Best CFA Level II Materials

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jdamian123

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Hi guys -
I used Kaplan and passed Level I (Dec 2013 exam)…and I was pretty happy with their study materials (except for their Economics book, which I thought was written quite poorly).
Which study material is considered the best / better for Level II? appreciate your feedback / advice
Thanks guys.
 
I’ll be personally using the original CFAI, since it’s the most complete, and there is plenty of time to study.
 
I wouldn’t recommend reading the CFAI unless you really have too much time on your hands. Ethics might be worth it to read in the CFI but other than that your goal is to pass not to get 100%, reading that much material will most likely take a toll and you will end up retaining much less of the important concepts.
 
I used Elan and was quite happy with it.
Agree with the above - for ethics one should rely on cfai material.
 
klaudnine wrote:
I wouldn’t recommend reading the CFAI unless you really have too much time on your hands. Ethics might be worth it to read in the CFI but other than that your goal is to pass not to get 100%, reading that much material will most likely take a toll and you will end up retaining much less of the important concepts.
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Would starting in September be considered early?
i believe the more complete the material, the better the explanations. If you read a lot of books (I do), then it will be easy skimming through the less relevent material and focusing on the important concepts.
I still haven’t gone through them, so I might change my mind later on :>
 
If you don’t have ample time at hand, you will find yourself revising your strategy in between, once you realize you are running out of time.
You can calculate backwards. How many pages of CFAI material can you read in 1 hour? How many pages of CFAI material are there? This will give you the minimum reading time. You will need to add a substantial amount of time for practice and review. Do you have that much time?
Also: don’t forget that you will need to review the material, which is always faster and efficient based on some well written notes.
 
official CFAI material and related books from CFAI, nothing else
 
CFA curriculum, then Schweser, then CFA curriculum, then Schweser. Take notes, in writing, in your own words.
 
September for the next june one? Probably, unless you want to read the CFAI curriculum lol.
Honestly, just run through scheweser and do a bunch of question bank and mocks before the exam and you’ll be fine. Question bank was especially helpful for Level 1 because even if you didn’t read or remember from the readings you’ll mostly likely see them in the question bank, just make sure to review the answers.
For the simple purpose of passing the test, you only need schewser, secret sauce and elan guide combination, unless you just like reading then go ahead and spend twice as much time going through the curriculum and learn bunch of stuff that are pretty much irrelevant in the real world… To me having CFA material just shows you are a hard worker and sends a positive message to employers and clients, it won’t make you a better investors or even a better analyst imho.
 
klaudnine wrote:
I wouldn’t recommend reading the CFAI unless you really have too much time on your hands. Ethics might be worth it to read in the CFI but other than that your goal is to pass not to get 100%, reading that much material will most likely take a toll and you will end up retaining much less of the important concepts.
Click to expand...
CFAI is the group putting on the test. Disregarding CFAI text is completely and utterly illogical. I personally use solely CFAI to study with the exception of the secret sauce book from Schweser. Not to say that’s the ‘right’ way to do it but completely ignoring the CFAI texts is nonsense and bad advice.
 
Topperharley wrote:CFAI is the group putting on the test. Disregarding CFAI text is completely and utterly illogical. I personally use solely CFAI to study…
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It depends how many hours you end up devoting to your studies.
One of my friends spent 700 hours with the CFAI texts alone and completely dominated his exam.
However, most candidates accumulate only about 300 hours by the time the exam date rolls around.
300 hours is MAYBE enough time to get through the CFAI notes ONCE, if you work fast…. without leaving any time at all for final review.
Third-party notes tend to be half as long, which – for an average 300 hour candidate – leaves ample time for mock exams etc.
 
You are trying to pass a test, you don’t need to know everything and most likely you WON’t see everything.
CFAI is not trying to be jackasses and test you on esoteric subjects that they do not consider to be important concepts.
Granted if you don’t have any finance background and genuinely want to have a basic understanding of most subjects in finance go ahead, but for the purpose of passing level1 I think it’s wiser to spend that extra time on question banks and mock exams.
Topperharley wrote:
klaudnine wrote:
I wouldn’t recommend reading the CFAI unless you really have too much time on your hands. Ethics might be worth it to read in the CFI but other than that your goal is to pass not to get 100%, reading that much material will most likely take a toll and you will end up retaining much less of the important concepts.
Click to expand...
CFAI is the group putting on the test. Disregarding CFAI text is completely and utterly illogical. I personally use solely CFAI to study with the exception of the secret sauce book from Schweser. Not to say that’s the ‘right’ way to do it but completely ignoring the CFAI texts is nonsense and bad advice.
Click to expand...
 
Schweser/Elan study guides (both more or less exactly the same - so get whatever you prefer) with CFA EOCs. This is the best way to pass I reckon (I wish I had done more CFA EOCs rather than Elan Practice Questions for Level 2 last month).
 
If you’re good at digesting large amounts of information and want to bore yourself, use CFAI. If you’re like most others, I would definitely recommend the use of third-party materials. Those saying using anything but CFAI materials is ridiculous can shove it. FIguratively speaking, third-party materials allow you to eat the main course without being forced to eat salad.
My history of materials:
Used CFAI, then Schweser for review for L1. Wish I had only used Schweser because I couldn’t remember half the topics when reviewing them.
Used only Schweser for L2 last year and failed band 9. This was mostly due to my lack of study hours put in and some personal issues.
Used Elan this year and feel like I crushed it. Although Elan blows when it comes to customer service and timeliness for release of materials, their wording and explanation of hard concepts are second to none.
My recommendation:
Buy Elan notes, EHG and PQ’s. Use CFAI for Ethics, like others have said. Go through the curriculum doing Elan PQs and CFAI EOCs after each reading. Leave two months for review and do as many mocks as possible.
 
I really liked schwesers weekly video class that came with the full video set covering every LOS. I used that to get a base understanding of the topics and then I would do the end of chapter schweser questions followed by end of chapter CFAI questions to figure out what I still need to learn. I read the FRA CFAI material two times over and then read CFAI material for sections I was having trouble with (eg derivatives). In the end I wouldn’t have changed my strategy at all. Your goal is to be able to do every blue box and end of chapter question from CFAI text … if you can do that I think you’ll have success on the exam
 
kjames05 wrote:
If you’re good at digesting large amounts of information and want to bore yourself, use CFAI. If you’re like most others, I would definitely recommend the use of third-party materials. Those saying using anything but CFAI materials is ridiculous can shove it. FIguratively speaking, third-party materials allow you to eat the main course without being forced to eat salad.
My history of materials:
Used CFAI, then Schweser for review for L1. Wish I had only used Schweser because I couldn’t remember half the topics when reviewing them.
Used only Schweser for L2 last year and failed band 9. This was mostly due to my lack of study hours put in and some personal issues.
Used Elan this year and feel like I crushed it. Although Elan blows when it comes to customer service and timeliness for release of materials, their wording and explanation of hard concepts are second to none.
My recommendation:
Buy Elan notes, EHG and PQ’s. Use CFAI for Ethics, like others have said. Go through the curriculum doing Elan PQs and CFAI EOCs after each reading. Leave two months for review and do as many mocks as possible.
Click to expand...
sorry but if you failed the exam, no one cares what your study material recommendations are.
 
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