Start as soon as possible. As you register for level 2, you get your books. so once you start raw,and atleast start having a glimpse of the syllabus across all the chapters, you will get a more better idea as to how to go about preparing for level 2.
Anyways to begin with you preparation strategy, I guess first of all define the timeline. It's gonna be one year, two years, 6 months etc. whatever be the case, please keep one month at the end completely free,take a sabbatical from work,what ever works. In case you have finished the syllabus early,then 15 days in the end should do.
start backwards when planning. Lets imagine you are in the month of June next year(2011 at the time of writing this article). You are going to sit for the exam today. Now you feel oh God I haven't studied anything. so what are the things that you would want to do? some suggestions:
- you would want to keep the last one month or 15 days free for revision and giving mock exams.
- atleast 4 mock exams of 3 hours each should be good.
- syllabus should be finished one month before, possibly two months before to plan.
And so on and so forth. so in this way you are able to decide your time line and how you would go about finishing the syllabus. In the most probability, you would be working, so planning your timeline becomes of utmost importance. keep in mind: the CFA exam syllabus is huge, by the time exam comes, you must be able to consolidate the whole syllabus so that you can bring out what ever you have studied in a span of six hours. Untill and unless you have not done your chapters thoroughly, you won't be able to consolidate, and if you are not able to consolidate, you won't be able to answer questions quickly. Planning and execution is the key, the CFA exams are not rocket Science, any common brain can clear them.
Having gone through your strategy for time allocation, the next most important thing comes is resource management. Remember, its within the time required that you must finish the syllabus, so make so sure you have set it out properly as to what you are going to read for the exams.
It would be great if you are able to read the CFA books. In level 2, it becomes very important. The emphasis in level 2 comes to conceptual clarity and thee application of those concepts.Mere knowledge won't help you here. so read the CFA books. Well if that is a huge work,then maybe at least read rest 70% which is the new portion of the syllabus and introduced in the level 2 exam. However the time constraint is high, then it is suggested that use the prep providers like Schweser and Stalla, and read the tough areas from the book,and those areas where you are not comfortable with Schweser/Stalla.
Here are a few suggestions if you happen to combine both the prep providers as well as CFA books.
1) Ethics: read from either doesn't matter. If you have time,read from the CFA books.
2) Quant: Reading from the prep provider material is sufficient.
3) Economics:Read the currency exchange part from the CFA books. Other topics:prep provider is sufficient.
4) Financial Reporting and Analysis:Reading from the CFA book is essential.
5) Equity,Fixed Income: Reading from the CFA books is essential.
6) Derivatives:The level 1 repeated portion,read from prep providers,the newer topics,specially Swap,read fromt he CFA books. Derivatives is considered tough from the CFA exam point of view.
7) Corporate finance: prep provider material should be sufficient.
8) Portfolio Management: Reading from the CFA books is essential.
Since the exam pattern changes completely, it is essential that one finishes the syllabus early and starts revising and practicing the model exams as soon as possible. To know more about the exam pattern please visit this thread:
If you have any doubt or wish to ask something,please post your questions/comments in the comments box below.
