LIII v. LII Difficulty? (for native English speakers)

I am wondering how those who have taken and passed or failed LIII would compare it to LII. Would you deem it more, less, or the same equally difficult as compared to the LII? Also would you state in your anwser whether you are a native English speaker, which may be important relative to the essays.

Hmm… This is a hard question… L2 is the hardest level. but L3 is harder because it has morning session, essay questions etc. L1 is harder than L3 coz its your first exam and you dont know what to expect. On the other hand L2 is much harder than L1 and L3 coz the material is difficult to digest. But I can say L3 is the hardest coz the questions are too damn hard. Oh crap… I am not a native english speaker… pls disregard…

turkish_dude Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hmm… This is a hard question… Level 2 is the > hardest level. but level 3 is harder because it > has morning session, essay questions etc. L1 is > harder than L3 coz its your first exam and you > dont know what to expect. On the other hand L2 is > much harder than L1 and L3 coz the material is > difficult to digest. But I can say level 3 is the > hardest coz the questions are too damn hard. Oh > crap… I am not a native english speaker… pls > disregard… That response just made me dizzy.

Any native English speakers?

I’m a native english speaker, and I would really advise you not to underestimate level 3. As Turkish dude said, the material in level 2 is the hardest, but the morning session of level 3 is by far the toughest exam experience I’ve had. The pressure is huge, you either know the answer or you don’t. There’s no time to think and analyze. Prepare well for both the morning and afternoon sessions, but make sure you do TIMED morning practice exams. The material in level 3 is more interesting in my opinion, but it’s quite long. And as I said, the format of the exam makes level 3 very difficult. I failed level 2 once (didn’t prepare well though), but passed level 3 the first time. Some others pass level 2 with no problem then fail level 3 twice. It depends on you, and your preparation.

lol so… L2 is the hardest level and L3 is harder than L2. L1 is even harder than L3. But after all L2 is harder than L1 and L3. good thing you are not a programmer/engineer…

L3 is the hardest. I passed all three without failing. Native English speaker. You need to be prepared to cope with substantially greater time pressure on the AM section. I recommend putting your greatest focus on the individual and institutional IPS so that you will know that stuff like the back of your hand. It will help you get those questions right, and almost as importantly it will help you to get them right QUICKLY. These questions made up ~25% of the exam last year, and I think that is typical of the last several years. Be ready for curveballs. The afternoon session will be easier than L2. Know thy ethics. Questions there will be tricky.

L3 is the most difficult exam of the three, and also the most frustrating to study for. There were far more points in L3 prep where I got frustrated that I couldn’t answer a free response question in the way they wanted. IPS is the worst three letters you’ll hear.

I think level II was the most difficult out of the three because the topics/calculations were harder to grasp. For level III, if you practice writing out the IPS and not just mentally walking through them when going over practive exams, you will be much more prepared for the exam. It hasnt been mentioned in many level III posts subsequent to the results release, but time was a major factor in the morning and in my opnionion, most time was wasted on the IPS (at least for me it was). If you look at morning results for each pass/fail, you will probably find that most people got below 50% on the last question, and in many cases, the last two questions (as did I) because they never got to them. I may have gone off on a tangent here, but practice writing succinct answers when you practice and you will find this exam to be easier than the second.

The morning 2008 L3 was by far the hardest, most intense exam I’ve ever taken. The time pressure was crazy; I did the 2005-2007 exams for practice, and I finished all of them comfortably with 20 minutes left. I went down the wrong path on the asset allocation question and lost some time there, had to move on, and for a few minutes I had a real sense of despair. I’ve never felt that before on any exam. I had some time to go back to asset allocation but then had about four minutes left after that, and I completely punted about two-thirds of the final question (currency futures with billions of yen). Thankfully, I got top marks on the three IPS questions, did fine in the afternoon, and could afford sub 50s on five of the morning questions. There will always be things on the exam that are surprising or you wish you’d concentrated on more - reverse cash and carry with a leaseable commodity being a prime example. But absolutely know the IPS cold, as well as ethics (extremely tricky) and GIPS. Those were 135 of the 360 points.

I would have to say that I agree the material in L2 is the most difficult. L3’s seems round-about and familiar by comparison, there is really little truly new in a bunch of study sessions, but you begin to realize that they are trying to move away from a more linear format and into a broader one. By level 3 they want you to have a working knowledge of the CBOK and test you in trickier ways. Having said that if item sets are your forte’ now after passing L2, then the after L3 will be OK for you too. I found no change in difficulty here on the harder side. Morning wasn’t too pretty, but I felt OK leaving the testing room, but I know a ton of people felt like they just had the screws tightened after that session.

jamesssss you made it. Congrats!!!

Once again, I agree that LIII is the hardest to prepare for. Make sure you WRITE out your answers when you take the AM pratice exam…it is not good enough just to know the answer, it is CRITICAL that you can pack your ideas/thoughts into short bullet points on the exam (time pressure is intense). Focuse on the IPS for individual and institutional, I would say that it is very hard to pass if you don’t do well on those sections. Good luck!!!

what is IPS?

skumar Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > what is IPS? Well, if I told you, that would ruin the surprise. OK, it means Investment Policy Statement. Basically, verbalizing an individual investor’s or institution’s return objective, risk tolerance, time horizon, liquidity needs, tax constraints, legal and regulatory constraints, and unique circumstances. (I still remember the list!) The exam gives you a case and you have to answer portions of the above while sorting through a bunch of extraneous information. Of course, you have to do this while on the clock… If you look at the big results thread from August 19, the main IPS questions were #1 and #3 in the morning session, and each was worth 10% of the exam.