Need Advice failed, Advice, problem, quantity, background

IAmNeil

Congratulations to all who passed the Level 2.

I failed with Band 7.

I am from IT background and my biggest problem was retaining the quantity of information.

Do you guys take notes if yes then what is the optimal way?

What mechanism you followed to retain all information till exam?

yalo

I also think note-taking is useless. When I failed in 2009, I created about 100 pages of really good notes. I may share them with the forum when I get around to it. In addition to the notes, I had about 2 months of review/questions time after I went through the material. I reviewed my notes a lot. It didn't matter.

In 2010, I barely looked at the notes I made. I only read a few examples that I wrote into my notes a couple times. I think coming from a non-finance background requires that you simply be exposed to the material more. So going for it one more time will just get you a natural fluency with the material that will help next year.

scarecrow

I think notes are useful because you learn as you write them out. doing all of the EOC questions is most important. thats the only way you really learn.

cv4cfa

I like to make flash cards of things that absolutely have to be stone cold memorized.

I find writing notes in the margin, circling things, and numbering points really helps with memory retention. It's more to do with active reading rather than note taking - I agree that notes aren't useful, we already have notes from Schweser - but the writing is useful. I'll give an example. This is from CAIA text not CFA but should illustrate what I mean.

"Managed futures accounts are actively managed portfolios of future contracts that include long and short positions in financial commodty future contracts. Manged futures contracts are highly leveraged because of low initial margin on most futures contracts. They stand in sharp contrast to commodity indices, which are passive investments, unleveraged, and invest only in long commodity futures."

So in this paragraph there is actually a lot of info although nothing very complicated. Easy to forget in fact as it is so unmemorable. But they will ask some sort of small fact from this and you need to be actively reading to remember. So...

Step 1: Number the points - I'll number the key points as I go along as so and underline

"Managed futures accounts are (1) actively managed portfolios of future contracts that include (2) long and short positions in financial commodty future contracts. Manged futures contracts are (3) highly leveraged because of low initial margin on most futures contracts. They stand in (4)sharp contrast to commodity indices, which are passive investments, unleveraged, and invest only in long commodity futures."

So by numbering this I know exactly what this paragraph is telling me and what is testable. I think write short notes in the margins to reinforce this thinking as so:

Managed Futures:
1 actively managed
2 long and short
3 leveraged
4 Big Contrast "commod indicess" - see points 1-3

By doing this I am ensuring that I every time I hear "managed futures I think of 1-4 characteristics which is generally enough to pass. This ensures that:

1) am not passively reading and forgetting instantly. I have problems with that.
2) am thinking about what each paragraph is trying to tell me
3) reinforcing memorization by stopping, pausing, thinking about how each thing relates to what I've read so far. In this example its very important to understand how Managed/Futures are different than Commodity Indices.

You can do this on note cards, in a note book, with a crayon on a coloring book. The point is it works! If I don't do this I'll read ten pages and realize I haven't really been paying attention and haven't understood anything.

So while notes aren't by themselves useful, the practice of writing them will help immensely in comprehension and retention. This is also why I don't believe in Q banks until the very end.

Houjichasan

I passed but found that my notes provided no help once I revisited them long after taking them. They were just a more condensed version of the Schweser notes, which are a condensed version of the CFAI texts.

If I was redoing L2, I would have instead spent more time on EOC questions, as many posters have emphasized. For L3, I'm going to prioritize EOC and take far fewer notes.

President1988

I passed by what seemed like a decent margin.

I took zero notes, I did make about 100 index cards, maybe more, maybe less. The cards were mostly on equations, and a few ideas that I had trouble with, mostly economics.

My problem with notes is that you really don't know what you don't know until you start taking practice tests.

So, you will end up having spent tons of time taking notes on ideas that you have down.

Also, the Schweser Secret Sauce is an excellent source for review material.

Sportsman

Notes are useful because they help you retain the information as you go.

Going back to them isn't as useful because there is already tons and tons of similar 'notes' out there. Schweser Secret Sauce and QuickSheet for example. You can get the qualitative stuff and formulas everywhere.

But it does help you to write out a formula as you are going or write something out as you are hearing/reading about it.

DSquaredSlim

I am also from an IT background. I am in band 8 . I feel your pain as you are very new to everything. There's a LOT of information to retain, considering you haven't taken a course in econ, finance, or accounting. Basically, you're doing 4 years of undergrad plus 2 years of masters in finance, crammed into three levels of the CFA program. And if you're like me who isn't working in the field of finance (I'm a web developer for a nonfinance firm), it can feel quite overwhelming. I feel the key to this is doing a lot of questions, especially EOC ones over and over. I didn't do much of the EOC questions b/c I ran out of time studying.

I am doing this again, but this time I am just reading the CFAI chapter summaries and doing the EOC questions 3 or 4 times, until I get over 95% in each chapter. I am not planning to read all the CFAI material as I think it's too much to read.

FYI, my exam results: >70% in all sections except FRA, FI, and PM where <50%. Weird, cuz it did very well in FRA in mocks. Band 8, as mentioned above.

zhaoyp

1-Take notes (types, hand written, margin, whatever) if it helps you remember/retain. You may not go back to it, or you may, but use it as a study technique more than resource to refer to later.

2-Contrary to what people say, I would read as much CFAI material as possible. (For L1 and L2, I used strictly CFAI material and passed first time around, spending 2 and 3 months of study, respectively. I am a procrastinator and was pressed for time, but if you can give yourself 6 months, even better.)

3- Do EOC problems, and when done, do them again, and again. Go back to the material with problems you don't understand, and do the same with the ones you do understand. Link the material to the EOCs, and try to think about how else you might see a similar problem on the exam, through a different angle. You may have to go over tougher material multiple times, and easier material only once or twice. I went over 2 chapter in FSA probably 4-5 times b/c I felt like I was missing things.

4- Highly recommend taking the CFAI mock exam, and purchase the additional sample tests available. Similar to the EOCs, go over them again and again, and link them to the material.

5- Have a note sheet of formulas you find along the way. This will be a good one stop shop for formulas if you do it right. Formulas you should memorize, but matierial you should not. Understand it and learn it, don't try to commit it to memory.

6- Don't let it overwhelm you. Decide in your head that you will murder the exam, and have your gun loaded on test day.