justinturner

[justinturner]

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How long does this email take to receive? Is it something that could take hours? Or is it something that should come relatively fast after 9AM? Still waiting for mine, can’t concentrate on work till I get it!

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Congratulations! We are very pleased to inform you that you passed the June 2014 Level II CFA exam. 46% of candidates passed the June 2014 Level II CFA exam.Item Set

Q#	Topic	Max Pts	<=50%	51%-70%	>70%
–	Alternative Investments	18	*	–	–
–	Corporate Finance	36	–	–	*
–	Derivatives	36	–	–	*
–	Economics	18	–	–	*
–	Equity Investments	72	–	–	*
–	Ethical & Professional Standards	36	–	*	–
–	Financial Reporting & Analysis	72	–	–	*
–	Fixed Income Investments	18	–	–	*
–	Portfolio Management	36	–	*	–
–	Quantitative Methods	18	–	–	*

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Rhino6187 said:

@justinturner‌ got my results…failed Level 2. Can’t say I’m too surprised. I didn’t get Level 1 results until 1/28 so I only had four months and probably only got 250 hour of studying between all the weddings and overtime. Taking time off to study wasn’t an option because I have to hide from my job that I’m taking the exam so they don’t fire me (long story). My weak areas were quant, Econ and PM. Scored less than 50 in those three, which makes sense because I didn’t put enough study time into Quant or Econ. My attitude right now is that I know with a full year to study I’ll be able to put in adequate time and get a pass. I know what I’m up against, and I have a solid foundation in the bigger areas like equity and financial reporting. I’ll go back and put in more time next year and get the pass.

Sorry to hear 🙁  I put in 350 hours of study, that extra 100 hours made a big difference I am sure, and I probably raised my mark by around 10% during that last 100 hours (which i did in the last 7 or 8 days leading up to the test).  After 250 I was a lot less prepared.

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Wow Hobojoe, that is definitely a lucky pass! You must have gotten 100% in the 70+ areas. Sorry tkadylak, must have been close. edulima, that is impressive.

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Rhino6187 said:

Also still waiting for Level 2. I’m feeling disheartened because of that old rumor (true or not) that the longer it takes, the more likely it is you failed. 

Goodluck! Frustrating when it takes this long.  I assume that rumour is not true, but i have no proof it isn’t…either way goodluck

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Dr_Pain28 said:

Apparently they are saving the best for last… or that is what i keep telling myself every time I check and still haven’t gotten my results. This is killer waiting!

You are checking the junk mail right?  Seems extreme to not have received by now.  Also, for whatever it is worth I only received the email on my blackberry about 30 minutes after it arrived in my actual email inbox, so you might want to keep track of your inbox/junkmail instead of cellphone since there could be a delay with that as well.

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Ya i agree on ethics but i dont want to mention anything about specifics but i think with Ethics, all of the questions but specifically the last batch of questions were annoying and too narrow of a focus imo (again cant list specifics but if you recall topic those questions tested youll get what i mean).  GIPS is also an annoying subject as you pointed out.  The Ethics questions seemed to point to very little infractions with relation to the question, so i answered almost everything accordingly (despite fact there may have been lots of infractions, i am just talking about question content).  I left those till end and breezed through the other content and then just gave my best guess at end on those questions cause really it didn’t seem clear cut the answers, at least based on knowledge i armed myself with going in.

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Do Fitch/7 city 2 day in class.  It was very valuable.  Use code off this website (300HOURS), saves you a bit, ended up 300 bucks with tax i think.  I almost find this kind of thing mandatory for a semi smooth writing experience come test day.  I am not sure though if you will have to travel a bit to take it, but it you want to make a solid 4th attempt you need to change something.  Honestly i would do Schwesers 3 day plus Fitches 2 day.  That is 5 days of grinding out questions.  If you dont pass after that, it wasnt meant to be.  Also make sure to study from Schweser’s condensed books + get a copy somehow (i can help if needed) of videos even if they are the older ones.  If you haven’t been using any of those 3 then those three should make a massive difference.

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Just registered although I have used the site (and got some helpful tips) while preparing for the December exam which I took today.

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Good to see some others saw some of the same things. With the prep test (as well as Shweser’s) you were lead to believe you really needed to know your stuff and apply it, but such a high percentage of the questions were 1 sentence (many times written in a confusing non-standard way for some unknown reason) with some type of trick to the question and/or the wording. And a lot of useless things were asked (things I personally would consider minor), which is something I thought we wouldn’t see. Made me remember my other licensing exams…the ones that CFA exams are supposed to be so completely different from).

