I failed level II but it didn’t surprised me as I got very blur with the afternoon paper and decided to walk out of the exam in the end. I landed a job in equity research with an investment bank after I sat level I. I have to work very long hours and I can say there is literally no time for me to do any studying during the weekdays. Occasionally I have to work during the weekends too. I attended the Kaplan course which started in early March and I covered pretty much all the topics 6 weeks prior to the exam. I then started the revision and typed out my own notes in the next 4 weeks. I knew the material fairly well 2-3 weeks before the exam. I then took 2 weeks off prior to the exam to focus purely on the pass papers. I guess my approach was simply not enough but given I have already learnt the material once with reasonable understanding, the second attempt should hopefully be much easier and I think I am going to focus more on exam technique as I get this feeling that although I understand the key concepts fairly well, I could hardly answer the exam questions correctly. Getting familiar with the structure of the question and know what the question wants in the exam seems to be as important as knowing the material itself. Having read postings from other candidates, I think it is a good idea to use CFAI notes/questions to supplement the studying for the level II exam in 2009. My questions to the people who took level II the second time and passed: - What is the easiest way to identify the changes made in the 2009 curriculum? (probably not going to read the entire set of notes back to front again and would probably read up the topics when I am confused by the individual questions) - What are the most useful techniques you used in the second attempt that helped you pass? any suggestions or comments to my approach welcomed. - How far were you in the first attempt and how much more time did you spent the second time? - Did you forget most of the material when you started the revision again the following year? Many thanks for all your feedbacks!
hi. i’ll advise you to use CFAI material mainly. you may suplement with schweser questions. but use the CFAI texts