How many hours did you put in level 2?

CFA Level II
#21

I disagree, you can make the case for 1 being a memorization test but not really for 2.

#22

The first time I took Level 2, I put in about 200 and failed.

I took it again the next year, and put in about 400. I aced it.

So, in total, about 600 hours. (the material didn’t change much from year to year).

#23

lol sorry for the mess I made - i actually charted it out on excel but forum format didnt accept it lol

#24

Retaker. put in approx 300 hours.

#25

I’d say memorizatin + common sense

Most of the questions test:

  1. applying 1 to 3 formulas and figure out the direction of the result wrt a benchmark

  2. flipping 1-3 times of a given ratio / concept etc…

  3. figuring the impact to something from some change in somethng else…

  4. obscure concept knowledge

so:

1-3) memorization + common sense: can be accomplished with memorizing a few key facts, few key ratios and relaionships and some common sense. For instance once you memorize a fact like COGS is higher under LIFO, its pretty easy to derive the impact to all ratio, the IS, BS and CF if you memorize the basic FRA concepts and ratios.

  1. pure memorization

Can you give an example of where you need more than that?

#26

600

#27

i would agree with this. I started early in order to have multiple reads to really understand the concepts. Still it might not have helped. Over 450 hours.

#28

Reading about all effort you guys put into L2, I feel crappy. If I failed, at least I will know why. Lazy bastard!

#29

Yes–you need to be able to READ and INTERPRET the QUESTION, and ANSWER the QUESTION that is ACTUALLY ASKED.

For example, if somebody asks, “How many hours did you study?”, and you answer something like this:

…then you will probably fail the exam.

Just saying.

#30

~350 hours …starting early February. December 2012 L1 taker, started to study for L1 in early September 2012 (~250 hours for L1).

#31

If you follow the entirety of the thread, you can see that (s)he is responding to another post (post 21), and therefore not trying to answer the question posed in the title of the thread.

If we look at post 17, we can see that (s)he has already answered the question posed in the title of the thread, with post 21 being a response to some of the comments made in post 17.

Hope you read the entire vignettes during the exam before making judgments and responding. Just saying.

(Although, real talk, I didn’t read every single thing in the vignettes. Probably failed as a result.)

#32

I put in about 200 and punted on a couple of topics. I was definitely underprepared but knew that. I don’t have more time to give work/family etc.

#33

in all this APPARENTLY serious discussion…i want to say something…CFA shareholder, ur cute :stuck_out_tongue:

#34

things just got awkward

#35

family takes backseat from march-may

#36

I put in about 150 hours. Barely passed.

I got derailed for two weeks in May (2010) for the birth of my second kid.

Another focused 40 (closer to 200) would have been better. I was all about quality of study, not quantity.

#37

hard to tell, not all hours are productive. cfa says 300 hours but thats assumed perfect productivity i think, which is rare

#38

Some guy claimed he studied for 3 days for L2 and passed!

sacrilege! i say!

#39

Do you guys use a timer…or just say “im starting at 5pm”…go til 9pm and say it was 4 hours? If it’s the latter, I would assume there is lolligag time.

#40

Starting from 5 months prior to the exam, 2-3 hours a day, and 5 hours over the weekends. That adds up to 15*4*5=300 hours.

Starting from 2 weeks prior ot the d-day, 10 hours a day (relaxed during weekends), that’s 10*5*2=100.

So totally 400-ish