Hello,
I used Kaplan books (along with CFA EOC questions) for both Level I and Level II. While Kaplan worked almost perfectly for Level I, I found that Level II required revisiting the CFAI books for certain topics; mainly derivatives, quant., and alt. investments.
Now, I’m unsure how to approach Level III, especially after seeing multiple comments and concerns about Kaplan’s usefulness at this stage. My impression from Levels I and II is that Kaplan doesn’t focus as much on building deep analytical and critical thinking around certain concepts. While this was fine for Level I and not a major issue for Level II, I’m concerned it could be a problem for the Level III exam.
What’s your take on this?
One more point: while the main argument against using CFAI books is usually the volume (correct?), I feel this concern might be somewhat overstated, especially if we consider that graphs, example blue boxes, and EOC questions are part of the CFAI content. Do you agree?