Level 2 Band 7 fail, first time posting :) question on study program

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DaniP

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Hi Everyone, I got my results and they weren’t good. This is my first post and figured in order to get through this program it’s great to be surrounded by a community where other people understand what you’re going through.
My question is all I used to study was Schweser QBank and watching Schweser videos. I didn’t open a book or read any material out of the CFAI books provided. I failed band 7, do you think it’s mostly because Schweser doesn’t prepare you enough and if I study for 2015 using the material provided by CFAI will I be more prepared?
Thank you!
 
Band 7 seems like a really good score for never having read the material.
 
Or read a lot and did not do much practices questions.
 
Interesting… I studied with some of the Schweser books along with some videos (never finishing either)… And did some QBank questions last year. I failed a band 7 as well.
I watched the videos again this year and did EOC problems for the larger topics and did some Mock exams. I passed. I did not use much of the CFAI reading, just the EOC problems. Felt like I could have put a lot more effort into than I had but I felt like I was studying constantly already and I worked 10-12 hour days for most of that time. Hope this gives you an idea of what you should do next year.
 
@DaniP,
Which ever material you use , if you can cover all the LOS/Topics, should prepare you well.
I myself never read from CFAI texts so far but only their EOC questions. But used videos from either Fitch Learning or Elan. Used Elan videos only for Level 2.
I cleared Level 1 in December 2012 and all I did was go through all the fitch learning videos and practise. Though I could attend some of the classroom sesison/webcast with them couldnt make most of it due to work schedule - but their videos do no less.
I started my Level 2 prep only in Mid march 2013 and couldnt finish syllabus by the exam time and failed as expected (Band 8 in Jun 2013). Again I didnt touch CFAI except EOC quesitons in few topics. I failed for not studying all the topics.
This time around I used Elan Videos and their practise questions and then CFAI EOC and mocks and 1 Fitch learning Mock , cleared Level 2 this time with >70% in 7 topics(85% wieght).
So all I would like to say is , not studying CFAI material doesnt fail you and studying only CFAI doesnt gaurantee pass.
But being fmailiar with CFAI EOC style questions is a must I would say.. I have seen many people suggesting to do black box examples as well (I havnt done them myself until now). Incase if you havnt done that you may try them too along with EOC questions.
Also, may be you should revisit how you did in your mocks, practise questions etc and which topics you were specifically scoring less and work on them. But nevertheless if you can and have time to study CFAI texts that would be the best choice,but again it depends on your choice and style of study.
 
Thank you for your responses. I didn’t do any CFAI EOC or black boxes. Also I didn’t do any of the mock questions on the website. I passed level 1 doing just the QBank like I did this year for level 2. I think the moral of my story is I need to not read all the text but do the practice questions out of the CFAI books. I’ll probably watch the videos again for review. Would you recommend Elan over Schweser?
Thank you!
BTW I’m sure many of you know how I feel but it is not fun telling everyone that you didnt’ pass. So I’m pretty motivated to get through Level 2 in 2015.
 
Elan videos are very thorough compared to schweser, but be prepared for their slow customer response and slow release of materials , should you choose to go with them. usually their videos and any other material comes alte for the topics that have changed from the previous year.
 
That’s good to know because I felt like for the most part I understood Schweser videos, which I should of passed if I really understood them.
 
DaniP wrote:
Thank you for your responses. I didn’t do any CFAI EOC or black boxes. Also I didn’t do any of the mock questions on the website. I passed level 1 doing just the QBank like I did this year for level 2. I think the moral of my story is I need to not read all the text but do the practice questions out of the CFAI books. I’ll probably watch the videos again for review. Would you recommend Elan over Schweser?
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Dude, why don’t you just read the material? Once you are done reading, start doing EOC and mocks exams. It’s as simple as that.
Read material + do EOC + do Mock exams
 
I agree, band 7 having never read materials isn’t bad. My guess is that it’ll be very hard to pass without reading at all. Schewesr shoudl be sufficient as reading, combined with a lot of qbank. try that
 
How do you expect to complete the CFA program without reading the text?
Read the text, do practice questions and you will pass.
No shortcuts, no problems.
 
