learn answers of blue boxes and EOCs thoroughly. I will pay more attention to them this year.
Going to register for the exam soon and start studying.
I took his class. He clarifies concepts, but looking back, I rather spent those 3 hours every week studying/reviewing than listening to class. His strategy (which btw he talks about with such conviction you end up believing it) is not good at all. His class helps as qbank questions would help, it’s good, but not great and by no means will help you pass.