How to pass L2 recommend, practice, although, studying, reading

hinsafdar

After reading everyones failed attempts at passing the level 2. Here is the RIGHT and ONLY way to pass level 2.
Before I give you the secret sauce, I passed level 1 and 2 first try (dec 2012 - june 2013) and I never scored higher than 68% on any practice exam or mock for LVL 1 or 2. I only did about 10%-15% of the qbank and averaged around 70% on the qbank. I also didn’t do any of the EOC questions in the CFAI text (although, I do recommend doing these). Time spent studying was about 300 hours lvl 1 and 400 hours lvl 2.
The secret sauce : read -> UNDERSTAND & CONCEPTUALIZE -> practice/quiz -> UNDERSTAND & CONCEPTUALIZE.
The emphasis is not on pounding out 25 mock exams and doing all 2 million qbank questions but to understand what you did wrong, review it, understand it and to read the section over again to solidify the missed concept.
I did 4 mock exams in the month of May. Morning on saturday and afternoon on sunday and then spent the entire rest of the week reviewing and understanding what I got wrong and filling in the gaps.
This test isn’t about memoriziation and brute force, which is how you probably got through your undergraduate degree but understanding and learning.
I used CFAI for Ethics and Scheweser for everything else.
Good luck and don’t make the same mistake you did while practicing for the exam as you did failing it.

giants2010

L1 passers - welcome to the L2 forum
Hopefully, you have enough sense to be wary of anyone who writes: “ Here is the RIGHT and ONLY way to pass level 2.”
However, I will say the following:
1. You cannot afford to skip any topic in L2 - read what happened to some L2 candidates who neglected AI this year.
2. You need a deeper understanding of the material and BB / EOCs are far more important to thoroughly understand IMHO.
Good luck!

Chuckrox8

pray to the sun god Ra

Dapper425

So question, if you understood it and conceptualized it so well, why couldn’t you score higher then 70% on the mocks? maybe you passed because you were really good at guessing if the answer was A, B, or C on June 1st?
Also, sweet condescension dude , the day after passing open up a new thread stating THIS IS THE RIGHT AND ONLY WAY TO PASS. You’re the best.

meghanjackson

400 hours for level 2? And you couldnt get above 68% on any mock? LOL you were probably borderline Band 10.

bodhisattva

Zinn… lol… young one… no two tests are the same, so mistakes made on the first test are very unlikely to help you on the 2nd test. However, after a certain point, taking numerous amounts of practice tests becomes costly as the marginal benefit is not there due to an overlap of material being tested.
And yes, I plan on getting sub 70% on practice exams, guessing and being borderline band 10 my way to the charter.

jonh

The CFA program is pretty good at whittling out arrogance and ego. Let’s see what happens when the OP confronts L3.

canadiananalyst

I kind of agree with the OP in that the key to passing the exam is being able to understand and conceptualize the topics and as obvious as that may sound, I feel like we become too concerned with getting through doing a certain number of questions/mocks and hoping we will pick up the concepts along the way. I am certainly guilty of this as time is always a major constraint for all.
However, in order for you to give yourself the best chance of passing, understand the concepts primarily in the reading stage of your studies and then you can get away, for example, by attempting only 2 mocks or only doing all the EOC’s just once (as opposed to two or three times as some have posted).
Then again, 48 hours ago I was sure I was going to fail and here I am giving advice on how to pass. This was just something that worked for me.

lucasg85

You have to want it BAD.  And study every day.  Go big or go home and you’ll eventually pass.

soverby

i don’t agree at all with the first posters methods..that being said, everyone has their own methods, but there are many ways to pass outside of that