JUNE 2014 LEVEL II RETAKERS

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goingsomethings

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Alright! So I flunked. Maybe you did too. IMO, this has little to do with intelligence, so don’t beat yourself up. Maybe you didn’t spend enough time on practice Qs. Maybe you had external circumstances weighing you down. Maybe you underestimated the exam after passing L1. We can’t go back and change that, so let’s talk about the June 2014 exam sitting.
What is your strategy? I’m going to use my 2013 books until I receive the 2014 books. I’m going to focus on practice questions and mock exams, and only refer to the text when I need clarification on the answer to a question.
Let’s motivate and support each other :)
Edit: Any tips from successful 2013 retakers are greatly appreciated! :)
 
Yeah dude! We know what are weaknesses are, now we have 10 months to work on it! Aiming to get all over 70 next time :)
 
Failed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Band 9 …
Alternatives/Eq/FRA >70
Derivs/Eco/Ethics/PM >50
Corp finance/FI/QI < 50
Beat this guys…i left both sets of Corp finance coz i dint have time ….had i completed the paper i would have passed !!!
Cant stop cursing myself !!!
 
Guys I was in your position last year with a band 9. it fucking sucks but my advice to you is
- read the CFAI text and only use schweser as a reference
- start early
- bang out practise questions. I used Finquiz and though they were hard but gave me good practise.
Good Luck
 
goingsomethingsomething wrote:
Edit: Any tips from successful 2013 retakers are greatly appreciated! :)
Click to expand...
Not a retaker, but I strongly believe that using the core CFA curriculum helped me clear the exam on my first attempt. There is no provider out there who preps us for the type of questions on the exam - this has nothing to do with the quality of the providers, but it’s simply the nature of the exam and the material.
Key is do as many mocks and practice questions as possible. BB and EOC questions are unskippable at L2… it comes down to understanding topics so that you can answer questions in 10 different ways. And only way to get there is via practice.
FWIW, Schweser sucks. I should have rather spent my $1000 on a new TV or something.
 
Schweser worked fine for me except sections like derivatives, PM etc. Stick to CFAI for the eithics readings and questions.
You may not need 10 months as a retaker; just focus anddo some mocks. A solid 4 months studying should be enough. I also took a Kaplan weekly class since the structure of a class helps keeps me motivated.
 
Chin up guys! It took me two attempts to clear Level I and I just found out I passed Level II (also at the second attempt).
My advice: Do all ECs twice, throroughly read all blue box examples in the curriculum, do as many mocks as you can and start your review as early as you can. Also, dump Schweser and go with Elan- brilliant study guides and videos.
 
My experience was: Passed L1 in December 09; failed Level 2 with band 7 in June 2010, failed with band 9 June 2011, failed with band 9 AGAIN in June 2012 and finally passed this time. Prior to the 2013 exam I never used the CFAI material and relied on Schweser exclusively.
This year I used the CFAI material to study the topics I consistently was weak in, Fixed Income, Derivatives, Quant and Econ. It didn’t matter what material I used for Portfolio Management, I think I was less than 50% in that on every test I took. I did the end of chapter CFAI questions whether I read the Schweser notes or the CFAI text this year.
This was also the first year I actually set up and tracked my study plan. I set out to do 10hrs per week starting in January with a goal of getting to 200hrs (set it low knowing that I had put in at least 200 hours in previous years of study). I ended up doing 270 since I had the last week off work and the weekend prior to that I think I did more than my week’s allotment over the weekend in addition to my normal time.
One of the problems I ran into last year is that I was overconfident from getting a band 9 on my second attempt, I was really good at FRA but didn’t drill it as much going in to last year since I generally did well on practice tests, it ended up killing me. Don’t make the mistake of not focusing on something you’re good at..get even better. I took John Harris financial accounting workshops this year and I think it really helped me.
Good luck to you guys in future attempts. Given my history of not passing until the third or fourth try on any of these exams I expect several of you that failed this year will still get a charter before me. If Level 3 is more about portfolio management I could be in some real trouble.
 
I failed Band 5. Total disaster.
My breakdown is as follows:
<50% : Alt Inv., Econ., FRA, FI
51-70%: Corp Fin., Derivs, Equity, Ethics, PM
70%>: Quant
I must’ve guessed really well in Quant. Overall, I went against all advice and DID NOT use the CFAI text to study. DID NOT do blue boxes. I did strictly Schweser, I used QBank ( did about 1800 problems), and did 6 Schweser mocks plus the CFAI prac exam (never scored better than a 58 on a complete AM and PM mock). Shame on me for not using the CFAI text and blue boxes. I knew I failed when I walked out of the exam. I put in well over 300 hours, but it was the wrong kind of 300 hours. For new Level 2 candidates, please look at me as an example at what not to do. Failing band 5 is really disturbing to me, I didn’t even sniff a passing mark. However, sometimes it takes getting knocked on your a$$ to wake up and get your $hit together. I’ll be back in that seat in 2014, hopefully prepared to knock it out of the park. Congrats to those that passed, and to those of us that failed do not give up!!!
 
