Hi, I’ve just cleared L1. Finished my MBA and will start working in 1 month. I heard a lot of comments about the level of difficulties of Level 2 and thinking of starting it right now. Basically I have a spare free month to work on it, after that pretty sure that my full time job and taking care of family would suck up much of my time. Do you think, from your own experience, starting early would be better? I plan to cram as much as possible, and leave a great amount of time for “buffering” Also, any study tips are very welcome and appreciated. Some of my friends who passed this June told me Schwener notes are enough, no need to dig down further on CFI. But from other sites they speak the opposite. Thanks. P/S: If anyone plan to start now, we can skype and keep other good company in this challenging journey. Looking forward to hearing from you guys.
You will most likely forget what you study right now unless you keep jogging that in your memory till June. Even then you might burn yourself out. Optimal time is to start studying Nov, I believe. If you have free time right now, besides enjoying it, you can read up anything you might need for your job.
It’s a given to always start as early as you can. Cramming is going to be less effective for level II than for level I for various reasons. Understand the material well enough to do the EOCs. If you understand them well you don’t have to memorize them. Given the amount of material (a lot!) it is the best strategy to ensure a pass. If you start now you probably only need to devote an hour or two per day consistently to be well prepared for June 2012. That said, I am sure there are people who memorized shortcuts and the like and with a little bit of luck, passed the exam nonetheless. Edit: I used Schweser notes to learn the material but skipped the question bank. I then work through all the CFAI examples and EOCs. If I have the time, I’ll read the CFAI text next to get a more comprehensive grasp, by which time my understanding of the material is pretty solid.
Oct is ideal. Don’t wait till January.
Starting now is better. The material can take you 3 months to read. Then you will need to do many questions over and over again. If you complete ALL end of chapter questions in the curriculum, Schweser and Stalla and do all the Practice and Mock Exams it is less likely that you will fail. Now, that demands a lot of time. The time is now.
Thank you guys a lot. I feel more comfortable starting now, so as to have the materials still “fresh” in my mind.