Schweser Study Notes vs CFA Curriculum for 2013

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chathurabw

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Hey guys,
Some of you might get mad at me for asking this quesion now but i needed to get your idea about this. I know this is a widely debated topic and i have refered previous topics but neeed to ask this.
I did level 2 this june and whether i pass it or fail it is not up to me now. but what can i do is to learn from this and do june 2013 exam level 3 or level 2 repeat better.
We will get results by end july and we will have 10 months to prepare for june 2013. what i am asking is given the ample time should i use the curriculum. Schweser notes for 2013 takes time to be publised as i know. so cant waite untill schweser 2013 version.
if i use schweser notes 2012 there could be curriculum changes that i will have to adjust later which is a head ach.
i am uncertain about this because i did both level 1/2 with schweser and i was really comfortable with it. Did L1 in 2011 December so had 2011 schweser notes. For L2 is the same case withe 2012 latest notes. but for L3 2013 i will have to use old 2012 scweser notes which will require rebalancing later. so what is good? would like to share your expirience.
Have a niceday.
 
Cannot afford to purchase Schweser notes for 2013?
IMO, if you have over 500 hours to study, then read the curriculum. If not, I would advise using Schweser only.
Also, personally, I don’t rely on other candidates’ advice much anymore. I’ve seen first hand how… diverse (i.e. bad, inaccurate) their opinions can be. For example, so many say that the actual L2 exam was soo difficult/confusing/subjective/unclear, but I found it to be the opposite. So many candidates say that the actual exam was more difficult than Schweser practice exams, but again, I strongly disagree. Some candidates even say that Schweser is junk, and to read the core curriculum, which I strongly disagree with too.
I go with what’s tried and true and works for me. Also, I find the professional instructors’ advice to usually hold true as well.
 
WayneINTJ wrote:
Cannot afford to purchase Schweser notes for 2013?
IMO, if you have over 500 hours to study, then read the curriculum. If not, I would advise using Schweser only.
Also, personally, I don’t rely on other candidates’ advice much anymore. I’ve seen first hand how… diverse (i.e. bad, inaccurate) their opinions can be. For example, so many say that the actual L2 exam was soo difficult/confusing/subjective/unclear, but I found it to be the opposite. So many candidates say that the actual exam was more difficult than Schweser practice exams, but again, I strongly disagree. Some candidates even say that Schweser is junk, and to read the core curriculum, which I strongly disagree with too.
I go with what’s tried and true and works for me. Also, I find the professional instructors’ advice to usually hold true as well.
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The actual exam was much more difficult than the Schweser/ CFAI mocks. It’s just that simple, you seem incredibly confident and most probably passed, but you are the exception here. I was consistently scoring 70+ on most of the mocks and Schweser tests. On the real thing I’d be lucky to get 65. Quant, FRA, and Alt were easier I’ll give you that. Ethics, FI, Derivs and Equity were all significantly harder than anything we’d seen. I’ll most probably be taking level II again next year, but I would advise sticking with the Schweser notes, and then writing your own version of the notes. This helped me conceptualize a lot of things, and secure that I knew it. I still failed, but at least I probably moved from Band 8 last year to Band 9 this year.
 
I used Élan this year; I only revised for a week so I’ll be resitting :-). However, I will be using Élan again when I resit next year - cheap as chips and covered the material well. The sections I revised well using Élan notes made CFAI EOC’s and exam questions manageable.
 
If i can afford CFA registration obviously i can afford Schweser study pack. ;)
what i mentioned was that i need to study soon after getting results for whatever the level. as far as i know schweser publish their books in december. do they? so cant wait untill december wasting time. either have to stick to 2013 new curriculum or 2012 Schweser notes. so that was my problem.
Needed to know benifits of doing the new 2013 curriculum (which we get soon after registration) or doing old (2012 version since 2013 version takes time to publish) schweser notes from august itself. because i want to stick to one method from august and need your guys’ ideas about the cost benifits of these two methods.
if i go with 2013 curriculum, it will be bulky but 10 month time factor will counter that. i know its comprehensive but havent studied them so dont know about the effectiveness.
if i go with 2012 cfa notes (which is the only available set of notes by august) those will be up to the point but will be different to the 2013 version due to curriculum changes. that is my fear of selecting schweser 2012.
i am not judging. just need know your perception.
Thank you.
 
My friend, if you feel you passed, don’t listen to others, go ahead and dream that you registered for L3. But, nobody beats CFA text book and (unfortunately) you have to read textbook, that’s way the CFA is!I don’t believe in short-cuts. I am one of the L2 re-takers, hoping to pass. May be you should post in L3 forum.
 
chathurabw
- You could use the 2012 notes till the time new ones are released. Once the LOS comparison of 2012 vs 2013 are out. You should make an informed decision on what has changed vs what has not changed. So yes you could use 2012 notes, but do the ones where you are confident nothing would change. Like for example Free cash flow chapter in Equities - nothing much can change there. Once the comparisons are out, you should compare them with notes and make sure you are not reading stuffs which are not needed for 2013 exams.

