Cfa Program Curriculum 2017 Level Ii Volumes 1 6

What the CFA Program Curriculum 2017 Level II Volumes Actually Look Like

You're holding six thick books. That's the 2017 Level II curriculum from CFA Institute. It covers economics, quantitative methods, ethics, financial reporting and analysis, corporate finance, equity investments, fixed income, derivatives, alternatives, and portfolio management. Each topic gets roughly 50 to 120 pages depending on how much they decide to stuff into it that year. The total page count across all six volumes lands somewhere around 1,800 to 2,000 pages of dense textbook material. The volumes aren't organized by traditional subject in a simple way. Volume 1 starts with economic topics and quantitative methods. Volume 2 moves into ethics and financial statement analysis. Volume 3 picks up with corporate finance and equity. Volume 4 covers fixed income, derivatives, and alternatives. Volume 5 continues with more advanced equity and begins portfolio management. Volume 6 wraps up with the portfolio management section and some remaining topics. The exact order shifted slightly across different print runs, so check the table of contents inside. What the curriculum actually gives you is a combination of reading text, learning outcome statements at the front of each chapter, end-of-chapter problems, and solution manuals with full working. The exam draws heavily from the readings and the example problems. The LOS (learning outcome statements) tell you exactly what level of knowledge they expect. Remember to read those first before diving into the chapter. They cut the noise significantly because most of the fluff in these books doesn't show up on the actual exam.

How to Actually Use These Books for Studying

Most people buy the curriculum or borrow it from a library and just start reading cover to cover. That approach wastes a lot of time. The curriculum was written as a reference document first and a study guide second. It's comprehensive but repetitive, and some sections go much deeper than the exam requires. The efficient path is different. Start with the LOS for each chapter. Read them quickly. Then skim the chapter to find where the exam-relevant material lives. In FRA, for example, the actual content you need to know for the test is concentrated in the first 60 percent of the chapter. The last portion gets into edge-case disclosures and obscure accounting standards that show up maybe once every three years. For fixed income, the mathematics-heavy sections like bond math and duration calculations are where the time needs to go. You can skim the conceptual portions of derivative topics without losing much. I spent about 10 hours per book during my Level II prep, spread over three weeks per volume, but that was with a focused approach. Reading passively took me over 40 hours total and I learned far less because my attention drifted through pages of irrelevant detail. The difference came down to targeting problems first and reading to fill gaps instead of reading everything to find what matters.

A Real Problem I Hit With the 2017 Curriculum

Here's something that caught me off guard and I didn't see it mentioned anywhere: the 2017 edition has a known inconsistency in the FRA section around IFRS versus US GAAP treatment of inventory write-down reversals. The curriculum explains IFRS allows reversal of inventory write-downs and US GA AP does not, but the example problems in one of the later chapters apply the US GA AP rule in a question where the prompt context clearly implies an IFRS scenario. I noticed this when my calculated answer didn't match the solution manual for a straight LCM (lower of cost or market) problem involving a subsequent recovery in inventory value. The workaround was simple enough. I flagged every FRA problem where the jurisdiction wasn't explicitly stated, listed which inventory treatment rule I was applying, and then checked the solution's final answer against both rules. If the solution matched one rule but not the other, I marked that question as jurisdiction-ambiguous. This only affected about 5 to 7 questions across the entire curriculum, but getting them wrong during practice because of this confusion would have cost real points on exam day. The CFA Institute eventually issued errata notes, but the printed books don't carry them visibly. You have to look up the errata separately on the CFA website.

Download and Access Considerations

The official curriculum is available for purchase directly from CFA Institute. They also offer a digital bundle that includes the reading materials plus question bank access tied to your candidate account. The paper set runs for several hundred dollars if bought new, though you can often find used copies at lower prices from people who finished the exam. Download links that pop up on unofficial sites are usually pirated PDFs. Using those carries real risk: copyright issues, potential malware in downloaded files, and no guarantee the file is complete or matches the official text. The digital version from CFA Institute is the cleanest route if you prefer studying on screen instead of paper. If you already have the physical books and want a digital companion, some third-party providers sell formatted PDFs that are easier to search and annotate. Those are legal if purchased through authorized resellers. But searching for a free download of the full six-volume set will lead you toward sketchy sources. I stopped looking after the first couple of cracked sites started redirecting my browser to cryptocurrency scams. Not worth the hassle for what you actually need.

Counter-Intuitive Things About This Curriculum

One thing most candidates miss is how much the ethics and FRA readings overlap in their testing style. Both sections rely on scenario-based questions where the correct answer depends on subtle wording choices. The curriculum reads differently from other topics because it uses narrative examples rather than pure calculation. You can't just memorize a formula and move on. You have to understand the reasoning behind each disclosure requirement or ethical standard. This means practicing with scenario questions early instead of saving them for later. Another overlooked detail is how the curriculum treats certain derivatives topics. The 2017 edition puts a heavy emphasis on forwards, futures, options, and swaps, but it assumes you already know basic probability and statistics from Level I. If your quantitative foundation is weak, the derivations in the fixed income and derivatives chapters will feel like they appear out of nowhere. The book doesn't re-teach those fundamentals. Candidates who skimmed quant methods in Level I ended up spending twice as long on those sections in Level II because they had to rebuild the math from scratch.

When the Curriculum Falls Short

The curriculum is authoritative but slow to update. The 2017 edition predates some newer standards and guidance that have been released since. FRA has seen revisions in revenue recognition and lease accounting after 2017. If you're using the 2017 books, you'll need to cross-reference with any updated learning modules or supplemental materials from CFA Institute to cover those changes. The exam may still draw from the curriculum as written, but the question pool sometimes reflects newer guidance that the book doesn't mention. Another limitation: the curriculum doesn't include many of the concept-check questions that appear in commercial review courses. If you rely solely on the curriculum problems, you'll have fewer practice questions than most candidates. The question count in the books is decent but not exhaustive. Pairing the curriculum with a question bank from a review provider fills this gap without replacing the need to understand the source material. The volumes work best when treated as a primary reference and study base rather than a self-contained course. Read strategically, practice actively, flag ambiguous questions, and don't trust any single unverified download source. That's the practical approach that makes these books actually useful instead of just something you own and rarely open.