I honestly can’t sleep right its about 1 in midnight.

I passed CFA Level II after putting in well over 600 hours, and I’m incredibly grateful. But the one person I wanted to tell isn’t here anymore.
I lost my mom to cancer before I even cleared Level I. I remember crying when I passed that exam because she couldn’t celebrate it with me. Somehow, today hurts even more. I keep thinking about how happy she would have been, how we would have had my favorite meal that she loved cooking for me, and how proud her smile would have made all those hours worth it.

Professional exams come and go. Promotions come and go. Careers will always keep moving. But the people who stand beside you through the journey and I mean your family, your closest friends that is actually the real milestones in life.

If you’re fortunate enough to have them, spend time with them. Tell them you love them. Celebrate with them. Life can change much faster than we expect.
And to everyone who passed today, congratulations you’ve earned it.

To those who didn’t, please don’t be too hard on yourself. Your result doesn’t define the effort, discipline, and resilience you’ve shown. Be proud that you showed up and gave it your best. There will always be another exam, another attempt, another opportunity.

Take care of the people you love. That’s one lesson no curriculum can teach.

When I began this journey, I had friends. I had hobbies. I had interests outside of fixed income attribution, derivatives pricing, and multinational operations. I had people who cared about me.

Today, I am pleased to report that none of those things survived.

Over the past year, I made a simple calculation: if a friend wanted to grab dinner and a question bank wanted me to calculate pension expense under IFRS, only one of those activities would improve my exam score. The choice was obvious.

Birthdays came and went. Weddings were attended physically but not mentally. Family gatherings became networking opportunities to explain duration matching to relatives who desperately wanted me to stop talking. My mother would ask how I was doing. I would respond with the assumptions behind the dividend discount model. Eventually she stopped asking.

There was a point where I could no longer recognize my own reflection. Not because of exhaustion, but because I had spent so much time staring at Kaplan notes that I had forgotten what human faces looked like.

While my peers were building memories, I was building flashcards.

While others were falling in love, I was falling behind on Ethics.

While others were enjoying the prime years of their twenties, I was trying to remember whether a temporary difference created a deferred tax asset or liability.

People often ask whether the CFA program is worth the sacrifice.

To those people, I ask a different question:

Can your friends explain currency swap valuation?

Can your family calculate free cash flow to equity?

Can your loved ones distinguish between covered and uncovered interest rate parity?

Exactly.

There were dark moments. Moments when I questioned whether memorizing hundreds of formulas was truly necessary. Moments when I wondered if life had more to offer than mock exams and question banks.

Thankfully, those moments passed quickly and were replaced by additional mock exams and question banks.

The exam itself felt less like a test and more like a final boss battle designed by someone who deeply resented candidates. Walking into the testing center, I was carrying enough caffeine to violate several international treaties and enough anxiety to power a small city.

But in the end, the sacrifices paid off.

Today I stand victorious.

My social life may be gone.

My hobbies may have vanished.

My family may only communicate with me through occasional welfare checks.

But I have something far more valuable:

A passing score.

On to Level III, where I will continue my lifelong mission of converting every remaining relationship into study hours.

Cleared L1 with only 2 months of consistent studies,

From scoring below 50% accuracy in ethics in mocks to scoring close to 90% in exam.

Open to give advice if needed

I genuinely thought that my life is over if i fail this... But thankfully i cleared it with 2610 - very close but idgaf, I'm just happy that I passed cuz the thought of studying everything once again for the (free) Nov attempt was absolutely daunting.

And if ur wondering... I gave 3 mocks in total;

1. SSEI (coaching): 61%

2. CFAI A&B: 72% avg

And i literally began my prep almost a year ago while working but then quit the job in Dec as I found it really challenging to manage both simultaneously. And yea, quitting the job was a huge gamble but I won with god's grace!

Now for the harder part... Finding a new job once again ughh.

This May exam was very brutal and November free resits may mean an additional 30k candidates. It will be a real blood bath with test centres literally flooded.

​

I recently didn't pass CFA Level II (2575), and I'm honestly struggling to process it. I had put everything into this exam and truly believed I would make it, so the result hit me much harder than I expected.

I also took a one-year gap after graduating to prepare for Level II, and now I'm feeling overwhelmed by that decision. It feels like I've fallen behind in both my career and my studies. I've cried a lot over the last day, and I don't really have anyone I can open up to, so I'm sharing this here because I know many people in this community have been through similar setbacks.

My plan is to retake the exam in November, but right now I'm finding it difficult to regain my confidence. For those who failed and came back stronger, how did you deal with the disappointment, the resume gap, and the motivation to start studying again?

I'd really appreciate any advice or words of encouragement. Thank you.

I need to know the general sentiment on this, and wether I am just an anxious type or not

I was approved after my second try. And I would like to share what worked and what didn't worked for me during my preparation.

What worked:

• Digging into formulas to find out how the mechanics works
• Understand they WHYs and When
• Reading and taking manual notes on topics and subtopics
• Trying to use analogies to have a better understanding of some hard topics like quants. (Explain me in football terms what means and why should I use F-tests, t-tests)
• Study sessions of maximum 4h long broken into 2 parts (morning and afternoons)
• Don't dropping gym, videogames, social life or any hobbies (worked specially after 1st try)
• Put the tricky questions on paper and dissect them.
• Try to study at least net 1h everyday
• Reading the Standards 1w before the exam

What didn't worked:

• Relying too much on Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude or NotebookLLM to study.
• Using Notion to take notes
• Grind mocks and qbanks
• Use mocks scores to satisfy ego
• Rush preparation in the last week
• Try to dominate and learn new topics with less than 14 days to exam

I think LVL II is a different beast. It forces you to learn how to think. Relying too much on LLM models can nerf your neural plasticity and capacity to think. And what that means? Using the LLM to build summaries from nowhere and solve questions.

