Did you really study that hard and still fail or what is a half Arse try? If I had done this much studying for level one I should have gotten a perfect score lol…
I haven’t taken it yet, but let’s put it this way: I’ve done a similar amount of studying for L1 and L2. I absolutely crushed L1. For L2, the average on my mocks is 14% lower than for L1. L2 is WAY harder than L1, and it looks to me like your studying hard is reasonable.
I failed last year Band 8. I did not feel that confident going into the exam as a result of my minimal study effort. I studied about 175 hours last year. On the exam I bombed FRA terribly (<50). You can’t score that poorly on FRA and have a shot at passing. I was really rushed for time in the AM session and that really unnerved me for the PM session. So no, I did not study my @ss off and fail. I’ve put in about 300 hours of studying this year and feel much better about my chances going into the exam. I’ve spent over 100 hours on FRA alone and took an accounting workshop specifically for L2 FRA. Let’s do this!
do you recall which sections of fra were covered last year bro?
Pensions & Intercorporate Investments for sure. If I remember correctly the currency translation item set was a b!tch and was much more qualitative in nature. I can’t remember about the fourth vignette. I would assume it was on earnings quality, adjustments, etc… I have no idea what they might throw at us this year because they decided to include inventory accounting and pp&e stuff.
Band 10 fail. I bombed equities and fixed income. I studied over 600 hours but used only Schweser. In retrospect I wasn’t prepared nearly as much as I needed to be for equities, I blame Schweser and am using only CFAI this go around.
^^ Same, although I probably did c300 hours. I aced Level 1 first time, no in no way is that representative of L2…Make no mistake, L2 is a beast.
Ditto Lincoln Logs - used Schweser for L1 and it was great - in now way can Schweser prepare you for L2 - used CFAI only this time around and ts amazing how much more I grasp… I did study my ass off last year though, and yes that morning session was one of the worst 3 hours of my life…
Hmm, funny how this system works. I just cant seem to understand it. I know a lot of people who’ve cracked L2 using ONLY Schweser. And then there are those who swear by CFAI, and consider Schweser to be the devil. Wonder what it all means…
If im gona fail, i hope its band 8 or less … not 9 or 10.
Passing versus failing is all about comprehension and NOT with the study material. If you have no background, then perhaps schwser might not give the detail to fully comprehend the “why” and to fully understand… But it all comes down to the candidate’s abilities and knowledge of the material. When you fail, it’s easy to blame something for your failure rather then blaming yourself…
Think back to university… I took courses where some people only needed to read the notes given in class and could still do extraordinary on the exams compared to some people who needed to read the whole textbook cuz they didn’t understand the material… It’s the same idea in general in my mind. This is why I don’t care about comparing hours spent, material used blablabla… It all comes down to ability to retain the material (and intelligence)…
I studied for about 10 hours last year and walked out after the morning session.
Talking about comprehension - for those who studied hard last year, and are retaking using CFAI materials. Have you seen a big increase in your scores on practice exams and the CFAI mock exam this year compared to last?
It means you only asked those who passed, not those who didn’t. meshed Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hmm, funny how this system works. I just cant seem > to understand it. > > I know a lot of people who’ve cracked L2 using > ONLY Schweser. And then there are those who swear > by CFAI, and consider Schweser to be the devil. > Wonder what it all means…
Can the people blaming Schweser provide some clarification on why it wasn’t enough? I feel like if you master the LOS, you are going to be fine no matter what method you used to get there.
Can I ask a question? People who failed last year due to equity/FRA - did you have any accounting education before the CFA exams? I’ve really not struggled with the coursework for these sections but I had an accountancy major at university. I’m a bit under-done for this exam (c. 220 hrs by Friday), but the only subject that I’m uncertain about is Quant.
We’re all human and we all try to take the shortest path between two points. That being said, a lot of people jump into Schweser because a) It was great for L1 & 2) 3000+ pages of CFAI text is a little daunting. Very rarely do candidates go straight to the CFAI text imo. Schweser is plenty. I think a lot of people that used Schweser, myself included, thought of it as a little shortcut allowing us to study less. That was a bad assumption that I made that I think a lot of other people make as well. If you took 500 motivated L2 candidates and gave half of them Schweser and the other CFAI books only I think you would find that the results are basically the same in the end provided that each group’s effort and comprehensive capabilities were the same. As an above poster said, at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if you’re studying from CFAI, schweser, stalla, etc… so long as you put forth the effort and comprehend the material then you will pass.
ek82 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Can I ask a question? People who failed last year > due to equity/FRA - did you have any accounting > education before the CFA exams? > > I’ve really not struggled with the coursework for > these sections but I had an accountancy major at > university. I’m a bit under-done for this exam > (c. 220 hrs by Friday), but the only subject that > I’m uncertain about is Quant. My undergrad degree is in finance and I did extremely well in those courses. I took two accounting courses in undergrad, did fine in them, but they were nothing compared to FRA on L2. Accounting has always seemed so backwards to me, I don’t know why. It just takes a long time to finally jam it into the memory bank and comprehend what I just read. On the other hand I can basically run DCFs in my head. I was built for finance and not accounting. Go figure…
One factor that is often not mentioned is mindset when you walk through that room. Took it in london in '09 failed band 8… Now this is what happened, due to works on the metro the cfai put some buses, which got there 5 min before thr start of the exam, no joke… Got there sweating like a pig and stressed out, and that was the beginning of a very bad day… You all have experienced the big swings in scores between one exam and the next despite difficulty being about the same, i just need to figure out how to do the exam so that i peak at the right time.