Posting this to share my personal experience. I studied 100% from the curriculum & curriculum only, worked through every single EOC and shuddered away from 3rd party when had the chance and failed Band 4. Not sure I will re-attempt, but I have this to say: Curriculum is too dry, 600 pages will put you to sleep, go through third party, review and do EOC from CFA but must have more questions to solve. I felt EOC were way too little, theres only so many times you can repeat the same question. The last 3 weeks i did around 7 mocks, 6 from third party and 1 CFA Mock. my 2c
how many times have you gone through the EOC questions?
I did exclusively third party, but only for 4 months. Did 3 mocks, including two CFA mocks, and failed with the 5th band. Doing third party only is not an option, because from time to time I needed to come bach to the CFAI books in order to really grasp the material. To me, the best is to combine.
twice
This was because you understood the material but couldn’t recall during the exam. I was in the same situation. It is good to combine this with third party material.
I failed Level II band 8 and used Stalla for pretty much most of the curriculum except used CFAI for Ethics. I am planning on retaking next year and will use Stalla for lectures, but will really concentrate on the EOC questions from the CFAI books. I made the mistake of using the same preparation that I did for Level I and it didn’t work out. I think you need to incorporate the CFAI books into your study plan.
A guy (who had passed all three exams using Schweser alone) once told me that if you use CFAI texts you can get away with about a 70% retention but if you rely on Schweser you must be able to retain 100% of that material. Although more time consuming, CFAI is clearly the better (i.e. safer) option.
sungirl27 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Posting this to share my personal experience. > > I felt EOC were way too little, theres only so > many times you can repeat the same question. if you felt the EOC were way too little, why did you “shudder” away from 3rd party providers??? thats when you jump to prep providers so that you can see questions asked differently and attack from all angles
kyrylo Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I did exclusively third party, but only for 4 > months. Did 3 mocks, including two CFA mocks, and > failed with the 5th band. > > Doing third party only is not an option, because > from time to time I needed to come bach to the > CFAI books in order to really grasp the material. > > To me, the best is to combine. i did CFAI exclusively up to, but not including Equity then did Stalla the rest of the way and passed my first time you can 100% pass using only a 3rd party providers materials
One of the main reasons I have *never* done EOC questions at any of the three levels (sacrilege, I know!) is that the questions, from a formatting and length standpoint, were very different from the type of questions on the actual exams. I would start to do them and then get quickly annoyed since they often took far longer than the average test question. I never felt like it was the right kind of practice for the actual exam. For me, the main value of the 3rd-party providers was both their deep pool of practice questions and the additional mock/practice tests available to practice-practice-practice!
sungirl27 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Posting this to share my personal experience. > > I studied 100% from the curriculum & curriculum > only, worked through every single EOC and > shuddered away from 3rd party when had the chance > and failed Band 4. > > Not sure I will re-attempt, but I have this to > say: Curriculum is too dry, 600 pages will put you > to sleep, go through third party, review and do > EOC from CFA but must have more questions to > solve. > > I felt EOC were way too little, theres only so > many times you can repeat the same question. > > The last 3 weeks i did around 7 mocks, 6 from > third party and 1 CFA Mock. > > > my 2c done all eoc twice and still fail band 4 is just really unlucky. i think the 20 item sets on the exam had been the worst combination for you and they all tested your weak spots.
How many times did you do the readings? Get enough sleep?
“Curriculum is too dry, 600 pages will put you to sleep” – I’m not sure but that might be part of the issue. I’m not a boring person, but in a weird way I loved reading from the CFAI materials. Just making the point that the statement might go to explain how interested you were in the material as a whole. Final statement – DON’T GIVE UP! Take a few weeks to relax, and REATTEMPT! [Adam Sandler Movie] YOU CAN DO IT!
I did nothing but Schweser for both L1 and L2, and passed both on my first try… While studying, especially for L2, and just a month before the exam I was engulfed in doubt - worried about whether I had made the wrong choice, of sticking with Schweser and not using the CFAI texts. I posted my anxieties here on AF and some kind posters allayed my fears by telling me this: 1) Use any book you want, Schweser, Stalla, CFAI texts - anything! (My advice here is --> Just make sure you know whatever you have studied thoroughly. Do all the mock exams (6 Schweser mocks + 2 CFAI etc). Keep reviewing everything, and keep making notes for ready reference.) 2) There will always be a few things that Schweser will not cover. But that is the point of having ‘condensed’ notes. Everything CANNOT be covered, else it wouldn’t be condensed in the first place. 3) Every year some 3-4 questions out of 120 at max will be from the stuff in the CFAI text and not in Schweser. The exam is very tricky. So much so that this year there were people following both Schweser and CFAI who were left equally flummoxed! 4) Passing or failing the exam is individual dependent. The test provider is just a facilitator. If you dint pass that’s because you dint prepare in the most effective way (and its not just about spending 1000 hours reading the material). Finally, whatever you read, please internalize completely by reviewing a 100 times if necessary. The 400 (or whatever) hours of prep isn;t just about reading a book once. Make sure you know the material like the back of your hand. That is the only key. Dont blame Schweser or CFAI or anything else. The exam gives you more than ample opportunities to pass irrespective of which books you used to prepare. All the best!
sungirl27 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Posting this to share my personal experience. > > Not sure I will re-attempt, but I have this to > say: Curriculum is too dry, 600 pages will put you > to sleep, go through third party, review and do > EOC from CFA but must have more questions to > solve. > > my 2c I found CFAI books for FRA, Equity, Derivatives, Fixed Income & Corp finance (not the corp governance) were interesting. Yes, it is difficult to grasp what they are arriving at the very first time, but with little patience and perseverance, when you finally understand them, you hit jackpot, as the basics stay forever. In nutshell, when you find CFA text interesting, follow it. If you find them boring, then better stick to thrid party providers. There are tons of people who just did Schweser and passed all three levels. Don’t give up now.
Same here but i failed with a band 3. I did all the EOC but I didn’t find any resemblance to the questions asked in the exam. It is not that I expect a carbon copy or things like that but the vignettes on the exam seem strange and virtually unknown at all…like I don’t know if it is equity, FRA or whatever. I have to look at the front index to find out which vignette belongs to what. I am not sure if I was nervous. I arrived 45 mins early and was sitting in the hall 35 mins before it starts.
-schweser EOC and examples -all schweser mocks and CFAI mock -CFAI EOC Ethics -Qbank (mainly did advanced questions, some intermediate). qbank wasn’t as useful as it was for Level I, but it’s still good to practice trouble areas. also, i think the advanced questions are good for ethics. -kept doing all problems over and over again until i pretty much knew them by heart -i did this with essentially a month and a half left (pulling in about 10 hours of studying a day). -reviewed ethics again the last couple of days prior to the exam. Item Set Q# Topic Max Pts <=50% 51%-70% >70% - Alternative Investments 18 * - - - Corporate Finance 36 - - * - Derivatives 36 - - * - Economics 18 - * - - Equity Investments 72 - - * - Ethical & Professional Standards 36 - - * - Financial Reporting & Analysis 72 - - * - Fixed Income Investments 36 - - * - Portfolio Management 18 - * - - Quantitative Methods 18 * - -
i was worried that third party would mess up what I learned, i looked at a few formulas for example and schweser, stalla, and CFAI all wrote it in different ways… wanted to be comfortable with CFAI methodology of answering etc
perhaps, a few sections were just too much! and i failed ECON which I usually got all correct every single time i solved EOC or mocks etc
wow lilzany thats exactly how i felt on some parts!