Hey. The CFA level I results are not out yet, but I thought I would ask about which wiley materials are recommended - i loved the wiley 11th hour guide, and hardly used the schweser materials apart from the qbank, so I think for level II i might be going along with wiley. I was thinking of taking either the silver package or the lecture videos+testbank. Does anyone have any opinion on which materials are worth it and which aren’t? How about the virtual classroom/11th hour review course? Does anyone have any feedback on its value for money?
Hello
i bought wiley material and videos back in 2014, because im dumb and failed L2 twice, so i still use it for this year test. And from my experience, imho the videos from wiley is the best. Both the instructor in the videos are great, even though they both have a different teaching style. Basit is really help you understand the concept of hard topics and peter olinto, well he is one of the most beloved cfa instructor out there.
but again, in my opinion, for the study notes, schweser is the best. They can explain concepts as simply as possible. Wiley study notes is too wordy for me.
you should aslo check irfanullah materials, i heard many good things recently about their videos and notes. I use it for mock exam and i like it a lot.
again, take it with a grain of salt, maybe other test taker who used recent wiley materials can chime in.
happy studying and i hope you’ll pass L2! 
Hello! i just gave level 2 this year for the third time and am hopeful about passing. Although, not too much. 
ok so i used both Wiley and IFT materials this year for my exam prep. I was using IFT last year and on a friend’s recommendation decided to add Wiley to my tool kit for this year’s exam. In this post i will be giving my views on both prep providers and let you decide in the end.
Wiley’s Pros: I think Basit and Peter have done a good job of providing quality videos and notes which are pretty comprehensive and of course Peter’s upbeat attitude is contagious! They give a lot of detail in the explanations and most of the time they will show you derivations for the formula based questions in quite a lot of detail.
Wiley did a decent job of explaining concepts and ideas especially in Corporate Finance and Financial Reporting however since I could not get beyond two three topics due to streaming issues I can not really comment on any more topics much (more to come on the streaming issue soon)
Wiley’s dashboard is top notch! again i just loved the idea of the dashboard where we had a study planner online which would keep a pretty good track of my progress and would help me monitor my performance in minute detail. you have to check it out even if you just get a trial version just to see.
Wiley’s question bank (especially the Ebook version) is pretty cool. I liked the idea that I could select any topic area and test myself on any reading i wanted. For me Question banks are good too but I personally prefer the Ebook version more. Good stuff here too!
Wiley’s Cons: the biggest issue i had with Wiley was that they do not allow us to download the videos and we are suppose to stream online. We all have times when we don’t have a high speed or reliable internet and this became a major problem for me. I would have streaming issues as the videos would hang too often time even although i was using a broadband connection which worked for other streaming content. I complained to Wiley about this (multiple times) and they gave me access to a separate online which were a little better but still I wasn’t very satisfied with the streaming only (no download) option. Because the dashboard was tracking my attempted (unsuccessful) study sessions – the issue compounded! As it would then provide me wrong information about my progress. This made me confused many times adding stress which I didn’t need!
Another issue that I had was that Wiley’s videos sometimes gets too comprehensive which some will think can be a good thing but given that we have limited time i would have preferred that the videos did not have things like long formula derivations explained during the videos. I would much rather prefer that I was given the option to watch these derivations in separate videos. The super diligent amongst us candidates can watch those later on our free time, but since i was on a tight schedule I sometimes found myself dozing off to sleep cause of this problem. I would much rather prefer that the lecturer is experienced enough to know what content to add in the videos and what to leave out based on the likely hood of the student being tested on the material. I don’t think CFA institute tests us on the derivations. I’ve been at it since the last 4 years ( one year for level 1 and 3 for level 2) and ive never come across a single question that expects us to know the lengthy derivations of the formulas.
Now coming to IFT:
IFT Pros:
I found IFT to have videos which explain concepts by making them quite easy to understand. Arif’s easy going attitude is pretty cool. I found his relaxed teaching style to have a calming effect on me and given the stress we students face while preparing for the exams and it made me feel more confident about taking the exam, this is just what a candidate needs! A must see for those who have not yet checked IFT.
Easy to use portal. IFT’s portal is also pretty great. Its very easy to navigate and it doesn’t take much time to get accustomed to the setting there. I found IFT to have a great dashboard which helps us take notes along side every single video that we are watching. This was quite useful for me as I could later on just go to my own notes which i had attached to the videos and get a summary of it all in my own words. very useful!
IFT’s e-learning portal is way more reliable! OK I know this is another big one!!! I honestly did not have any technical issues with the portal. I used it for about 4 and half months i think and I did not come up with a single issue. Especially no streaming issues!!! none what so ever. Zilch. Nada. i just loved this!
IFT allows us to download the videos which was something pretty big for me. Even bigger than this was the fact that I could very easily stream online using the same internet connection i used with Wiley. No issues with IFT! Very good quality streaming! one thing i liked about online streaming that once the video has loaded on the IFT portal, you can very easily navigate forward and back with a single click. it will not take any time to reload if you want to go back or forth on the streaming timeline. Just LOVED THIS!
IFT cons:
No question bank! i was surprised but IFT did not offer a comprehensive question bank for level 2 this year. It would have been great if they had one. I asked about this and the support team said they will be coming out with this soon. Since I already had access to CFAI online assessments i was set but it would have been good to see a question bank on my portal. Having said that, they did provide topic quizzes and also mock exams which are useful practice.
The dashboard is not personalized. I mean it does not tell you what to study when you login, or what you have already studied. IFT didnt offer an online interactive study planner like Wiley or CFAI. I really liked these and and although IFT offers a downloadable MS Excel based study planner however it would have been great to have an online interactive one on the IFT portal.
Conclusion:
My personal opinion on whether to choose Wiley or IFT: Considering that I learn better by watching videos rather than reading every little detail in a book and also that Wiley’s support was of poor quality – I would go with IFT any day! i mean GREAT video content and a trouble-free (highly responsive tech team) I think IFT won this match hands down!
All the best to you guys with your prep and also to those awaiting their results (this also includes me btw wink wink!)