I failed level II this year and am confused if I have to continue with Stalla. I was disappointed since lot of the questions that showed up in the exam were not covered in the Stalla materials. Also, I felt that the classes were crap ( Except for Peter Olinto). Now my problem is should I go buy the books and cds for Schweser for level II? or should I stick with Stalla. I was not happy with the passmaster from Stalla, the questions were very different from the actual test. How is q-bank from Schweser? Did it help?Kindly suggest. I defintely plan on reading the CFAI materials for Ethics and I strongly suggest everyone taking level II to do so.
I relied hevily on CFAI examples, readings I was unfamiliar with, and Schweser. Get Schweser. The qbank was a good warm-up, but the practice exams seemed to really be good and sometime unreasonable with the level of detail. I scored in the low 70’s on Schweser practice exams (vol.1), 82% in the CFA mock, and passed the actual exam. All the best for next year and when you pass you will be very happy.
Stella’s practice tests are different from the real ones. For example, CFAI likes to combine two questions into one MC, but Stella has nothing like that. Plus they have quite a lot of typos & even wrong answers. Stella’s material is also not as organized as Schweser. Schweser could give you a clear big picture after reading its notes, and Stella spends too much words to explain some not-so-important stuffs and very often confuses the reader. thanks god that I got chance to work on Schweser’s problem sets a week before exam. Without this last boost I guess I would have failed. Conclusion Schweser with Stella’s notes as supporting --> Best! Schweser alone --> OK… but you will need to go back to CFAI text for some details Stella alone --> Bad. Will not give you that confident feeling. NEVER rely on its practise exam.
Shivster - Did you do all of the Stalla Passmaster questions… or just most… or some?
Impermenance Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Stella’s practice tests are different from the > real ones. For example, CFAI likes to combine two > questions into one MC, but Stella has nothing like > that. Plus they have quite a lot of typos & even > wrong answers. > > Stella’s material is also not as organized as > Schweser. Schweser could give you a clear big > picture after reading its notes, and Stella spends > too much words to explain some not-so-important > stuffs and very often confuses the reader. > > thanks god that I got chance to work on Schweser’s > problem sets a week before exam. Without this last > boost I guess I would have failed. > > Conclusion > Schweser with Stella’s notes as supporting --> > Best! > Schweser alone --> OK… but you will need to go > back to CFAI text for some details > Stella alone --> Bad. Will not give you that > confident feeling. NEVER rely on its practise > exam. It is true the Stella practice exam is not good. It covers a wide areas, but the questions are very straight forward. It took me 2 to 2 hours and 15 minutes to finish each test and I scored above 70% on every practice exam, yet I failed by a narrow margin. The books, notes and class vedio were good to help you understand the materials, however the practice exams did not help me pass the actual exam. As I was running out of time, I did not do any CFAI mock exams either. A friend who passed has recommended the Schweser practice exams.
FUCK the stalla, I failed miserably!@!!
ok I’ll post my score to prevent from usage the fuckingstallasystem dont laugh at me Level 2: Fail The table below illustrates your subject matter strengths and weaknesses. The three columns on the right are marked with asterisks to indicate your performance on each question or topic area. Item Set Q# Topic Max Pts <=50% 51%-70% >70% - Alternative Investments 18 * - - - Corporate Finance 36 * - - - Derivatives 36 * - - - Economics 18 * - - - Equity Investments 72 * - - - Ethical & Professional Standards 36 * - - - Financial Statement Analysis 72 * - - - Fixed Income Investments 36 * - - - Portfolio Management 18 * - - - Quantitative Methods 18 - * - We have divided the full group of failed candidates into ten approximately equal score bands. Your score band below shows how your overall score on the exam compares with all other failed candidates. For example, if your reported score band is 1, you scored in approximately the bottom 10% of failed candidates. If your reported score band is 2, your score was within the next band width ranging from approximately the bottom 11% to 20% of failed candidates. If your score band is reported as 10, you scored in the top 10% of all failed candidates. Performance band of your overall score among all candidates who failed the exam: 1
I guess Im the only one who got 1 perfomance band.
I would say that I did around 85% of the questions. The ones I did not do looked really stupid.
Great Advice, thank You. I will go with Schweser, but how do I know when to go back and review CFAI, since the books look like a pile load of shit! I am definitely going to review ethics in full.
I’ve heard someone on this forum mention that Schweser will summarize a 30-page CFAI reading in 15 pages, Stalla in 25. Both are pretty similar in terms of quality though. Anyways, I probably spent 90% of my time with the Schweser books, and I skimmed the CFAI books only to see if any topics were missing or were explained better in them. I would have preferred using the CFAI material (it helps in showing the bigger picture - the who/what/why, etc) but was lacking for time. Q-bank was helpful in reinforcing concepts after I finished reading each individual Study Session, but the questions are not representative of the actual exam so don’t get too confident if you score well on them. I was averaging in the 80’s on them, but started off getting in the high 50’s/low 60’s on the Schweser Book 6/7 exams. Luckily, I started taking those tests with a month to go and gradually increased my scores to the low-70’s by exam time. Just remember that all these different types of materials (study notes, q-bank, videos, etc) are to help you approach the subject from different angles. Figure out what combination works best for you and then put in the time/effort; just don’t expect any one thing to be some sort of magic bullet.
