Vignette Question Tips

Hey guys, seeing Level 2 is such a change from the Level 1 format do you guys (particularly retakers) have any tips how to answer Vignette types of questions? In other words do you read all the material first then look at the questions one by one or do you look at the questions first then read the material so you know what your looking for? Do you write notes on the margins etc etc Any tips please for us Lvl 2 newbies? Also a question for retakers? Is the real exam as wordy as mock exams? Are each of the vignettes pages long? Thanks

lvl 2 is reading comprehention;everyone’s method is different. mocks are very similar to the actual thing in terms of length of Vigs and level of difficulty. there will be alot of flipping back-N-forth on the exam day.

It would be awesome if élan guides released mocks for level 2. I boughttheirmocks for level 1 and they spot on, very close to the real thing.

Read question, find answer in text. Read next question, find answer in text. Rinse and repeat. It’s a waste of time to read the whole vin before answering. I finished both morning and afternoon sections with an hour to spare, and I am a very slow reader. Passed this year too.

Thanks guys!

westibbs Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Read question, find answer in text. Read next > question, find answer in text. Rinse and repeat. > > > It’s a waste of time to read the whole vin before > answering. I finished both morning and afternoon > sections with an hour to spare, and I am a very > slow reader. Passed this year too. I’d give this same advice. The vignettes generally have two or three completely different concepts and it does you no good to read them all before answering the questions. I would just skim the vignette first, then jump to the questions. Fortunately, the questions are generally in the same order that their answers would be found in the vignette (i.e. the first two questions are about the first concept in the vignette, the second pair of questions is about the second concept, and the third pair of questions is about the last concept).

yes, read question then vignette. however, make sure you don’t skip all of the vignette. why? because it may seem that you have the info to solve the question (and the answer is listed), but there may be some info, say, in the sentence/paragraph below/above that is required for the *correct* answer.

2nd time around for L2 (pass). I think the vignettes are just smoke and mirrors. Sure, they questions appear to go together (Suzy Smith, CFA, would like to invest in a property for her firm. Next, she’d like to price a 3X9 FRA. Lastly she debates with her friend the Miller-Modigliani framework). In reality, they are just like I wrote: 6 different questions, all linked by “Suzy Smith, CFA”. During the test, you can literally pick out each “question” in the vignette. They can all be answered individually with information given in the few sentences needed. No question is dependent on another (though in doing other questions, you might realize a mistake you made in a prior question). I was able to go through each vignette and know right away what was being asked. “OK, this is a FCFE question. This here is a forward rate question. Etc.” Lastly, if you’re given a piece of information, it appears that 99/100 times you’ll need that piece of information in the question. If you’re ignoring it, you’re doing the question wrong. The CFA rarely appears to give information that is not used in answering the question.

cgeorgan is correct. I’d just add that you probably want to do a quick scan of the vignette before diving into the questions, just to see what’s there and get oriented. Sometimes certain elements necessary to answer a given question may be in different parts of a vignette There are half as many questions in Level II, and generally speaking, the time pressure is a bit lighter. In exchange, you have to think a little harder about the correct answer.

Hank Moody Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > cgeorgan is correct. > > I’d just add that you probably want to do a quick > scan of the vignette before diving into the > questions, just to see what’s there and get > oriented. Sometimes certain elements necessary to > answer a given question may be in different parts > of a vignette > > There are half as many questions in Level II, and > generally speaking, the time pressure is a bit > lighter. In exchange, you have to think a little > harder about the correct answer. I agree with cgeorgan…I would start with a quick scan of the entire vignette first before singling out paragraphs for each question. This gives you an overview and some idea of context. In some cases you may avoid falling into silly traps that CFAI love… Also if you happen to be stuck on a question, you would know where in the vignette to look for info to answer the next question without skipping a beat. All that being said, nothing gives you a better idea than to do the vignettes yourself happy reading :stuck_out_tongue:

EOC problems from CFAI books :slight_smile: