L2 “Calculate” LOS Tally

Question

I recently had a friend who is completely oblivious to the struggle that is the CFA exam and asked, "How math-y is it anyway?". It brought up a good question that I hadn't thought about in a while, which is how may LOS (Level II) actually ask you to calculate something (as a command word). Of course you have to analyze, interpret, estimate and so on, but I think this could help those of us who need to focus our studies on the more quant heavy areas. So I tallied them up. It's prob important to remember that not all LOS are created equally ("calculate PBO" versus "calculate P/E" count for the same here!).

Total LOS with the command word "Calculate": 91

Broken out by area (arranged from greatest to fewest):
Equity - 27
Quant - 12
Derivatives - 11
Corp Fin - 10
Port Mgmt - 8
Fixed Income - 7
Alt Inv - 6
Econ - 5
FRA - 5 
Ethics - 0

Broken out by reading (Top 9)
Market-Based Valuation: Price and Enterprise Value Multiples (Reading 37) - 9
Discounted Dividend Valuation (Reading 35) - 8
Portfolio Concepts (Reading 57) - 7
Correlation and Regression (Reading 11) - 5
Currency Exchange Rates: Determination and Forecasting (Reading 14) - 5
Swap Markets and Contracts (Reading 54) - 5
Time-Series Analysis (Reading 13) - 4
Mergers and Acquisitions (Reading 29) - 4
Residual Income Valuation (Reading 38) - 4

The top 9 readings comprise over half of "Calculate".  My apologies in advance if I made any mistakes in the above tally. I don't know if anyone will find this helpful, but I do know there are some readings I intend to revisit to I am not blankly staring on exam day :)

Sophie Macon · Answer

Thanks for sharing @Jim‌ ! A good way to answer your friend's question certainly. And also points out to common weak spots in Quant, Derivs and Equity sections.

How's studies coming along?

Jim · Answer

FRA has a lot of "Explain" commands, which can be tricker (at least to me) than calculating for that section (e.g. explain how increasing X affects financial statements/ratios).