I used stalla for level 1 and passed. It didn’t work for level 2. I think they are good at introducing a concept but don’t give you enough of the picture to master the concept. The only thing that is really good about Stalla are the lectures on CD, but they don’t sell those individually. I won’t be using them again…
I just passed Level I and am signed up for June '09 Level II. For Level I, I used the Stalla Videos and Schweser Notes. I thought the combination worked very well in driving home the concepts. I didn’t think the Schweser videos were nearly as good as Stalla’s. The schweser notes, however, were better compared to Stalla’s. I’m planning on using a similar strategy for Level II. For each section… 1) Watch Stalla Video (gives a good high level view). 2) Read Schweser Notes. 3) Do practice CFAI text questions at the end of each section. 4) Make my own outline for each section. 5) Read ethics from CFAI text. If this shiz is not enough to get through the exam…I’m $crewed. -Sri. PS - I found the lecture slides that come with stalla videos very useful in reviewing topics. I guess you could use the secret sauce to do the same but I never got my hands on the secret sauce.
JCA - You are not seriously blaming Stalla for that are you?
I took Stalla this year for Level II. i did everything that they said in class as well as studied the notes and class notes multiple time. also made my own notes. i took their exam in ny as well as their practice book. attended each class and i can tell you their material is very confusing. not very clearly written. their classes are ok but nothing spectacular. i will be retaking level 2 in 2009 and will definitely stick to CFAI text as well as schweser. even if stalla offers me classes for free with their money back guarantee i have still decided not to go. Hopefully this helps.
pagra Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I took Stalla this year for Level II. i did > everything that they said in class as well as > studied the notes and class notes multiple time. > also made my own notes. i took their exam in ny as > well as their practice book. attended each class > and i can tell you their material is very > confusing. not very clearly written. their classes > are ok but nothing spectacular. i will be retaking > level 2 in 2009 and will definitely stick to CFAI > text as well as schweser. even if stalla offers me > classes for free with their money back guarantee i > have still decided not to go. > Hopefully this helps. ditto
I used Stalla for both Level 1 and Level 2. I feel they did a great good job on the Level 1 material. The key for me was Olinto for Level 1. Definitely would not have made it through FSA w/out him. Also the 2 day mock exam was much harder than the actual exam. Then came Level 2, uggh. I thought the videos were terrible. I barely remember Olinto being in them. There was no in-class mock exam in Boston so I missed out on that as well. I feel like Christopher Walken on SNL, but instead of more cowbell, I need more Olinto!!! I’m going to use them again b/c I need the structure and besides I qualified for the free tuition. Thinking about driving to NYC for the FSA classes if Olinto is teaching them. He is THAT good at explaining this stuff. . The Stalla practice exams for L2 were nothing like the real thing. Was real disappointed with them.
JCA, i am so sorry, but I am curious…did you actually study as much as you did for level 1? Was it purely stalla’s lack of preparation? But i believe you though, i checked out stalla in level 1 and it really sucks.
I can’t speak for Schweser and say Stalla is better or worse since I’ve never used Schweser material before, but I will say that I only used Stalla for both Level I and II and passed on first tries. And both times, I didn’t crack open the CFAI books. I really thought Stalla lecture CDs were well done, especially the ones with Olinto and Hetherington. However, I do agree that some of Stalla’s passmaster questions are remedial and I did find several errors in their texts and practice questions. But I would email Stalla and they do send out an errata each week. Overall, I was happy with Stalla. JCA, I’m sorry you didn’t receive the results you wanted. Everyone learns differently. But I think it’s silly to blame it all on Stalla. Just my thought. Good luck on next years exam.
i passed with Stalla on level 1 but got denied on level 2. On both occasions I found the passmaster questions, in my opinion, a massive waste of time. i had a chance to sample the schweser reading and found it good. I think that it is a matter of taste. for level 2, i used both schweser, cfai, and stalla practice exams. i found schweser to be superior. my overall conclusion, the stalla readings helped alot to translate the encyclopedia that is the cfai readings and i will continue to use the stalla readings. I do however go over the learning outcomes in case stalla missed or skimmed over a topic. I loved the schweser secret sauce book. the sample exams for both cfai and schweser were good. All these things prepared me for a great am session. my problem was, and maybe i just choked, was how none of the questions, practice exams did not prepare me for the pm session. yea, i figure i panicked and it’s something that i have to live with. for me, i don’t care which readings i use in terms of stalla or schweser. the issue for me is to get quality questions of a pm nature. doing 250 questions that tests basically the same major topic over and over again did not help me when i got a relatively obscure pm question on port mgt or a “backhanded worded” question on equity. stalla or schweser, you need to know all the topics in depth as they are often interrelated. doing the minutiae of repetitive questions hurt rather than helped my cause.