Kaplan Schweser Cfa Level 1 Pass Rate
Barton Ostby
I will have finished FRA by the time i get Schweser then will make the switch to study from Schweser and re-do FRA QM and Econ from Schweser, i hate studying from the CFAI books. I really learn with practice problems and exams, so my goal is to finish the readings as soon as posible and start to practice.
I did not have any finance background, I was an econ major. took level I june 2011, went 100% schweser, totally worked for me, passed at my first go with flying colors! Level 1 is very introductory and I didnt feel like I needed all the boring details of the CFAI books.
Similar story here. Used Schweser exclusively for L1 and passed first try with 70+ in all categories except economics. I replicated that strategy for L2 last year and failed in band 9. I spent a LOT more time on L2 versus L1 but in the end I just could not grasp certain key concepts. Many of these weaker areas showed up on the exam, and in my opinion that is where I just could not cross the finish line into passing territory.
This time around I will use the CFAI text in spite of my slow reading pace and propensity to become distracted. In my opinion, Schweser just did not prepare me for the item set format and the unusual wording/language that L2 presents.
As a visual learner, I bought the video instruction series (not the online classes) for level 2. The examples in the videos are great, I never touched the Schweser books or practice tests. I used the CFA text to fill in the blanks from the video series and go throught the end of chapter questions and examples throughout the readings.
Firstly with the caveat that I had an undergraduate degree in economics, with accounting and finance and mathematics as minors. So I would not be able to compare myself with someone who did not have any background in this stuff. But given my background, here is my opinion and experience.
IMHO, you really dont need to go through the painfull process of reading the cfai books for level 2. The schweser notes are MORE then enough for you to pass confortably in the level 2 exam. If you really want to you can read ethics section and the portfolio management stuff from the original. These books are simply too verbose and waste tons of time with useless information.
IMHO schweser does excellent job to prepare you for level 1 and level 2 exams. I also HIGHLY recommend to supplement your schweser notes with schweser videos as they will help you loads and focussing your attention on what is important and solidifying tricky concepts. You can spend a lot of time that was wasted on reading useless stuff in cfai in reviewing the material and doing papers and questions. There is a ton of material in schweser and imho it covers almost everything you can be asked on exam day. I would like to warn you that you need to know everything, you have to know every word in schweser inside out and do expect questions on obscure or vaugue topics. It is close to impossible to know every word in scwehser inside out nevermind the original books. So strive for 90 to 95 percent accuracy and I am sure you be fine. This is my personal experience and advice. Everyone is different. So please feel free to do what you feel works best for you. You can also check out my poost on how i passed level 2 exam in the level 2 forum of this website. I go in depth about everything I did to pass and what i felt was important.
i would like to say that my undergraduate background was useful in level 1 as i had seen about 50 percent of the material before in some shape form. But for level 2 that percentage dropeed to maybe 15-20 percent or even less. So i was in the same boat as most other candidates without any background.
I feel by and large schweser does a good job for explainning stuff from a basic level and explains all that you need to know. As far as the content coverage of schweser is concerned. I think it covers upto 95 percent of material that you can ever be asked in a level 2 exam.
I also study by getting in depth of every single line i read. You can get stuck sometimes when you dont understand something, maybe because it is poorly explained or it is assuming knowledge of something that you dont really have. In those cases i would do my own research like through internet resources/articles, text books, reread the material or use schweser videos etc or even analyst forum. So I was able to clarify few occassion when i did get stuck and i prepared for level 2 without ever consulting a teacher.
