Practice Q's for Level 2......what should be my priority?

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Goblin

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so one month left……i am kinda running out of time for L2……done with the readings but haven’t practiced much…..now the issue is that i think i have lot of practice questions
(EOC- Kaplan, EOC-CFAI, EOC-Wiley, 2015 Kaplan mocks, 2014 Kaplan mocks, 2015 CFAI Mocks, Chapter wise tests on CFA website, CFA Blue Boxes)
but not enough time to complete them all……can any level2 pass help me out how to go about it??? CFA EOC and CFA Mock are top priority but then i am not sure what to pick.
 
I would say after those two would come the chapter wise tests online from CFAI….anything that is from “source” gets my vote. Plus, those online practice tests are pretty tough….not much easy meat there for sure….lots of little tricks in the questions that are great preparation before facing the real thing. They make you think you have the right answer…..then they blindside you!! Or maybe that’s just me…. ;)
 
I would start with one of the Kaplan mock exams. It will give you an idea of strengths and weaknesses. Then you can target the areas in which you need to improve.
 
I had to skip all questions from my 3rd party provider due to time contraints. I would think most people would agree that the CFAI EOCS are among the important questions available and while they’re doable but you’ll be surprised how long it takes to go through them. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to do the BB. My 2 cents good luck
 
I was all about the CFAI EOC at level one but with this non-sense formatting on the level 2 digital books I feel like its not worth the hassle. I have resorted to hammering through Qbank and I am planning to utilize all teh online CFAI quiz questions which I am told are excellent. Mocks Mocks Mocks of course as well!! Want to get through all 6 shweser mocks and the CFAI for atleast this current year
 
I did the CFAI EOC questions twice. That was it. No mocks. Passed first attempt.
 
Bachatero2014 wrote:
I had to skip all questions from my 3rd party provider due to time contraints. I would think most people would agree that the CFAI EOCS are among the important questions available and while they’re doable but you’ll be surprised how long it takes to go through them. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to do the BB. My 2 cents good luck
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^This. Also skipping the 3rd party material since the EOCs take quite a LOT of time to do. Even now, I’m really behind on the EOCs, BUT! try your best to go through them, if you don’t know what to do after the first minute of just staring the problem/re-reading it multiple times, just look at the answer and try to absorb it. My mistake was trying too hard to figure it out and end up not even coming close on how to calculate the answers.
My strategy at this point is to mark anything that is worth noting about the problems in red and will probably come back to them after multiple mock exams are done. The EOCs in each reading does a great job in slowly easing you into the concept. They sort of teach you step by step as you go through each problem, so you are learning a concept and slowly expanding on it as you go, which I think is something that 3rd party programs tend to not emphasize.
 
@PMS110
So you went through the EOCs twice and no mocks. That’s an uncommon strategy. Did you do that cuz you thought the eocs were the best bang for your buck? Abd you thought the mocks wouldn’t be helpful? Or were you just confident enough not your spend 6 hours per mock? I ask because im trying to looking for the right balance of mocks and eocs
 
EOCs and at least read over the blue boxes. Take it from someone who got band 9 last year, do not fall into the trap of thinking the readings with very few EOCs are not important, for those readings you need to find practice Q’s somewhere so you know what to expect. If you can do all the EOCs from FRA, equity, fixed, derivatives and corp fi you will be in great shape
 
Bachatero2014 wrote:@PMS110 So you went through the EOCs twice and no mocks. That’s an uncommon strategy. Did you do that cuz you thought the eocs were the best bang for your buck? Abd you thought the mocks wouldn’t be helpful? Or were you just confident enough not your spend 6 hours per mock? I ask because im trying to looking for the right balance of mocks and eocs
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personally I think the EOCs give you a good idea what to expect on the exam. For mocks you can do a six hour mock straight through but unless you’re reviewing them and figuring out what you don’t know there’s not much point except to get a final score. I usually do 3 item sets then review the answers then do another 3, etc.
 
