When I started studying for the level 1 exam I had 220 days for study, revision and exam practice. From today I only have 126 days to do the same for level 2. Once I get the books, I will need to hit the ground running and not stop until exam day. Here is a rough draft of how I plan to tackle it:
The curriculum should arrive by February 16th at the latest. Before then I need to complete SS1 which is available online. I have decided to primarily use this to study. Even though it is longer than study notes, I feel safer using the curriculum. Of course, I may change my mind if there is too much material to cover..
I want to leave myself with 3 weeks to review the material and do sample and practice exams. This leaves me with 13 weeks to go over the 17 study sessions.
Based on the number of readings in each study session, I have set a goal of finishing certain study sessions by a certain week. (I plan on finishing SS2 by the 22/2, SS3&4 by the 8/3, SS5,6,7&8 by the 22/3, SS9&10 by the 29/3, SS11 by the 3/4, SS12&13 by the 19/4, SS14,15&16 by the 3/5, and SS17&18 by the 17/5).
Although I was disappointed with the analystnotes website going down for a couple of days in the week leading up to the exam, I plan on using it again for the questions. I will use their notes when I find the concepts in the curriculum hard to comprehend.
To pass this exam, it will be critical to stay on track and not slip up. I may become pretty unsociable in order to achieve this but it is only 4 months and the reward will be even greater than the reward from passing level 1. I will use analystforum to help keep me on track.
What do you think about this schedule? Is it doable? Or am I being overambitious by sticking to the curriculum? How are you planning on studying?
For now though, I will slowly go over SS1 and enjoy the weather while it is great.
126 days until the level 2 exam.
8 comments:
Good luck, and try to keep us updated as much as possible, though I'm sure it will be hard to post...
Secret Sauce may be worth the $100 bucks given your condensed time frame. I'm a L1 09 candidate, so this is just me throwing my 2 cents out there... no experience w/ L2.
It's good that you actually have a target date for each of the study sessions. Really helpful given a tight schedule such as this. How do you derive the target date for each study session though? Is it based on the number of pages?
I actually made it before I got the books. I looked at the study session outline on the CFAI website and looked at how many readings there were in each. I based it on that.
I didn't take difficulty into account which could be a problem with quant and equity (I've heard those are the toughest subjects). But I have started a week early so I have a small buffer to work with.
I was in your spot a year ago. I passed LI after spending 7 months studying and tried to do LII in 4 months prep. I wasn't successful and am feeling much better this time. My advice is that IT IS DO ABLE. For me, I feel like I burned out in May and just couldn't focus anymore. I was tired of studying and just wanted a break. I couldn't keep my focus in May even though it was mission critical at this point. So whatever you can do to avoid that experience is what you should figure out! Goodluck!
Hi, my study materials arrived in Decemeber and I had been studying off and on. But my Schweser materials arrived on 10th Feb, 2009. I took lot of breaks, played on-line games. Peggle from pop cap was super. Now I am done with the video cds which cover all SSs in 2-3 hours. Now I am revising and doing practice problems.
How is your prep?
My study's going ok. I'm falling behind like I did for level 1. I'm going to try and get some time off work soon so I can catch up.
Haha, you shouldn't have written that. Now I'm gonna have to see what peggle is..
Good luck with your prep
I found AnalystExams.com to be helpful. It provides a quick overview of many topics pertaining to the CFA exams.
If you have an iPhone, I found the CFA Formula app to be useful. I used it for L1, and now I got the L2 version.
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