CFA Exam – Level 2 2011… (after) thoughts

I went into the exam pretty confident and well prepared after learning my lessons from my first unsuccessful attempt last year… but I certainly wasn’t prepared enough… I give myself only a 60% chance of passing vs 50/50 last year.

I think the exam was pretty difficult and I was surprised at the topic area coverage…

• I believe the Schweser instructors mention that anything is fair game on the exam and it couldn’t be far from the truth for Level 2 2011.
• I had not seen about 30% of the questions in any of the 3 mock exams I did (CFA 2010 & Schweser)…
• The focus is on testing the theoretical understanding and you definitely need to understand the concepts… memorizing will not go very far.
• I would say all of the new material introduced for 2011 was thoroughly tested…

All in all… a difficult exam.

I enjoyed writing the summaries and I referred to them during review. I will continue doing to do so after the exam results… hopefully I will only write for Level 3 material.

Best luck!

Update: I removed some exam information on request from CFA Institute.