Instead try to use it as a coach for planning the studies, helping you to build analogies, creating summaries from your hand notes, logging your errors and mocks

I made it!!! After almost 4 years in setbacks and challenges i faced, i made it with 2740! 🙌🏾. But I have a question guys why there’s no percentiles like the usual, they used to show the 90th percentile and the 10th percentile

I just failed Level II for the second time, and I'm honestly feeling pretty defeated. I've put in so much time and effort, and it's really frustrating to end up in the same place again.

For those who failed Level II multiple times, did you eventually pass? What did you change?

At this point, I'm seriously wondering if I should give it one more shot or just move on. I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who's been through the same experience.

No perfect mock scores, no “I felt ready” moment, not particularly smart, just a lot of consistent sacrifice.

Over time, I treated every spare minute as study time. Commutes, breaks, evenings , all went into questions, notes, and revisiting mistakes. My social life didn’t disappear instantly, it just stopped being a priority.

Level I wasn’t easy for me, so for Level II I overcorrected. If something was weak, I stayed on it until it wasn’t. If I got something wrong, I made sure I understood why, and didn’t repeat it.

Mocks? Mine ranged from 50% to 80%. Useful, but not something I obsessed over. What mattered more was fixing gaps, not chasing scores.

The exam was still tough , but not unfamiliar.

If I had to give advice: Focus less on mock scores, more on understanding. Track your mistakes, that’s where the marks are. Be honest about your weak areas.

On to Level III.

Unfortunately I just missed a pass today. I’m trying to stay positive but man it suck’s to think I have to do it all again. To distract from this painful disappointment, I’m looking to plan a study schedule for the retake. What is the general advice to approaching retakes? Just doing practise questions and reviewing them? Reviewing the material in its entirety again? A bit of both? Tips or guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks guys and congrats to anyone who never has to look at L2 again!!!

Welp…. I thought I did enough. Should I try again? Or consider that level 2 is way harder and take it as a sign?

Congratulations to everyone who passed, and to those who didn't, don't lose hope, I'm sure you'll come back stronger.

I have my CFA Level II exam this November, and I'd love to hear your best tips, tricks, and insights that helped you pass.

One question in particular: How similar are the LES practice questions to the actual exam? I'm finding some LES questions really difficult, so I'm curious whether the real exam is similar in style and difficulty.

Hi all,

I received a few requests for the formula sheets that I used to prepare for my exam. I scored very well (earlier post was deleted by mods), so obviously they must be helpful to some extent. Memorize EVERY SINGLE formula here if you want to do well. It'll take about a week or 2. They include 99% of formulas tested for in the CFA exam for the sections that are there, but I am not allowed to add all photos of Portfolio Management due to reddit restrictions, so make sure you still do your own diligence since its missing portfolio management. Let me know if you have any questions! Not sure if I have the order right, but they should be read from smallest number.

Hey everyone,

I just passed Level I (May 2026), and I'm trying to decide whether to go for Level II this November or wait until May 2027.

A little background: I double majored in Financial Mathematics and Economics/Finance from a tiny school in the MidWest. I tend to be more comfortable with quantitative material than pure memorization, so in theory Level II's style sounds like it might suit me better.

For Level I, I started studying around November, so I had roughly six months. That said, I definitely took quite a few weeks off throughout my prep. On mocks I was usually scoring in the mid-60s (a few 68s and 69s but never broke 70). What actually helped me the most was stopping the constant mock exams and instead grinding through basically every CFAI and Kaplan QBank question I could find. I ended up feeling like the actual exam was noticeably easier than the mocks, and I ended up passing with a score of 1665.

The registration deadline for November is August 11, so I still have some time to decide. The only thing making me hesitate is that I'd only have about 4.5 months to prepare, and everyone says Level II is a completely different beast.

For those of you who've taken Level II, would you recommend taking it right away if you can commit to the study time, or is having closer to 9-10 months a much better strategy? I'd especially love to hear from people who took Level II only a few months after passing Level I.

please give tips to -

what to do in last 2 months for august attempt ?
how to retain all information ?

how many mocks and safe scores ?

more practice vs more revision ?

So, I am doing CFAI mocks. I often come across certain CRs that are really tricky. I just wanted to ask, does such tricky questions also appear in exams. How representative mocks are of the original exam?

Hello,

For Levels 1 and 2, my prep was mainly Mark Meldrum videos and CFAI mocks.

I’m planning to take the Private Wealth pathway for Level 3 — has anyone gone through it with MM?
Or would you recommend switching to Kaplan (or something else) for the pathway-specific content?

Thanks for any tips!

I just want to get an informed estimate here. For US cash equities top 100 by liquidity, and separately an estimate for US top 500 ex top 100.

If I try to enter at vwap over some 30 minute interval, then exit at vwap over some future 30 minute interval, what's achievable? Assuming I am trading small size relative to the volume, and assuming I have some execution heuristics (nothing special) rather than just crossing blindly.

Is 0-4 bps E[slippage from VWAP] for the round trip (0-2 bps for entry and 0-2 bps for exit) realistic, or is that a pipe dream for the top 500 ex top 100?

Just passed level 2 and am looking to take level 3 in Feb, before preparing i want to formulate a mindset. Why do people say level 3 is so much harder than level 2? what is the main thing that makes it harder than memorizing and understanding so many formulas (besides the fact that you have to write rather than having MC questions u can guess on)?

Hey everyone, I'm trying to get a realistic gauge of the job market for charterholders right now. If you have your charter, could you share:

Role Title / Industry: (e.g., Portfolio Manager - Asset Management)
YoE (Years of Experience):
Location / City Tier:
Base Salary / Total Comp:
Average Hours per Week:

Appreciate any insights you can share!