hoping this thread can evolve into an early warning system on what is very hard/time-consuming to grasp. i’ve gone thru quite a few topics and most are very straight-forward (i have a degree in finance, am a little older and have used or read about much of the stuff in level 2. so i can go thru alot of sections reasonably quickly for now… sure is alot of stuff though) so far, in reading 2.5 of 6 books, i’ve found the following areas tricky: corporate governance (barely beat guessing when i tried some questions). very tricky on the wording too (like they throw in corporate counsel in a question and i’m not sure they’ve defined it previously)… corporate governance is in corporate finance book. rest of book is pretty straight-forward. complex mortgage bonds is going to take alot of time. i have to check the LOC to see if we need how to do the calculations. of course, you always have to understand the calculations, but that’s much, much easier… i just learned yesterday that the LOC specifies what level of detail you need to know. of course, it’s all interpretation of that wording. for some reason, i find the whole price-system vs. order-system for stock exchanges tricky and it seems like such an obvious area to be on the exam (i.e. it’s simple yet tricky at same time) ethics i’m just leaving for now, because i know it will take hours and hours and hours near the end (i’m not leaving it all for the end, but i’m not going to spend hours learning it right now)… someone in the office suggested this. he said no way if you put in many hours on ethics early that you’ll remember too much come june. i intend to add more sections as i go (and there are some i’ve read but forgotten, so i’ll probably add a couple of topics tonight) … but i’d love people to chime in with sections they found very, very difficult. thanks in advance!!!
Mostly sections with words
Sections with numbers too.
edmund_lord Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Sections with numbers too. … especially the pages with tables 
I found the new stuff about soft dollar requires a lot of memorization. and I found the retirement plans complicated. I have just finished FSA. but I expect bond stuff confusing too, and that is where I had a hard time for LvL I as well. huuummm… that is all I can think of for now. keep rolling!
The optional segments.
3.5/5 books completed (Schweser only) Hard stuff so far: Time series; quite a bit of FSA (just because of all the little stupid rules)
Taxes & Leases! Hard stuff on L1 and I didn’t have a good foundation on them. Now I’m suffering in FSA3 - financial statement readjustments.
Black Swan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Mostly sections with words I second that.
Pensions FSA in general
SS6
FX and time series.
- Ethics Last section - Soft dollar. mostly to do with recommended & required. Both look almost similar; if you simply use commensense, the answer is wrong. 2) Quant : last section : Time series 3) Derivatives : Last section : Swaps 4) Forex related sooo confusing even for simple questions
So far quant and pension accounting have sucked for me.
the first reading in the FSA (intercorporate investments) was really detailed and confusing… note i started the separate cfa vs. schweser’s thread… but it’s so tough to know exactly where the cfa exam gets more detailed than schweser’s.
last section of Ethics and Pension accounting
time series raped me…my ass will never be the same.