@edgarand
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Hello All,
Long time anonymous user, first time poster. Take what I say with a grain of salt, since I have failed twice. The first time was after taking the December L1 exam (God I wasn’t ready for the four months of brutality that provided) and quickly realized how much trouble I was in. I don’t recommend the December and June L1 + L2 exams, unless you have nothing else going on in your life. I was in grad school at the time as well as a significant other and couldn’t handle it all. The second time through I had about 6 months of study, but again realized I didn’t commit as much as I could have due to my split time between grad school studies and what the CFA commanded. I am finishing grad school this semester and am giving it one final go with complete focus on CFA studies (I plan to start in October). Regardless, here is my thorough review of two products and I hope it helps.
Kaplan/Schweser – I used this for L1 CFA and felt that it greatly prepared me for the exam. I used their notes and QBank, which I can’t emphasize enough for the initial level. I was able to complete about 80% of the questions in the Qbank and felt very comfortable throughout the exam (well as comfortable as you can be). Schweser provides enough detail to pass the exam, but cuts out some of the components that are either rarely seen on the exam or subjects where the CFAI beat a subject into the ground. That is the point of supplemental material though. We buy it to not read as much and provide it in less of a “textbook” fashion as CFAI books present. I also used this for the first attempt of L2 CFA exam along with the 13 week(ish) course that is 4hours per week. I felt the courses were good, but it was difficult to keep up with all the readings in order to fully get everything out of the videos. Certain assumptions are made which is expected as each minute is precious for the classroom. The Qbank for L2 I think was too easy honestly relative to the L2 format and strength of each question (within mock exams and then eventually on the actual exam I took). It seemed more basic conceptual questions and basic computations than the situational scenarios that the exams are based on. Again just my opinion.
Wiley – I used this course for my second attempt at the L2 CFA exam as an alternative. There were highs and lows with Wiley. Wiley seemed to still be building the course at times and didn’t have all the content immediately available. They were nice, short lessons that allowed you to read the material or watch a video (which was word for word the text lecture). For those like me who are a visual learner, the videos drastically helped to understand particular concepts. Their question base appeared to be extremely better than Schweser; however, I can recall there being only about 1000 questions throughout the entire course. I enjoyed the layout of Wiley and the tracking it provided. It analyzed your weak points, how you did on your end of section questions, etc.
For both levels I did the end of chapter questions from the CFAI books as I felt the extra questions helped me and provided me the format for level 2 that I needed to become comfortable with. I can’t say enough that the mock exams are critical to being prepared for the exam.
I’m a little unsure what I will go with this time around. Part of me wants to go back to Schweser while the other part says to do the entire CFAI curriculum. I’ll debate it up until shortly before the registration deadline in September to make my decision. Many have told me to go to Windsor Week, but I have a hard time stomaching the $2K in costs. I suggest everyone look into those or similar events around the country that are 3 or 5 day sessions.
Hope this helps everyone attempting to pass L2. Good luck!