THere is a ton of material in level 2 and u need to know almost everything. In such a scenrio rereading and revision is almost compulsory. There is no way you can retain all this information on the first go if you are a person of average intelligience. In such a case inefficient time used in cfai books can be used a million times more productively by reevising and rereading the schweser notes. Also the condensed form of schweser notes give more oppotunity to revise and reread. IMho one full reread is a must if you are a serious candidate and with cfai books its just not practicial.
level 2 exam is more calcultion/computation based. You need to know what goes up what goes down. find the value of this or that etc. And schweser notes and schweser eoc do a fine job in that. I also personally felt scweser eoc are well written and if you can do them twice you will be in good position on exam day.
you will hear many stories like hey i did schweser and i passed or i did schweser and i failed and then i did cfai books and i passed or the opposite. you will find cases on both side. These in my imho are weak arguments. You can need to differntiate between causation and correlation. A guy studies schweser and he does a rubbish job at it or does it half heartdly and does not put his heart and soul in it and then he fails and then he says oh i failed cos i read schweser. If that is the case sir. how come the guy sitting next to you passed using the exact same material? cos he bust his ass for it mate , he studied like his life depended on it. These arguements are equally applicable to cfai books. Hey i studies cfai and i failed arguments. I really feel this not really of uber importance. whatever you use you are not gona breeze passed these exams. these exams are hard to pass.VERY hard to pass and the guy who is willing to go that extra mile and pour his soul and every last drop of effort in it will pass. Not because he used cfai or schweser. For each of the two exams i passed i worked my heart out and when i walked in the exam i could safely say i knew almost every single concept like the back of my hand. When i got my level 2 result i actually cried like baby. Cos that moment was too much for me. The amount of effort i put into this exam . maybe i never did for anything else in my life and all those seemingly endless days relentless effort bear fruit is something i can never quite put in words.
Sorry for this farily lengthy rambling . dont want to make thigns more daunting or confusing for you. But my point is mate. if you work your heart out mate u will pass. not because of schweser or cfai.
one last point, i highly reocmmend schwese videos for level 2. they will helkp you immensly when you get stuck on a tricky concept. or you dont know what particulr aspect of reading is important or foccus on. So do check them out if you can. also DO read ethics material from original cfai books and do all ethics questions from original cfai books. For ethics is a very important part of the exam and its more qulaltitivae.
When we performed the MPS analysis for the March and April 2021 CFA exams, we realized that the MPS, 90th percentile, 10th percentile, and topic weightings were the same as the February 2021 exams, so we have grouped them as one exam. This implies:
We understand the trust that you are giving us when you do so, and will not be sharing your information with anybody else, and will only use it to perform anonymized analyses that continue to help present and future CFA exam candidates.
Do you know if CFAI not providing a subject breakdown with Level 3 results is a new thing?
How were MPSs estimated in the past if people who passed did not see their scores or distance from MPS/10/90 percentile lines? Just curious about that matter as I was under the impression that only structured response questions are not included in the breakdown, and we should see it [the breakdown] for multichoice.
When CFA Institute introduced the current results graphs format, they did send detailed results to all L3 candidates. After a cycle or so they stopped sending detailed results to passing candidates, but continued sending detailed results to candidates who failed. So L3 candidates who failed still receive detailed results.
Anyone else get an email from CFAI congratulating them on recent exam success and to sign up for the next level? Maybe some type of glitch in their system that accidentally released the most recent exam results from the May window?
If people ask for it, I do try and comment and evaluate submissions, but it would not be possible for us to do every submission as it is not done automatically. I try to include whatever insight I can though!
Goodmorning everyone
I have passed level 3 and I am very happy but there is no indication of MPS and not even a specific topic for topics unlike the other two levels, how do you do the estimation? What data should we give you?
and I sent you my results to your email res...@300hours.com, could you please assess it and guide me if retabulation may work regarding my results which is almost on the MPS line for May level 1 !!?
thanks dear Zee
I could not understanding how the candidates know their exam contents are different with each other. My guessing is unless they disclosed the exam contents with each others. However I think this is also violated the CFA professional codes and ethics.
We will estimate MPS scores some time after the exam results are released. If you want to help us on this, just send your PDF result to res...@300hours.com. Your results will of course only be used for analysis purposes, and never be shared with anyone else.
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