Experience with Level I from Level II and III Candidates feeling, material, decided, register, 2010

invic

I have just found out that I have passed the Level II and this forum has been a good place to lurk around in times of stress and anxiety in the last 12 months, so I have decided to register and add my two pennies.

I have passed Level I in December 2010 and here are the main points:

1) I have started preparing on the 1st of August and the exam was on the 4th of December. My feeling was that time was ok, but tight.

I had devised a plan, what material I want to cover each week and I mostly stuck to it, as if you fall too much behind, there is nothing you can do about it, with such a tight schedule.
I went through the Schweser Books once, with a pen in my hand and calculator, trying to understand everything and solving all the tests at the end of the chapters. The idea was not to rembember everything but to try to understand the mechanics behind it, so that when I go through it a second time, I can focus on memorizing.

Then I went again, , through all the Schweser Books, solved the tests again (very many chapters felt brand new, even if I had read them a month ago )

The last two weeks I had dedicated entirely to Practice Exams (I have taken a holiday from work). After solving a certain sub chapter from an exam (Ethics let s say) I made sure I went to the book and reread the main points and did not just read the answer at the end of the Practice Exams.

I felt that 2 weeks was too short for the Practice Exams as I did not manage to finish all of them, 3 weeks is much better.

I had a background of finance and I very good quantitative background, as I have a Master of Science in Engineering, but I was not working actively with most of the material covered.

All in all, starting on the 1st of August worked for me, but it was pretty intensive and I have also managed to squeeze in a lot of reading hours at work, which not everyone can do


2)I have just used for preparation the Schweser Books and the Schweser Practice Exams (Vol 1 and II) in the last 2 weeks. No CFA Books, not even skimming through them, no Q Banks. Learning after Schweser means though that you will not skip paragraphs, etc. Every line in Schweser is fair game.

3) As I have started with the practice exams, in the last two weeks, I scored 58% in the first one, which appaled me and then gradually 70 and 80%. I went into the exam having scored around 80% consistently in the last 2-3 Practice Exams I had taken.


I hope it is of some help and orientation for others as well. Good luck to the December guys and gals!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at 06:18AM by Asha Greyjoy.

hw0799

Thank u Asha, this site keeps me motivated )