I’m sure there is a thread like this out there but for the benefit of the many who seem to be starting in the new year… If you are retaking the test this June, What is the main thing you are going to change in your preparation (other than study more)?? What mistakes will you avoid?? Thanks for the insight.
More questions. Know everything. Do not brush off anything as “insignificant.”
+1 - Nailed it! I’m going through and highlighting all the LOS answers, writting clarifying notes in the margins where necessary, and am creating a detailed list of notes from each SS of major points and weak topics from last time. Hopefully that will do it, but with CFA you never know.
Wow. I’m going through the material, first time, and thinking “oh, this is BS, that won’t show up”… I guess i’m wrong.
CFACurse Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Wow. I’m going through the material, first time, > and thinking “oh, this is BS, that won’t show > up”… I guess i’m wrong. Anything covered in an LOS is fair game, and can be covered substantially during the exam. 4 - 6 pages of the CFAI text (or, equivalently, 0.13% to 0.20%) can make up 5% of the exam. Even if it seems obscure in nature, it can still show up on exam day.
Everyone seems to emphasize not trying to game this exam- bottom line make sure you cover everything.
I’m going to spend more time on CFAI. Last time I stuck to Stalla, which got me through Level I no problem, and I got destroyed on exam day. More CFAI and less hoping stuff doesn’t show up. Portfolio MGT and Alt Assets were just brutal for me on exam day. I also have already gone over Port MGT and derivatives because I felt like I just got nailed following Stalla’s week by week schedule. There is way too much material in those two areas for it to come up like that in the end. Good luck to retakers and first timers.
I’m actually studying less this time around. Last time, I started in October, and kept going hard. I never burned out. So far, I’ve barely completed the first quant reading. I will pick up the pace slowly. There’s not much else I will do differently. I scored high on all practice exams last time and did thousands of questions. I will repeat.
I’m a retaker-started heavy reading in Nov with ebooks finished reading everything except ethics end of dec. I have a word doc with all the los listed that someone had posted. After I read each reading, I would look back at the LOS doc read the LOS and then copy and paste any information that I felt was important or that I needed to clarify. My doc. is 308 pages. I think the key to this exam is to keep the time between when you revisit a subject area to a minimum and work tons of problems. Now I review my notes and am working EOC questions. Finished Quant eoc (never had time to do them last year) and will move on from there. It took me 2 nights to review my quant notes and work all EOC questions. I hope to spend no more then a day or two on one subject before i move on to the next one going forward until test time.
^ and I’m working all them blue boxes questions in the cfa book as well as the eoc’s
CFAI EOC questions all the way. I was reviewing Corporate Governance today and am basically reading the Schweser Text, then doing both Scweez and CFAI EOC questions. I think the differences in difficulty between the Schweser questions and CFAI questions is well represented on the Corp Gov topic. On average I score anywhere from 10-20% lower on the CFAI text. If you are only doing Schweser, I suggest you take the EOC Schweser Corp Gov questions and then do the CFAI ones. They are just a little bit harder/differently asked. Not by much, but definitely significant on a 120 question test. 3rd party study providers bring less value on this level for sheezy.
EOC questions and examples (from inside the readings) qbank
I’m reading the CFAI material and it seems like there are A LOT of sections in there that do not correspond with the LOSes. When everyone says “know everything,” do they mean to NOT skip over this stuff? When I stumble upon a section that seems to have nothing to do with the LOSes, I’m just skipping it. What do you guys think?
> When I stumble upon a section that seems to have > nothing to do with the LOSes, I’m just skipping > it. What do you guys think? 100% agree. The LOS’s in front of the chapter is crucial and under-utilized. Always check the LOS if you feel the subject matter is veering off topic. I also think utilizing the LOS also preps candidates with the vignette style questions.
Albeit this is my first shot at L2, i read the CFAI text but use the Kaplan LOS guide built into the notes to keep me on topic!