CFA level 2 2013 vs 2014 difficulty level

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manuag

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Guys,
I know this question is more for retakers than for first timers. But retakers can certainly enlighten the rest of us here.
If you compare both the exams, which year paper was more difficult? Your extra hours studies might have made the perception biased against 2014 exam, but still it is worth commenting.
Thanks in advance!!
Manuag
 
my question is not related to the discussion.. but i really need an answer asap..
Does the credit card statement mention the level you have registrered for? someone plz answer quickly.. thanx ..
 
No, for me the transaction details had only “CFA Institue” followed by some numeric code, but no mention of level 1 or 2 or even the exam name.
 
The consensus from post exam threads seems to be 14 was easier than 13, even when retakers accounted for extra time spent studying.
 
IMO 2013 was easier. Much more straight forward . Cf/alts/pm were harder this year
 
icetonez wrote:
The consensus from post exam threads seems to be 14 was easier than 13, even when retakers accounted for extra time spent studying.
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Lol man, you aren’t helping my stress levels.
 
I’m a retaker from 2013 and even tho I failed dismally back then, I thought it was more straight forward than 2014 juz bcoz 2014 had a more complicated PM section.
 
Agreed with the PM part but everything else was pretty straight forward, FRA was a little tricky. Overall was pretty relaxed throughout the whole thing and finished about 90 mins early. Can’t speak for 2013 though.
 
Not good news for me then. I believe I am at border and by reading your comments it seems MPS will be higher.
 
I failed Band 9 last year but thought this year was much easier than 2013 though I was able to study more effectively this year. There is no way I’m retaking it if I fail again this year.
 
Reluctantly cramming wrote: I failed Band 9 last year but thought this year was much easier than 2013 though I was able to study more effectively this year. There is no way I’m retaking it if I fail again this year.
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Same here, I’m not retaking L2 again, it’s a huge time committment that I can’t afford anymore.
 
With PM being such a large weight, that is why it was a more difficult test than 2013 (plus being more traps). There were pockets of difficulty, but they were low weight topics last year. The only subject I found easier this year was ethics. (actually PM too as i was prepared, but I am being objective)
ugh its going to be close!!!
 
I agree that PM being a larger weight, all other variables held constant, should result in a lower MPS just because it’s generally one of the lowest (if not the lowest) sections in terms of scores (citing the 300 Hours report).
However, I thought some other higher weight sections seemed relatively easy and part of me has wondered it was the CFA compensating for the greater percentage of questions toward more challenging sections – so that’d theoretically offset the harder topic weighting. It’s kind of pointless hypothesizing on this stuff, but you can’t help but think about it!
I found the exam back in June to be somewhat of a roller coaster ride. I was cruising through some sections, even reading and answering the questions twice to make sure I didn’t miss something; parts seemed pretty easy but then you get this nasty item set or two thrown at you and it really hurts your confidence walking out of the exam center.
 
I have read quite a few posts and there seems to be a good consensus that 2014 was tougher than 2013.
Anyways, what is the MPS you people are expecting..with 1 day to go??
There was a blog in 300 hours where they estimated CFA L-2 2012 MPS to be between 58% and 63% and they used many possible scenarios to arrive at this no and they were quite confident about it.
Guess, it should be around 62-64% at the most.
 
love_lord’s wrote:
I have read quite a few posts and there seems to be a good consensus that 2014 was tougher than 2013.
Anyways, what is the MPS you people are expecting..with 1 day to go??
There was a blog in 300 hours where they estimated CFA L-2 2012 MPS to be between 58% and 63% and they used many possible scenarios to arrive at this no and they were quite confident about it.
Guess, it should be around 62-64% at the most.
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However, some people bought their 2013 analysis which they say showed an MPS of 66%-67%. I consider that riduculously high and hope it’s way lower than that.
 
Tommy83 wrote:
I found the exam back in June to be somewhat of a roller coaster ride. I was cruising through some sections, even reading and answering the questions twice to make sure I didn’t miss something; parts seemed pretty easy but then you get this nasty item set or two thrown at you and it really hurts your confidence walking out of the exam center.
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Pretty much the exact same feeling.
 
You see, you need a large no of scenarios to make a realistic estimate. People have applied 40/60/80 rule which cant work without ridiculously high no of scenarios.
Moreover, i have seen people clearing level 1 at a score which cant give them more than 67%. and L-2 is way harder. IMO, L-2 MPS shud not be more than 64% (75-76 questions correct).
 
I was a band 5 fail last year. I feel like I was much better prepared this year, so 2014 seemed easier. But I would guess that they seemed about on par after I take that into account. The guy next to me was taking it his third time and he said that he thought 2012 was much, much harder than 2013.
 
64% seems just a little low to me even with the L2 difficulty. Although I took a look at 2011 and 2012 L2 results and they seem more in line with the results I estimate we’ll see with the 2014 matrices. We’ll know for sure tomorrow!
 
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