New CFAI Texts

Dear all, I passed my Level I in 2004 and haven’t have the chance to sit down and study for Level II due to heavy workload. Now I have a more flexible work schedule, there’s no more excuses for me. So I enrolled in the 2008 Level II exam and received a whole box of study materials from CFAI. I was surprised as AIMR had a list of textbooks back in 2004 for the CFA program. The books I received resemble the Schweser notes I used for Level I. So now my question is, would it be more efficient in terms of test preparation to use Schweser notes or the CFAI notes themselves are now not far behind? Money is not a concern to me, btw. Much thanks

I personally find the CFAI texts a bit dry, so I use them more for reference after I’ve already gone through a subject through Schweser (or whatever 3rd party you prefer). I believe in the 2007 L2 exam, there were certain topics that Schweser did not focus well on, so don’t rely on them 100%.

I find that reading the CFAI texts explain a lot of things better than reading condensed notes. Also, I bet for ethics, CFAI is going to ask a subtle question on the ethics question which probably isn’t covered in Schweser.

I suggest reviewing the CFA books after every lesson you study in Schweser/Stalla. I wrote the L2 in '07 and was creamed by questions on the exam which were barely covered by Schweser. As you can see i am still in the L2 forum so dont make the same mistake! :slight_smile:

AFJunkie, That is my biggest concern. I personally passed Level I without studying Economics and PM at all, due to their weight and how questions are asked. But for Level II, if there’s a question set on a subject that I have not studied, I would have to kiss 6 questions goodbye. That’s 5% of the overall score. How does the Schweser VCD help then? Would those be valuable in doing a quick run-through? Anyone has the proximate weight of each subjects in the test? Thanks for all the advice.