If you depended on Schweser only for Level II, post here ple background, finance, advise, around, about

cross-ied

Hi,
I just cleared Level I, and would like to plan for my Level II study.
Please tell  me if Schweser alone will do the trick?
If not, how do you advise that I go about it?
A bit about your background in finance could coplement the picture too.
Thanks, and congratulations to those who passed, good luck next time around to those who didn’t.

ruchita

Schweser notes + the CFA mock exam. I felt this was adequate for me, though I’m an actuary which helps.

AndyNZ

Hi
Personally I studied the Schweser material only.
My strategy in general:
1. The topics which weigh more need more time and practice.
2. Study the material twice.
3. Practice the tests at the end of study session twice.
4. Topics/Subjects I am comfortable with need to be studied at the end.
5. While studying ‘study session’ i made short (but very important like formulas or relationships of key variables) notes.
6. After studying 5th study session, I came back to the 1st study session to see if I still remember the formulas, key points. This helps in both retaining the material in head and helps practice recall the concepts and formula.
7. For the second reading of the material, I targeted 50 pages of material to read / practice questions each day.
8. Week before exam, I revised my key notes and very important topics of FRA (pensions specially and inventory), Equity Investments (DD valuation, FCF valuation and residual income approach) and some key formula and topics of other subjects.
9. I practiced from time to time the end of study session questions of schewser notes without looking at the material. Before exam, i practiced these questions from important study sessions.
10. Unfortunately, I did not practice any mock exams or any mock exams provided by Scheweser or from any other source. Though, I would highly recommend you to do that. Not only practice mock exams at the end but also when you are half way through the material. This will definitely give you a feel of new material you still have to study/cover/practice. You will definitely know where you stand and how much more effort you need to put before sitting in the actual exam.
Good Luck in the end.

Wendy01

I used only Schweser for bot hlevels, but it feels like level II requires more than Schweser, e.g. the official CFA mock revealed many areas that were missing in Schweser. Such topics as ethics, economics and as it turned out derivatives were not properly covered in Schweser
Qbank was amazing for level I, but not that valuable for level II, at least in my opinion, mostly due to the  question format in Qbank.
For level III I am going to make notes from the original curriculum and practice with questions from Schweser.

MiniMe7

I used mainly Schweser Notes+QBank+the Live mock exam. I also read the summaries in CFAI and did EOC questions in CFAI for a couple of study sessions (2-3). Summary: 95% of the study time with Schweser, 5% with CFAI. It worked. I think the most useful parts was the Schweser mock exams and the Qbank.
My background is Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

tobeornottobe

Schweser books + CFA EOC + mock exams and you’ll be fine

cv4cfa

it is very difficult to pick yourself up after a demoralizing failure like this. I hope, however, to do just that and come back strongly next year.
I will make sure that I do all the EOC this time. I did EOC for FRA and Equities and ended up doing good in those areas. I will make sure that I do every single EOC question of every single subject. I thankfully have most of the concepts on my finger tips and hope not to repeat my mistakes.

pimpineasy

hamada.smaili … buddy did you clear level 2 this time? I hope you did because I remember reading your post back in december where you said you have already covered the whole curriculum and you will be practicing from then on … I hope you did clear the exam.
As for me, I didnt. I’ll be taking the exam again next year

anshultongia

I used Schweser only and believe in the material definitely. In my opinion Schweser + S2000 Magician is all you need to pass. I used Schweser Notes (read it 4 times), did 5 practice mocks, 1 cfai mock and some ethic questions off Q bank for level II.
I kept track of my time on excel and I legitimately clocked in over 400+ hours (i didn’t count any breaks or anytime my mind wondered off)
It’s all about taking what you have and becoming a master at it. reading through CFAI and Schweser is just to much for me. So i focused on one resource and became great at it and it paid off. Also when I study i constantly ask myself why this why that. Every number/variable in an equation I try to understand why something is being used and not just accepting it because that’s what the formula says.
It takes a lot of digging and reading but it was all there in Schweser. Also people on the boards were really helpful and S2000 explained things very well too.
You can buy Elan, Schweser, classes, CFAI material but if you dont take the time to master any one of them than you’re going to be screwed because you spend all your time spread out and each one uses different language and methods and you end up getting confused.
Also my mock scores were in the 60s and I learned the most the very last week when I was going over mocks. (that’s the one thing I wish i spent more time doing) or reviewing the questions I got wrong..
But I plan to use Schweser only again for level III too.

rohitdoshi

My CFA experience is this:
Level I: I used Qbank almost exclusively. Read the LOS, then do the LOS questions (basic), then do the reading questions (intermediate) when finish all the LOS’s, and section questions (advanced) when finish the readings. For some topics (e.g. hypothesis test) I had to resort to curriculum/Sch notes/wiki/others because my work experience and previous study didn’t provide me the knowledge; other topics (e.g. technical analysis) I just totally ignored. Then I started creating tests and do ALL the Qbank questions (yes, around 3000+ questions), one section at a time. Then came practice exams and mocks, some 1500 questions more. Passed rather comfortably.
Level II: I pretty much repeat what I did for Level I. 2 things different this time around though: 1/ I read through the CFAI texts before doing a section; 2/ I don’t have as much time as Level I going straight from Dec to Jun, so I have to weight down certain sections. In the end, I failed those that I weighted down (AI, Econ) but did well on others, esp. Equity and FRA which with some luck help save the day.
Bottom line: for level I it’s a computationally intensive exam, so doing lots and lots and lots of practice will help you memorize the formulas and crush it easily. For Level II it’s still a computationally intensive exam; however the questions presented are no more “you are given a, b, c; now use a formula and get to the result”, instead they’re now “you are given a, b, c, noise, noise, x, y, z, more noise; now determine which goes where and get to the result”. I guess a lot of people fail at the “determine which goes where” part, which is where you need to pay attention to the most for level II.
Work experience: 5 years working as an actuary, with some actuarial exams under my belt that helps a lot in level I, but not so much in level II.