L3 vs L2

that’s quite a novel there. But it’s 750 hours a bit excessive there…

hehehe… i’m only gonna do that once!

i meant 750 hours in total across 250 for level 1, 500 for level 2 (assuming you fail and study again).

oh ok, that’s more reasonable

spaiydz - I don’t think we necessarily disagree here. If I understood you correctly, you stated that Level 3 may be a little easier to game. I guess that could give borderline candidates a shot at passing, but it all comes down to L3 volatility again.

I mean, if you’re bordeline(and smart), you may have a better shot at passing by using the techniques you mentioned. However, if you’re well prepared, the ambiguity of the test may prevent you from getting full marks on a lot of stuff you know well. If they test some foonote you don’t know that well, you may not have many extra points to compensate for that.

I do agree that L2 Accounting and Derivatives are challenging but, in my opinion, once you understand them well, you got them. That’s a 6 out of 6 for almost every vignette. Quant, FRA, and most of derivatives can be a walk in the park for the well prepared candidate. In L3 that may happen, but CFAI may take 5 or 10% of your test here and there by overweighting some obscurity or by unclear wording. It’s like CFAI wants to test everything the way they test Ethics.

So the bigger volatility might mean that more underprepared candidates will pass, and more overprepared will fail. For risk averse candidates that may be a tough deal.

I don’t know. I just feel that, for L3, there is no mock score that can make us feel absolutely positive that we passed after the exam. But I also assume they are pretty hard graders for AM, so I may have a bias there.

i agree with you spaiydz, a good analysis.

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What is f’ing brutal is reading your self-promoting sh!t.

As someone who will soon have an elite (whatever the f#ck that means) MBA and doesn’t ‘need’ the CFA designation for his career, my feeling is that all current and future CFA charter holders are the winners while you continue to fail and therefore remain excluded!!!

curriculum level 2: 3500+ pages

curriculum level 3: 998 pages (including ethics that you`ve already seen)

Addendum: 2199 for the print version (including exercises and solutions). Much pleasant read.

This is, at best, a naïve comparison.

So you are writing the same comparison on all the old L2 vs L3 threads? Nice.

he’s just trying to get people to relax and not work as hard, thus reducing his competition, and boosting his own chances as a L3 candidate

negra, you are a L3 candidate, undoubtedly early on in your preparation, so I don’t think you are qualified to compare the difficulty of the exams. On top of that, considering the # of pages of material for each (which I don’t think you even have those #'s correct) a large factor in exam difficulty is bush league analysis (as pointed out by S2000). Maybe it’s time to make the switch to HR?

^ or plumbing.

Nah, Plumbing > HR. He should go to HR.

How many pages are in the Claritas curriculum?

In level 2, the right “language” is all in the multiple choice, which will jog your memory and your calculations. In level 3, you have to come up with/remember the right “language” and this is very hard to do in such a short time as provided in the AM.

Anyone who thinks level 3 is easier than level 2 . . . just get your head handed to you a few times in multiple fails and you will think differently.

Urgent!

Which is better - Claritas or CFA? Should I study up on the Claritas to complement my charter?

The L3 PM section (no time pressure, low-hanging fruit questions) is probably the easiest section in the entire CFA curriculum. For that reason I think L2 is more difficult.

This past L3 PM session threw me for a loop. I did better on AM than PM.

I respectfully disagree. I had more trouble in the L3 PM than I did on either of the AM or PM L2 sections. L3 PM was not where I picked up the points to pass L3 - that happened in the AM. My score matrix bears this out.