anish

i think many topics might seem easy at first, and you might even cruise through the readings, but one you start solving problems, either in EOCs or in the mocks, you'll realize there's a lot more depth to it than just looking at some definition and mugging up a formula

ba736

In addition to the above, derivatives take time to master.

NakedPuts

It really depends on what your background is going into the exam. Personally, I struggled the most with derivatives, pension accounting, and accounting for foreign subsidiaries (current method, temporal method, and adjusting for hyperinflation). It seems like anything where there is a clear distinction between IFRS and US GAAP accounting was a pain to keep everything straight.

Unforseen

I had all the swaps down cold but still couldn't manage to answer a single question correctly when doing interest rate swaps in different currencies, there just seemed to be too many moving parts

dmrktrading

Swaps are miserable, quant can be a moving target but it's hit or miss.

svgleeson

i believe the most difficult vary depend on individual background & interest

some people said derivative is tough, but i found it quite ok to me

i spend lesser time in ethics, probably i found that no matter how much effort i put in, my score in this subject is still maintain at an optimal level, hardly improve from this, and you can never be very sure & confidence you are getting the right answer in the exam, relatively compare to others subject

AI has the lowest examable value to me, the material that you need to study is wide, not easy to digest, various topics likes commodity, property, private equity, hedge fund... need to cover, and yet it has only one vignette

i like economy, so i dont have pressure to study it even though is only 1 vig

QM is scorable, as long as they dont ask so many question on time series

& to pass, we must make sure we cover FRA and Equity well, coz these 2 add up can be 10 vignettes, 50% of the exam marks, i doubt someone can pass if he did poorly in these 2 subjects

himanshumh

Well I went through *reading* 11 and I feel like most of it was pretty simple. I didn't quite grasp the ANOVA stuff as well as I did the other stuff, but I get the general idea.

Reading the blue box examples is very helpful to clear things up.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Saturday, August 20, 2011 at 09:55AM by 99 cannon sloop.

adehbone

99 cannon sloop Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well I went through *reading* 11 and I feel like
> most of it was pretty simple. I didn't quite grasp
> the ANOVA stuff as well as I did the other stuff,
> but I get the general idea.
>
> Reading the blue box examples is very helpful to
> clear things up.

Quants isn't necessarily "too difficult", but it is VERY dry material, imo. I barely studied that area and (not surprisingly) scored < 50% in that section of Level II. FYI- Reading 11 is just a warm-up for 12 and 13, so it's not supposed to be very difficult to comprehend. Time-series analysis is probably the hardest part of that area.

I think biousia's comment hit the nail on the head a few posts back -- if you want to know the "hardest" sections of Level II, those are probably the ones that stand out.

stockjaguar

You might be better off not studying quant or just covering it lightly -ONLY if you have the other topics down. Ofcourse it could be your luck and they test you heavily on that section.

I wouldn't bother with it for the exam. Read it leisurely later and you will have a better grasp/understanding of the topic.

brain_wash_your

what you need to know about quant is so superficial anyways! dont worry too much