? for returning candidates

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nodes

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I have some questions for the returning Level II candidates (first timer for level2 are also welcome!) :
How many hours did you allocated for june 2007?
How many hours are you planning for june 2008?
Do you have any advices? mistakes to avoid…
Thank you for your help.
nodes
 
Hours for 2007: Prob 250 -300
Hours for 2008 Prob 250 - 300
Advice: Study hard, expect the unexpected, listen to JDV, take the CFA practice exams, time (during the test) is not as much an issue at it is at level 1, keep sharp objects away in mid August and hope like hell they don’t make FSA so easy that anybody who spent more than 20 hours on it passed that section, yet they don’t give you the discount rate on a simple H-model question that IMO sent me to the “fail” pile. Enough of my rant. Thanks for opening old wounds.
 
Same number of hours. Everything 11 said I echo, especially the criticims regarding the test.
As for advice, dont forget to focus on the smaller topics. I failed because of only a few very minor topics, but they caused me to fail so they werent very “minor” after all.
 
301 hours and failed. I scored over 70% on Ethics, Quant, Fixed Income, FSA, and Econ.
I scored 50-70 on equity valuation, and less than 50% on Port Mgmt and Derivatives.
I’ll probably get another 300 hours in this time. I’ll tighten up on the weak areas and go at it again. There is no secret to passing…just study, test yourself, and continually tighten up on known areas of weakness…then hope they test you on what you remember.
 
Haha H-model, brings back memories (bad ones). Thank you 11 for the flashback.
I also seem to remember two questions on the so freakin’ simple franchise factor stuff…I smiled…then for the life of me couldn’t get an answer even close to the options given. Oh the “spread your adjustments over three years” trick in FSA tossed many people for a loop. And the now infamous TreynorBlack, a topic which I understood well and still couldn’t answer because Schwesser said the calcs would not be part of L2.
Point being, there will be lots of tricks and unfair questions and you can’t prepare for them all. So you need to know your stuff so well you don’t lose a simple “free point” on any section…because as soon as you walk in the door your already down 15% on absurd questions, and you need to dig yourself out of that hole.
 
Greenspan Wrote:
——————————————————-
> 301 hours and failed. I scored over 70% on
> Ethics, Quant, Fixed Income, FSA, and Econ.
>
> I scored 50-70 on equity valuation, and less than
> 50% on Port Mgmt and Derivatives.
>
> I’ll probably get another 300 hours in this time.
> I’ll tighten up on the weak areas and go at it
> again. There is no secret to passing…just
> study, test yourself, and continually tighten up
> on known areas of weakness…then hope they test
> you on what you remember.
Same to ME!~ I need to focus on derivatives and port management this time although it only worth 0 - 10%
I bought a new sets of books (premium version). Don’t want to miss out anything. Even small topics!~
 
I don’t usually count my time in hours. I think that is a mistake to say I will study X amount of hours and will be sufficiently prepared. However long it takes to know the material through and through, which is usually more hours than you actually have unfortunately. When I get to the point where I can tutor my peers in the material presented then I know I am in great shape. It’s not really so much you vs. the actual exam as it is you vs. the other candidates in the room. If you are well prepared and don’t know the answer to a question then everyone is probably in the same boat and that is a very reassuring feeling to have when writing the exam.
 
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