Pretty sure the exam cost is the same regardless of whether you’re a retaker or not. I could be wrong since I was price insensitive and never paid that much attention (work pays for it). Prep materials can be lower cost if you’re a retaker though.
 
Band 8. Sucks although not totally surprised. In the last 10 days of studying I came to the realization that I didn’t study poperly even though I studied enough. I didn’t even break the CFAI texts out of the box until days before the exam. I solely relied on Schweser. I didn’t do anywhere near enough practice questions or exams. I’d love to hear any of your thoughts on starting early; i.e. August? September? Last year I started in December.
Sounds like CFAI Blue Boxes, EOC questions and mocks are highly reccommended for Level 2? Any thoughts on Elan vs Schweser…or combination on the two?
Congrats to those who passed!
 
Band 10
>70: Alt, Corp Fin, Derivatives, FRA
50 – 70: Equity, FI
<50: Econ, Ethics, PM, Quant
I only read CFAI when I wasn’t clear on a topic after seeing a practice question on it.
 
wsbull99 wrote:
Band 8. Sucks although not totally surprised. In the last 10 days of studying I came to the realization that I didn’t study poperly even though I studied enough. I didn’t even break the CFAI texts out of the box until days before the exam. I solely relied on Schweser. I didn’t do anywhere near enough practice questions or exams. I’d love to hear any of your thoughts on starting early; i.e. August? September? Last year I started in December.
Sounds like CFAI Blue Boxes, EOC questions and mocks are highly reccommended for Level 2? Any thoughts on Elan vs Schweser…or combination on the two?
Congrats to those who passed!
Click to expand...
Every individual has a different amount of gray matter in their brain. The worst mistake people make is using the “300/400-hour” requirement as their anchor point. Take as much time as you need to ace all topics. If that means clocking in a 1000 hours, so be it. This doesn’t mean you don’t set goals… just that you don’t micromanage your time to get to 400 hours.
If you didn’t put in a decent effort the first time around, and every topic feels new, start as early as September. If you feel confident about certain topics, start a bit later. I think December may be a bit too late if you plan on covering the entire curriculum and reviewing your work.
Again, every person is different, so reflect on what worked for you the first time around and improve on those strengths.
FWIW, I used the core curriculum at L1 and L2, and didn’t at all track the number of hours I was putting in. I plan to use the same strategy at L3.
 
I finally passed on my third attempt.
My advice is to make sure you know Equity and FRA inside and out. After that just be reasonably proficient in the other sections and you’ll squeek by.
 
I actually suggest you to take a look at the survey done for those who passed (Since largely only those who passed responded to the survey)
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XHHfiAGibIzwsVtpbH3VEJL76K8TjFztbUROUiLVnYU/viewanalytics
you know prior to this there was a discussion on what should be the more effective strategy - covering all grounds, or be specifics in the topics you want to score. Looking at the distribution of scores- It is quite apparent those who passed have a few specific strong topics (look at the percentage of people who aced FRA, Equity).
Maybe you can structure your next revision to this as well ?
 
I am very sorry for all of you who failed this year’s exam, and i know how you are feeling now, so many emotions coming from all directions… wanting to jump onto the next thing and feeling defeated somewhat at the same time.
HOWEVER PLEASE THINK CAREFULLY BEFORE REGISTERING L2 AGAIN!!!!!
Please give yourself sufficient time to think if you really do NEED this and if you truly enjoy what you are studying. If this is not for you, it’s not too late to give up (it never is!) so don’t get hung up on repeating for the sake of proving you can do it.
For those who do need to and want to finish the program, please also give yourself some breathing time and plan ahead and see what’s coming up next June! If you don’t think you have time to commit to it, perhaps you should take a year off or re-schedule several things first.
Cheer up everyone!!!
NANA
 
I failed Band 9 in 2012. Passed in 2013.
Did only look at the CFAI notes for the changed topics (economics and something else).
Apart from that: just Schweser! And I did as many practice exams as I could (6 Schweser + CFAI mock exam).
 
I’ll make you guys feel a bit better about yourself maybe. Band 4.
I took L1 in Dec 2006 and then went into a different job. Came back to the industry recently and decided to pick it back up. I started dabbling in January and studying a little more in March. This is the first test I’ve failed. I estimated my study time around 200 hours and that is being kind. Lack of practice problems came back to bite me on the calculation intensive problems. The conceptual questions I felt like I could reason through ok. I literally guessed on most of the calculations. I plan on starting earlier now that I’ve had a once over on most of it after being away from it for so long. I will be doing a lot more problems and not having to relearn things from 5 years ago. I will also need to prioritize some things as having a couple of little kids now amongst my other list of activities made it much harder than expected to fit in even an hour a day during the week a lot of times. I’m going to have to get a better schedule and commit to it.
I almost feel better that I didn’t study 400 hrs and fail band 10. It still sucks but at least I’m not surprised and feel like I deserve to fail.
My breakdown is as follows:
<50% : Corp Fin., Econ., FI, Quant
51-70%: Alt Inv., Derivs, Equity, Ethics, FRA, PM
70%>: NONE
 
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