dhruvkapoor1987
New member
- Jun 18, 2026
- 0
- 0
I am an MBA with specialization in Finance. I took CFA Level I in December 2012 and passed without putting in too much effort. I relied entirely on Schweser and found the material somewhat easy. I started studying in November 2012 and took 2 weeks off from work (I work full-time and was/is not possible for me to study on workdays). With this effort I passed with a breeze (9 subjects > 70 , ethics 50-70).
I followed the same strategy in Level II in June 2013, but this time around most of the material was new/unknown for me and hence 1 month (with 2 full dedicated weeks) was not sufficient and I failed Band 8. FRA and Derivative took me down., but to be honest I did not put in that much effort in FRA as I should have, and did not even completely skim through Derivatives. So I know that I have only myself to blame for failing, but with a full-time job with a hectic schedule I could not have done anything more (apart from starting early rather than just 1 month before the exam).
I have registered for Level II June 2014 again. I have last year’s Curriculum books (untouched
), this year’s Curriculum books (after all I have read about the Blue Boxes, I guess I have no option but to solve all the Curriculum questions this time around), and last year’s Schweser. Now I’m planning to get back into the game and start studying again (with sufficient time in hand). The current strategy I’m planning to adopt is read Schweser, solve questions from Schweser and Curriculum EOCs (along with Blue Boxes of course). The subjects which I feel were not convered well enough in Schweser (after solving questions), I plan to read curriculum text for that.
Now the concern that I have is, should I use last year’s Schweser (which has all the highlights done, important points marked, etc. by me last year… making is easier/faster to skim through the text) or order this year’s books again (I know few new topics have been introduced… so for those new topics I can get a print/photocopy of the new material if use the old material).
Should I stick to using old material for faster reading or order new books for a fresh start? I plan to do all the new questions anyway. Re-reading the material from old books would save time, but reading from fresh books would force me to re-work on my notes (which will be time consuming of course, but beneficial as well).
This is the first time I am re-taking an exam in my life and don’t know which approach is better. Re-visiting old material or starting afresh with new material.
Any sincere advice on this will be highly appreciated.
Thanks for your inputs in advance
I followed the same strategy in Level II in June 2013, but this time around most of the material was new/unknown for me and hence 1 month (with 2 full dedicated weeks) was not sufficient and I failed Band 8. FRA and Derivative took me down., but to be honest I did not put in that much effort in FRA as I should have, and did not even completely skim through Derivatives. So I know that I have only myself to blame for failing, but with a full-time job with a hectic schedule I could not have done anything more (apart from starting early rather than just 1 month before the exam).
I have registered for Level II June 2014 again. I have last year’s Curriculum books (untouched
), this year’s Curriculum books (after all I have read about the Blue Boxes, I guess I have no option but to solve all the Curriculum questions this time around), and last year’s Schweser. Now I’m planning to get back into the game and start studying again (with sufficient time in hand). The current strategy I’m planning to adopt is read Schweser, solve questions from Schweser and Curriculum EOCs (along with Blue Boxes of course). The subjects which I feel were not convered well enough in Schweser (after solving questions), I plan to read curriculum text for that.Now the concern that I have is, should I use last year’s Schweser (which has all the highlights done, important points marked, etc. by me last year… making is easier/faster to skim through the text) or order this year’s books again (I know few new topics have been introduced… so for those new topics I can get a print/photocopy of the new material if use the old material).
Should I stick to using old material for faster reading or order new books for a fresh start? I plan to do all the new questions anyway. Re-reading the material from old books would save time, but reading from fresh books would force me to re-work on my notes (which will be time consuming of course, but beneficial as well).
This is the first time I am re-taking an exam in my life and don’t know which approach is better. Re-visiting old material or starting afresh with new material.
Any sincere advice on this will be highly appreciated.
Thanks for your inputs in advance
That said, try to organize your time as good as you can and stick to the schedule. I’m using TimePrep for that, got me pass L1 without a problem (no matter how easy it may seem, in the end only 40% people pass), and I got it also for L2.