How my friend got stuck on Level II

Babsfrey wrote:
Why on earth will anyone skip sections? This amazes me, knowing that the MPS may just be anything; unlike the regular exams where the MPS has been pre-announced.
You run a risk of being outperformed by other candidates by gaming the sections. Wrong strategy anytime! Moreso, for all the curriculum is worth, I will focus more on the topic areas that do not come readily to my mind. That way, I think I will get the most out of the CFA. You do not want the charter without knowing your stuff!
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I think you misinterpret the strategy. it’s not like they skip sections and “slack off”, they just put more emphasis on larger, more examable topics.
ie, they still going to put in 300 hours of studying, but they devote close to 0 hours on some smaller topics and weigh the rest in other topics.
The strategy is to get 6/6 in all the Ethics/FSA/ Corp Fin/ Equity/ Fixed income questions and just bomb (perhaps a 2/6) in Alt Inv and stats - which theoretically still be able to pass.
 
In theory, it works, but on a small scale. say you skipped Derivatives. 5-15% is a big range, but if you really can nail down the others, that’ll still get you a pass. worst case, say derivatives ended up being 15%, statistically, you should grab 5% with random guessing. you max out at 90%. That’s still a lot higher than the 70% safe range.
As soon as you start gambling skipping 2 or 3 sections, then your chances of failure increase dramatically.
 
^The problem with Nana and Itera’s theory is–they are assuming you get 100% of the questions that you studied for. If we KNOW for a fact that this is the case, then I wouldn’t bother studying for PM/Econ/Quant at all, because you’re still guaranteed a pass.
But in real life, even if you study FRA/Equity (which will be around 50 questions) like a beast, odds are slim that you’ll get all 50 correct.
 
Greenman72 wrote:
^The problem with Nana and Itera’s theory is–they are assuming you get 100% of the questions that you studied for. If we KNOW for a fact that this is the case, then I wouldn’t bother studying for PM/Econ/Quant at all, because you’re still guaranteed a pass.
But in real life, even if you study FRA/Equity (which will be around 50 questions) like a beast, odds are slim that you’ll get all 50 correct.
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Not exactly. My worst case theory of skipping Derivs (if it ends up being 15%) means you sacrifice 10% of the exam, in other words, you max out at 90%. If 70% is a sure pass, and the MPS is really 65%, you still have a sizeable range of error allowed of 20-25% for everything else. again, this is assuming worse case scenario.
In the best case of Derivs at only 5%, you sacrifice only 3.2% of the entire exam, and error allowed for the rest of the exam is over 30%.
Realistically, if I knew for sure Derivs was only 5%, I probably would have skipped that book myself.
But the 5%-15% range was beyond my tolerance for that risk.
 
Hi Nana. Plain and simple, your friend is lazy. Saying there’s no way that a person can retain all the information in level 2 is a copout. So after level 2 her brain is completely full? How will she pass level 3?
If you want to be a good friend, tell your friend this. Tell her to face the fact the she is lazy and overcome it. Level 2 is an exam you don’t want to leave to chance. If you’re serious, plan to succeed and give yourself a wide margin of error.
 
i would rather spend 2x time memorizing everything once and pass and get it out of the way, than half-arse it for several years with nothing to show for it. Just makes sense.
 
Broberts06 wrote:
Hi Nana. Plain and simple, your friend is lazy. Saying there’s no way that a person can retain all the information in level 2 is a copout. So after level 2 her brain is completely full? How will she pass level 3?
If you want to be a good friend, tell your friend this. Tell her to face the fact the she is lazy and overcome it. Level 2 is an exam you don’t want to leave to chance. If you’re serious, plan to succeed and give yourself a wide margin of error.
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The Level III books are half the size of Level II. Level II has the most content to memorize in the whole curriculum that’s not up for debate.
 
MissCleo wrote:
Broberts06 wrote:
Hi Nana. Plain and simple, your friend is lazy. Saying there’s no way that a person can retain all the information in level 2 is a copout. So after level 2 her brain is completely full? How will she pass level 3?
If you want to be a good friend, tell your friend this. Tell her to face the fact the she is lazy and overcome it. Level 2 is an exam you don’t want to leave to chance. If you’re serious, plan to succeed and give yourself a wide margin of error.
Click to expand...
The Level III books are half the size of Level II. Level II has the most content to memorize in the whole curriculum that’s not up for debate.
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Just wait til you attempt the level III curricullum. Looks can be deceiving. I’m not saying its harder, I’m not saying it’s easier. Picture the same intensity as level II. Theres no let up.
 
8EEZBaby wrote:
MissCleo wrote:
Broberts06 wrote:
Hi Nana. Plain and simple, your friend is lazy. Saying there’s no way that a person can retain all the information in level 2 is a copout. So after level 2 her brain is completely full? How will she pass level 3?
If you want to be a good friend, tell your friend this. Tell her to face the fact the she is lazy and overcome it. Level 2 is an exam you don’t want to leave to chance. If you’re serious, plan to succeed and give yourself a wide margin of error.
Click to expand...
The Level III books are half the size of Level II. Level II has the most content to memorize in the whole curriculum that’s not up for debate.
Click to expand...
Just wait til you attempt the level III curricullum. Looks can be deceiving. I’m not saying its harder, I’m not saying it’s easier. Picture the same intensity as level II. Theres no let up.
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I’m not debating whether Level III or level II is harder. I’ve heard either argument from multiple charterholders. All I’m saying is that the material is less, at least from what every one has told me, and easier, it’s just tested in a much more difficult fashion.
 
Broberts06 wrote:
Hi Nana. Plain and simple, your friend is lazy. Saying there’s no way that a person can retain all the information in level 2 is a copout. So after level 2 her brain is completely full? How will she pass level 3?
If you want to be a good friend, tell your friend this. Tell her to face the fact the she is lazy and overcome it. Level 2 is an exam you don’t want to leave to chance. If you’re serious, plan to succeed and give yourself a wide margin of error.
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She gave up already, lol ^_^
Perhaps she will return to the CFA train, but not for a while (she got married and a baby since she last wrote).
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that’s a bad strategy because at the time, i was thinking “don’t you need to know it for Level 3 anyway?” - back then i haven’t done L3 yet so i wasn’t sure if you need everything you learned in L2 or not.
i think she was maybe somewhat lazy but more just confident in her ability to ace the rest of the exam. She thought she could do better in FSA and equity than she did.
 
The whole point of CFA isn’t just to get a piece of paper that says “hey you’re a charterholder”. It’s about the journey, not about the outcome. If you ran a marathon next weekend without any training, would it be fair to say that you are in awesome shape? No! If you took CFA without delving into the curriculum and really trying to understand and grasp ALL the material - are you really deserving of this designation? Probably not. People that try to cheat the system usually fail. That’s why the test is designed as it is. If you skip a section with the intent and hope that you get 6/6 on another section - pretty risky strategy. Especially since there are thousands of pages of reading.
 
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