Is there a concensus on a topic that was the most difficult in level II?
nope, just a ton of opinions.
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Hardest Derivatives Ethics (No joke. In three different CFA exams I have never passed >70 Ethics) Hard FRA Quant (For me at least. I hate time series)
I had trouble filling out my test site number…other than that everything is pretty easy…
It’s all about your strengths and weaknesses…but FRA, Equity, and Ethics are the largest sections by weight…so those tend to be more important whether they are your strength or not
FRA, Equity, Corp Fin, Econs & Ethics were easy for me. Ethics is not difficult, just very tricky. You do enough practice questions, you can easily clear it. Derivatives is just crazy, dude. I thot I had it, but failed it! I’m also not a big a fan of Fixed Income. I hated Quants in Level I…, I almost didn’t read that section cuz I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. It was the opposite in Level II, cuz I read the freakin’ CFAI book as opposed to just reading Schweser. If you are good in Quant, I think PM will become easy as well.
derv is by far the hardest section. the formulas in that section are off the walls
the hardest topic is all of them…and none of them. Level 3 is not like the other levels where they break out the sections into easy to study 5-15% blocks. They say 50% is PM (whatever that means) and all the other sections can be 5-30%. Study everything.
ethics, derivatives,fixed income
For me fixed income was the hardest one
from the top of my head, FRAs, swaps, swaptions from derivatives, pensions, intercorporate investments, goodwill and impairment, some stuff in alternative investments such as caculating equity reversion after tax, the list goes on. all is fair game on D-day.
I hate “Derivatives” and the “Hedge funds” topics.
For me the hardest were Derivatives and Financial Reporting & Analysis.
These questions are really stupid and subjective. It depends on the person just study the material and hope for the best.
I agree! Goes from person to person! But yeah, Ethic’s question sets always feel like freaking Russian Roulette!!!
derivatives ethics is just subjective BS. trying to “focus” on ethics is a waste of time. you should know it, but not try to perfect your knowledge of ethics. derivatives are actual formulas (plug/chug) that you have to nail with certainty. i went in prepared to get a 80-90% on derivatives, equity, fixed income, corp. finance, and accounting – numerical problems. if I get ~50% on the subjective scenario word questions and 70-90% on the actual math problems, I win. and I did win - pass first try.
Lol i found derivatives to be relatively easy… probably because its my favorite area. Some topics in FRA and AI were hard for me though.
FRA, fixed AND dervs.
Again, pretty subjective, as some people are naturally stronger in certain areas than others for whatever reason (major in university, particular courses they took in school, job, interest, etc.). To me quant was the hardest because it’s like another language to me, but luckily it’s not relatively a big part of the exam (and luckily wasn’t this year or I would’ve failed). Alternative Investments was tough because, again, I wasn’t familiar with it.
1 thing I noticed, i found derivatives easy to grasp and understand in both level 1 and 2. I solved the CFAI EOC problems with no difficulties, and i did get the concept in both levels; however, when it comes to the real exam, i failed it in level 1 and 2. Easiest = FRA, Quants, Fixed Income, Economics Fair = Portfolio, Ethics, Portfolio, Equity Hard= Alternative Inv and Derivatives… Again, I come from an accounting background so I always ace FRA (level 1 and 2) although most people sitting for cfa exam hate it.