Its been, perhaps, a quarter when I last wrote here.......
Life has gone through a lot in these past few months.....
Some of the major developments include :
i) Opening a Company
ii) Passing CFA - Level 2.
The latter being the centerpiece of this post.
CFA Level 2, as I would like to put it, is by far the toughest exam I have been through (rather "luckily through").
Before I proceed, I want to make a mention here that though I enrolled for the Level-2 exam way back in February, I started to prepare for the test only in the first week of May which apparently made the exam seem grueling to me.
Initially when I started to study, the Level- 2 curriculum seemed relatively less in quantity to Level -1 curriculum. I chalked out a very ambitious study plan of finishing the entire thing in eighteen days.
But as I went on with the things, everything (trust me, everything) began to take longer than planned. Every concept was a journey embarked upon and every day had deadlines missed.
It was Frustrations Galore.
After three weeks of preparations (and two weeks to final-cut), concepts had only reached the stage where they were semi-dark and abstruse.
At Level- 2, CFA Institute asks you questions by putting forth you 20 Vignettes (mini-cases) and the information in the paragraphs is to be used to answer six questions which follow every vignette.
The good part of this vignette thing is if you're good with a particular concept you're more or less certain of getting all six right, but at the same time the flip point is if you're bad you're more or less doomed to get all six wrong.
So, as they say it, it is wise to practise a few Full Length Exams before you appear for the final exam. Nonetheless, I too followed this advice.
During my fourth week of study and the last as well, I only did practise and a lot of vignettes, helping me acclimatise for the storm to come. This week was perhaps the most decisive one, as I learnt the art of acing the vignettes, finding out relevant information from the data given, making intelligence guesses and above all realising which concept is testable and which is not.
As with the Level- 1 exam, Level- 2 exam also depends a lot upon your ability to get hold of indispensable concepts (though all the concepts are indispensable yet there are a few you're almost certain of seeing in the exam, like Cash Flow Statement Analysis at Level-1, Return Concepts at Level-2 etc.).
I want to avow here that I studied for a fraction less than 5 weeks and this is what made my brain sore and my appearance washy.
If I have to offer my few cents on the preparation strategy, it would invariably be spending "TIME". Spend a lot of time grasping the material, it is lengthy, it is burdensome. Yet at the same time, it is interesting, highly practical and utterly industry oriented..........
The essence of the post is that though there is a lot of hype related to "invincibility" of CFA- Level 2, yet I believe it is absolutely doable, just hold fast to your game plan (there is no "cookie-cutter", one size fits all kind of study plan, everybody has of its own) and keep in touch with someone who is also preparing for the same....
I am a believer in the philosophy of "hard-work pays" and wish for all those who put the required diligence to come out victorious as I did, or as I put it, luckily did :-) .....
Me,
Shekhar Dutt.
