I plan to get started on studying in the beginning of October and have a couple questions about my plan. I plan on reading FRA, Equity, Ethics, Fixed Income out of the CFAI books for sure. Are there any other topics you guys suggest definitely reading out of the CFAI as well. I’ve heard there are some topics that are difficult to understand out of the CFAI, such as Derivitives, Quant, and Alternative Investments. So I was planning on just relying on Schweser Videos for those, as I’ve heard very good things about them. Is this wise? I know I do have a lot of time, but I also want to make the most of my studying, and do it as efficiently as possible.
I haven’t seen other materials to comment if you can do without CFAI or where? May be you can.
But here are my 2 cents…I studied from CFAI almost everything this past June, did not make it. I felt I got too much lost in reading, losing big picture, reviews and practise. Big lesson - Its okay to refer CFAI text but there has to be decent strategy to review that material and practise enough. At least 8-9 weeks for review and practise. Make sure you have your summaries, formula sheets ready for review, otherwise reviewing material in its entirety is next to impossible.
My god, if you found Quant reading easy from CFAI text - then you could read the entire stuff from CFAI book. This is the one topic where I found it extremely difficult to read completely! Thank god no damage was done for me
Even I am at a confused stage where although I have started studying from Schweser but the thought keeps coming back whether reading the CFAI curriculum would be a better approach to go about?
Although, I am also tilted towards finishing the course content fast and then focussing a lot on practicing EOCs, Q banks and mocks.
But wanted to have your recommendation on some of those topics which you found almost mandatory to go through from CFAI curriculum only?
I agree with Sooraj. If you fond Quant easy then you will just breeze trough the curriculum. I started reading quant from the cfai books and couldn’t handle it, so I started reading it from the Élan free notes, then went to the curriculum and re read it and this way QM became a little more understandable. Either way where I found a real learning value being added is in the EOC most of all. Even though I can’t do most of them still because I didn’t understand the concepts so well from the readings when I see the answers and see what I’m doing wrong this is where I fully understand the concepts.
im reading quant from CFAI book and its making sense to me … personally i feel much more confident when i read through CFAI books. i did the same for level-1 and my intuition is that it will work for me at level 2 as well…
good luck every one… i think do it from where you understand the concepts… we are from diverse backgrounds, no one formulla will fit for all… what i feel, just follow your intuition and it will be fine…
PS. hamada.smaili sent you an email… just mentioning it so you check, dont know if it goes to junk
Well don’t have real good suggestion here but I would at least look at Ethics, FRA, Equity, Corp Fin, FI & Deriv. and may be Economics since it has lot of currency material now. Others like Quant, AI, PM may be just skim through.
Others things I would keep in mind is go through CFAI text only that’s relevant to LOS ( I know its difficult to weed out that way and can only do it after first reading) but try it.
Mark your stuff on first reading, get sense from Schweser videos important parts of the reading. Examples marked in blue and EOC are given.
I havent used schweser much… I used finquiz for level 2 and have bought it for level 3 as well. I like their summaries and their question bank. Lot more itemset format questions and you can ask details online and they respond within a couple of days… So yes Finquiz is good, but I dont know enough about schweser to say which is better.
I meant, difficulty wise, how do they compare to CFA MOCK and actual exam? CFA mock for Level 1 last year was very difficult, actual exam paper was a lot easier and Schweser qbank questions were hopelessly straightforward. I was able to touch 80% mark with every assembled test in Qbank and i only used to select questions with high difficulty level. But when i attempted CFA mock a week before the exam i realized that Qbank just was way too easy and i was not even able to touch 70% mark with CFA mocks. I ended up with 70%+ in 7 sections
So i want to know how does FInquiz compare to Schweser’s, or for that matter, CFA mock, difficulty level wise?
I did Schweser’s Qbank and their mock exams vol 1&2 for level2. I wouldn’t go to hard on the qbank. Its good for review but dosn’t really mimic the actual exam. IMHO the Schweser’s Mock exams vol 1&2 are highly underated on this Forum. I failed lvl2 Band 9 last year(using only the qbank). This year I pass and credit doing the Schweser mocks for helping me. Their mocks do feel exam like imo.
I do rate Schweser’s mock its their qbank i’ve problem with. They are way too easy and also do not mimic actual exam question as you have acknowledged yourself.