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My 2 cents are that anything helps, but at the end of the day you need to know the CFA material thoroughly. If time is no issue, and you hate reading the same material multiple times, then read the non-CFA material first, then dive into the CFA material after (and never go back to the non-CFA material before the exam as there could be differences between the books and you want to completely forget those before the exam).

Reading the other material could help for sure. It will prepare your mind better for the CFA material. But it won’t give you an edge by giving you extra knowledge, cause the CFA exam only covers stuff in the CFA material. As I said above, the main advantage is giving yourself more knowledge before diving into the CFA stuff, especially if you have a hard time reading the same material multiple times (you can go through the CFA/Schweser stuff only 1 or 2 times instead of 3 times for example).

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Thanks for the answer Zee. Yes Rhino, I was just waiting for 9AM to hit, and i received an email at 9AM but it was from Groupon…

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Thanks Hobojoe, it was in my junkmail folder…weird as all other CFA emails come through.

>70 8 out of 10 topics
50-70 Eco and Corp. Fin.

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I agree, I see the topics covered at level 3 and I hope I’ve passed level 2 so I can start learning about the subjects covered in the next level, which seem more interesting and more related to my career.

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mjrosen said:

I’m with most everyone else here. The morning section vs afternoon was like night and day. I’ve never come close to the time limit on any level and for the first time I found myself scrambling like crazy on the morning section. I guess I was writing too much. Even the mocks I didn’t take more than maybe 2.5 hours at most. I finished afternoon section in 90 minutes with a bathroom break. Think I’m going to need an 80+ on afternoon to make up for my 60- on the morning.

Ya that is like myself.  i enjoyed leaving early during level 1, level 2 and level 3 afternoon, but morning was just not reasonable imo.  11 sets of questions, i think 10 sets was already more than enough with a bit of inflation on the required minutes.  I did the written prior year exams in about 2.5 hours on average, so fact i would have needed 3.5 – 4 hours on this is a bit crazy.  The questions were not straightforward like the years before either.  On prior years there were a few questions i had to guess (1 for every 2 – 3 item sets) but this had one in almost every set i completed, plus some really time consuming calculations.  I think next year i just skip those and leave them till the end since there is no way on earth those take 5 or 6 minutes when there are 100 + keystrokes involved plus all the writing out of the numbers.

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Well…for all my complaining i did well.  Afternoon saved me..pretty much in shock  
Congratulations! We are very pleased to inform you that you passed the June 2015 Level III CFA exam. 53% of candidates passed the June 2015 Level III CFA exam.

Now that you have passed Level III, you must be a regular member of CFA Institute to be eligible for the award of the CFA charter. Log in now to verify your current membership status or complete the application process.

A summary of your exam result is provided below. The three columns on the right are marked with asterisks to indicate your performance on each topic area.

Kindly contact us if we can answer any questions about the CFA Program.

Essay

Q#	Topic	Max Pts	<=50%	51%-70%	>70%
1	Portfolio Management – Institutional	14	–	–	*
2	Portfolio Management – Institutional	17	*	–	–
3	Fixed Income Investments	19	–	*	–
4	Alternative Investments	20	*	–	–
5	Portfolio Management – Performance Eval.	15	–	–	*
6	Portfolio Management – Risk Management	14	–	–	*
7	Portfolio Management – Individual	18	–	*	–
8	Portfolio Management – Individual	16	–	–	*
9	Portfolio Management – Asset Allocation	15	*	–	–
10	Economics	14	–	–	*
11	Portfolio Management – Indiv/Behavioral	18	*	–	–

Item Set

Q#	Topic	Max Pts	<=50%	51%-70%	>70%
–	Economics	18	–	–	*
–	Equity Investments	18	–	–	*
–	Ethical & Professional Standards	36	–	–	*
–	Fixed Income Investments	18	–	–	*
–	Portfolio Management	18	–	–	*
–	Portfolio Management – Individual	18	–	–	*
–	Portfolio Management – Monitor&Rebalance	18	–	–	*
–	Portfolio Management – Risk Management	36	–	*	–

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Passed level 3, all done!

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Ya Windsor week could make sense for you, you are close by and that would be an excellent choice. I have a colleague who did that a long time ago, it used to be a huge deal and I am sure it is still good.  By condensed i meant Schweser’s study notes, probably what you have used, but they also have secret sauce which could be good for final days before exam (and even now to stay fresh and retain info).   Fitch 2 day class was great both years i did it, and really was a game changer.

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very cool, thank for this blog post.  On level 2 now, would have thought it would be more than 15% but good to know that it isn’t.

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How long until scores come put generally?

For December it is 8 weeks apparently. I didn’t know that until now. 8 weeks is a long time

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