Band 7 is pretty good seeing as you clearly don’t care nor have the determination to pass.
 
@DaniP:
I passed L2 2013 in the first attempt. Very heavy reading on Schweser notes + QBank and not so much on CFAI curriculum. I had the impression that the PM session was sort of circumventing what notes covered and subsequently found it much more difficult than the AM session.
My study mate who was working 10-12 hour day also passed by watching videos + CFAI EOC questions. We also did QBank together.
I would say the buttom line is do as much CFAI EOC questions as you can as that is the closest to the real exam.
 
When I sat for L2, all i did was Schweser notes + CFAI EOC + 1 mock… CFAI EOC is the real deal when it comes to practicing because its the closest thing you’ll see to real exam.
 
@DaniP
Your study strategy was remarkably similar to mine. I would say 60-70% of my study efforts involved making the most detailed notes I could from the video series, having the concepts explained to me definately helped with regards to my understanding of the material. My way of doing it was the following, and in this order
1) Watch and write notes from every single video, my notes consisted of the bullet points on the slides that went with the notes along with any extra instruction the instructors may have noted (important concepts, likely to be on the exam, etc). I should note that if I didn’t understand a concept, I would replay the video, sometimes once, sometimes over 5 different times until I fully understood what was being taught. I think they had about 70 hours of runtime, but i definately spent upwards of 200 hours on them.
2) About 75% of the Qbank questions to drill down silly concepts. QBank is definately NOT sufficient as a study resource, but it definately helps solidify some concepts that may have not been clear during the videos. After watching a video study session, i would do the Qbank after to make sure what I learned stuck. Doing 500 questions on a subject is useful in remembing.
3) Never read the Schweser notes, but I did every single EOC question I could get my hand on.
4) Made flash cards of all the important concepts, and stuck them up on the wall behind where my study desk was. If you’ve ever seen prison break, my study wall looked a lot like that. Staring at them every day was remarkably useful in remembering.
5) All 6 mock exams along with the 2 (i think it was 2) that CFA provided.
That’s what worked for me. I think if there’s any lesson to be taken from this, it’s that everyone learns differently. I found between the mock exams, qbank and EOC, your likelyhood of being able to reverse engineer concepts goes up dramatically.
I don’t see from your posts if you did any mock exams? I found those to be very useful in time management.
 
I failed band 5 in 2013 then passed with 6 categories above a 70 this year.
In 2013 I took shortcuts…. didn’t read CFA texts, used secret sauce and practice tests, and purchased formula sheets and thought that would get me through. Not even close.
This past year I started 3 months earlier and read the official CFAI texts from cover to cover. I highlighted thoroughly on the first read through, then went back and made an outline by hand of those highlights. It ended up being ~140 page written outline. Then I went through and made a separate formula/definition sheet(s) by hand, which ended up being about 8-10 pages. Then I did every single EOC question in the CFAI text. With about a month to go I started doing practice tests. After three tests I gauged where my weak points were then went back to the outlines and EOC questions to drill home my weak points and reinforce my strengths. From the first three practice tests to the last three, I improved ~15% but still only got ~75% as my best. From the last weekend before the test through the test date I stopped doing practice problems and basically memorized my outline and formula sheet by reading through both over and over again, trying to relate them to the toughest practice problems I could remember along the way. And I still wished I had more time come test day.
Long story short, start early and do not take any shortcuts with the readings. Do as many practice problems and practice tests as you can. The needed improvement from band 7 to pass can be achieved.
 
I don’t think you need to read the CFAI texts except for Ethics. Do the EOC questions and mocks. Memorize the formulas early so you can do the EOC’s without referring back to the text.
 
Qbank isn’t useful for L2, I would read the chapters carefully and do the EOCs, but you did fairly well given your study process.
 
EOC is the key. If you can go over it at least twice, your understanding of the material will increase dramatically.
 
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