This is about topics that I found challenging across levels. In order to keep it short, only top 3 topics.
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Derivatives at level II and III. Level II was more intense i guess. The major reason being, no matter how hard i tried derivatives is simply not my thing, It may be easy to score once you get the hang of it and it did seem logical but nah I cannot grasp the subject. 50-70 is my best at level II after a lot of effort.
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Financial reporting at level II. The reason is it is illogical at times. The IRFS vs GAAP , goodwill etc etc made life miserable as did multinational ops ,pensions. I did manage to score >70 at level II but never took a liking for it.
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Fixed Income level III. Its a challenging topic and Yield curve strategies is really hard to understand, lots of moving parts and that epic BB example, its a book in itself.
There are other topics where I sort of never got going, Quants at level II and Alternative Investments at level II. The latter because it was the main cause for Band 8 
I didn’t give it the importance I should have.
That’s it.
L3 for me personally wasn’t hard. I’d say the hardest part is learning how to answer the essays in the right format. I don’t think the material is too hard either. The real difficulty obviously lies in the fact that they can ask you whatever they really want about whatever stupid nuance they feel like.
Looking back at it, L2 wasn’t that challenging either. Nothing was really challenging once you learn how to study it properly.
I miss the studying days honestly.
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level II - FRA Eriksson TT if I recall? nightmarish LOL! can laugh about it now… FU Eriksson!
i have to agree with this. first time writing level 3 but after going through the entire curriculum about twice as well as magician’s mocks i feel quite confident by now.
i would say studying was prolly the worst time in my life. i cant even remember what was hard. its like i blocked it out of my memory and pretended it never happened.
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The level III curriculum is interesting no doubt and yes essays require lots of practice. Speaking of practice, what would be optimal sources of practice questions for both essay and PM. My list is
Blue Box examples, EOC Questions, Topic tests and MM. I have Finquiz but the response to Finquiz here is not so good. What about Konvexity practice tests and Questions? What else ?
For practice exams, CFAI mock, Past AM exams, MM mocks. What else can be added?
I hope to cross the finish line this year, Going over the curriculum twice, wow that’s something
Good luck to all! I’m worried it’s going to be so competitive and push up the MPS because of the extra time I would guess on average each candidate could add another 150 to 200 hours of studying mostly on practice and solving questions, hopefully my thoughts are biased but even self reflecting I’m doing a lot more extra than if we had wrote in June, doubling the curriculum, extra questions that we probably wouldn’t have even touched etc… hopefully it just creates a wider gap but who knows… just more motivation to make sure we’re in the top half! Good luck!
This line of thought is interesting. For me though, I will put in my best effort and leave the rest. It would affect my performance if I thought of how well prepared other candidates could be.
When’s the exam?
For me the most challenging part was the personal wealth parts in L3 and financial accounting stuff on L2. What a nightmare but cool once you understood it.
Think you don’t have to worry too much abt the MPS shooting up. Have seen my fair share of candidates who slacked during this period 