I do half a mock at a time. I don’t need to sit through 6 hours at once. I do 3 hours in the morning on the weekends, then review in the afternoon. This way, if there are two ‘similar’ topics on both the morning and afternoon, I don’t waste both.
 
Dang Bobby you got a Band 9? Must have been rough. Honestly thats my big fear: performing fairly well on the exam but falling short just by a few points. So how have you adjusted your strategy this 2nd time around? Any big mistakes you made last year e.g not memorizing enough formulas or lessons you learned?
 
I’ve been doing Schweser QBanks (60 questions a time) and completed about 600 questions. I am shifting focus CFAI Practice assessments. I did several CFAI practice assessments (6 at a time and then reviewing the answers) and noticed how much more difficult it was compared to the Qbanks and probably more reflective of the actual exam. I think this is a better way to study because it conditions your brain to the types of questions you’re going to get.
After I completed the practice assessments (total of 300-400 questions), I am going to hit the mocks (Schweser and CFAI).
 
Bachatero2014 wrote:
Dang Bobby you got a Band 9? Must have been rough. Honestly thats my big fear: performing fairly well on the exam but falling short just by a few points. So how have you adjusted your strategy this 2nd time around? Any big mistakes you made last year e.g not memorizing enough formulas or lessons you learned?
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my biggest change is I am not using Schweser this time around. My opinion on schweser is they do a good job of teaching the biggest LOS’s in the curriculum but they don’t go into enough detail on many topics and skip over the finer details, which at the time lead me to believe I could briefly read through them and not learn the material. Big mistake. Another thing I would do differently is not take the weekly schweser video class with Dr Holmes. Nice guy but gives too much opinion on what he thinks you should do for the exam and what he expects to see on it which sent me down the wrong study path. My own fault.
second time around I’ve bought the elan guides and practice Q’s. Their material is so much better than schweser it’s not even close. The Peter olinto videos are the best CFA content you can spend your money on in my opinion. I’m seeing things in the Elan notes that got almost no mention in schweser that I know was on the exam last year
based on how CFAI has changed up their weighting this year I am putting a big focus on fixed income in addition to equity, FRA, corp fi and derivatives. Those five topics are at least 50% and more likely 65%-70% of the exam. Quant just know reading 10, Econ know reading 12, PM there’s a ton of material but I’m willing to gamble it’s only 5% this year and alt investments I already find easy because I do real estate valuation for a living
 
Bobby, thanks for your last post. I bookmarked it!
I’m glad to know you think that Wiley has good coverage of the content. Wondering if I’m using the “right” third party provider is a big stresser since I’m not reading the CFAI material. I used Schweser for Level I - it was a life saver! but I’m finding that I understand the material so much better this year (with Wiley) - there’s just too much of it! although it’s coming together for me.
 
I did some of their FRA questions. They seemed kind of … weak. I started getting scared because I didn’t have to pull out my calculator to solve a lot of the questions. I switched providers. I’d rather get my butt kicked now than on June 6. I like their notes though - they’re very comprehensive.
 
lammy wrote:
I did some of their FRA questions. They seemed kind of … weak. I started getting scared because I didn’t have to pull out my calculator to solve a lot of the questions. I switched providers. I’d rather get my butt kicked now than on June 6. I like their notes though - they’re very comprehensive.
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oh, thanks for your prompt comment. I am looking for practice sources other than EOCs and CFA assessments. I did some Quant and Economics questions from FinQuiz Qbank and found them fine. However, most of people here don’t recommend the source and that makes me scared…
 
TheLakeHouse wrote:
oh, thanks for your prompt comment. I am looking for practice sources other than EOCs and CFA assessments. I did some Quant and Economics questions from FinQuiz Qbank and found them fine. However, most of people here don’t recommend the source and that makes me scared…
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If you’ve done the EOCs and CFA assessments and then some of the FinQuiz Quant and Econ questions and thought they are fine, they probably are fine. FinQuiz probably isn’t as popular a 3rd party provider as some other choices because their notes are meant to be used in conjunction with the CFAI readings. I’ve heard some good things about FinQuiz, I just decided that their qbank isn’t for me.
 
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