Thanks again all. Red touched on an important point which confirmed to an extent, my sense of the difference. L1 can be learned by studying in the classroom or in your den. L2 requires some practical work experience to solidify the concepts (although I am sure folks do pass without it). The method of examination is what this tests. Would you guys say that is a fair assessment of the main difference?
Just wondering, did you read all of CFAI text for level 1? I didn’t read CFAI for level 1 (well only maybe 10-15% of it) and passed. Level 2 i stuck with the same strategy, reading CFAI only for weak areas (prob kicked it up to 15-20% of CFAI)…but mainly stuck with Schweser and failed…band 8 out of 10. I am really debating if I should read all of CFAI. I am just afraid that I will get lost in the material and not focus on the important things and get caught up in details that may not make a huge difference on exam day. Thoughts??
sorry above post was for sterling76, but anybody else can comment too, thanks!
FSA is all new. Some stuff in portfolio is new. Derivatives is new and there are a lot of formulas in derivatives. Time Series in Quant is new, although they didn’t test it this year. Ethics is repetitive. A lot of the equity and fixed income seemed repetitive from level 1. Financial Management is probably the same. Alternative investments is new. They did test real estate this year. There were no FCFE or FCFF questions on this years test. Derivatives was 10% of the exam this year for those that wanted to skip it. CFA cherry picks what they will test you on and you don’t know what they will test you on. It’s a crap shoot. Good luck.
i could not agree more misslee Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > the REAL frustrating part about L2 is that they > won’t test everything. > > on L1, you know that they will at least touch the > surface of *almost* every LOS, but in L2 you could > spend hours(or days, weeks) on a particular > topic… and it never sees the light of day on the > actual exam because CFAI decides it’s not worth an > item set. > > not only that, CFAI can take a really obscure > topic… and dedicate a whole item set on it.