Well this is how I prepared, but again I am no guarantee to pass :) I also felt what MissCleo has mentioned here. I was consistently scoring 70+ in mocks plus some 4 tests of schweser, but not sure if thats the score I am going to get in the final exam.

A different perspective always helps as you rightly put it!
 
Sooraj, thanks brother. What you proposed is a good way to tackel the issue.
 
Perhaps just use the core curriculum and 2013 Schweser. I believe the first volume or 2 of the Schweser notes comes out in September. If you order before their products are ready, they will ship out their products individually as they become available at no additional cost.
So about 2 months on the core curriculum, then you can jump to Schweser, then move back to the core curriculum if you have time. It’s wut I wud do.
 
Wayne’s a funny guy. apparently he was averaging 87 on schwesers, predicts he may have scored as low as 75 on the real exam, but claims people have inaccurate opinions. glass houses and all…
WayneINTJ wrote:
Cannot afford to purchase Schweser notes for 2013?
IMO, if you have over 500 hours to study, then read the curriculum. If not, I would advise using Schweser only.
Also, personally, I don’t rely on other candidates’ advice much anymore. I’ve seen first hand how… diverse (i.e. bad, inaccurate) their opinions can be. For example, so many say that the actual L2 exam was soo difficult/confusing/subjective/unclear, but I found it to be the opposite. So many candidates say that the actual exam was more difficult than Schweser practice exams, but again, I strongly disagree. Some candidates even say that Schweser is junk, and to read the core curriculum, which I strongly disagree with too.
I go with what’s tried and true and works for me. Also, I find the professional instructors’ advice to usually hold true as well.
Click to expand...
 
Does wayne even do anything else other than study? I was getting a serious nervous breakdown in final week of preparations, because everyone here was scoring high 80’s in shweser mocks and 70+ in the actual mocks. I was barely crossing 70s on shweser and just hit 70 on the mocks.
 
I won’t bother myself again with third party materials. If one, did those CFAI EOCs only then they should have been fine in the exam IMO
 
I’ll say it again, people like to blame the study tools used when they fail. Often, people that are looking for shortcuts use Schweser because it is a shorter read. You still have to make an effort to understand all of the topics even though it’s more concise…
I did both L1 and L2 with quasi-exclusively Schweser. I aced Level I with never opening a CFAI book (over 70% in all topics) and I feel confident about Level II this year.
To me, I find the CFAI stuff so boring that I cannot get through more than a few pages without wanting to off myself. Which is obviously counterproductive to morale, which in turn is counterproductive to studying. Do whatever floats your boat… I would recommend Schweser and then referring to CFAI when you are not 100% on a topic. And also, do not bother with Schweser practice questions, use CFAI EOC and DO THEM ALL more than once…
 
TastyLaksa wrote:
Does wayne even do anything else other than study?
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No. I would rather pass and have other candidates think that it’s unfair that I had more time to study than them, than fail and say “but I had a full time job…”
 
nvestn wrote:And also, do not bother with Schweser practice questions, use CFAI EOC and DO THEM ALL more than once…
Click to expand...
QBank is horrid. EOC in Schweser notes is pretty good.
 
WayneINTJ wrote:
TastyLaksa wrote:
Does wayne even do anything else other than study?
Click to expand...
No. I would rather pass and have other candidates think that it’s unfair that I had more time to study than them, than fail and say “but I had a full time job…”
Click to expand...
Trust fund kid? Rich parents? or just frugal joblessness?
 
TastyLaksa wrote:
WayneINTJ wrote:
TastyLaksa wrote:
Does wayne even do anything else other than study?
Click to expand...
No. I would rather pass and have other candidates think that it’s unfair that I had more time to study than them, than fail and say “but I had a full time job…”
Click to expand...
Trust fund kid? Rich parents? or just frugal joblessness?
Click to expand...
Why are you even so concerned with me? Do you often feel threatened by people who are doing better than you?
 
wow. just wow.
WayneINTJ wrote:
TastyLaksa wrote:
WayneINTJ wrote:
TastyLaksa wrote:
Does wayne even do anything else other than study?
Click to expand...
No. I would rather pass and have other candidates think that it’s unfair that I had more time to study than them, than fail and say “but I had a full time job…”
Click to expand...
Trust fund kid? Rich parents? or just frugal joblessness?
Click to expand...
Why are you even so concerned with me? Do you often feel threatened by people who are doing better than you?
Click to expand...
 
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