Free CFA Level 2 Practice Questions for 2026

The CFA Level II exam is 88 item-set questions across two sessions, about 4.4 hours in total, with a pass rate of approximately 45% in recent sittings (CFA Institute). FreeFellow's entire Level II question bank, 1,518 practice questions across all ten topics, is free: no trial, no question cap, no signup required to browse.

I sat for all three CFA levels while working full-time as an actuary, and Level II was the hardest jump of the three. Level I rewards breadth and speed. Level II hands you a vignette with paragraphs of context, a couple of exhibits, and four questions that punish skimming. The skill it tests, extracting the right inputs from a dense case under time pressure, develops one way: working item sets until the format feels routine.

How Level II Differs From Level I

  • Format: 22 item sets (vignettes), each with 4 multiple-choice questions, 88 questions total
  • Sessions: two sessions of roughly 2 hours 12 minutes each
  • Context-dependent questions: every answer comes from the vignette, its exhibits, and its footnotes
  • Depth over breadth: the same topics as Level I, now tested at valuation-model depth
Key Concept

Level II is a reading-discipline exam as much as a finance exam. Candidates who fail often knew the material but lost points to misread exhibits and missed footnotes.

CFA Level II Topic Weights

Approximate 2026 weights (CFA Institute):

  • Ethical and Professional Standards: 10 to 15%
  • Quantitative Methods: 5 to 10%
  • Economics: 5 to 10%
  • Financial Statement Analysis: 10 to 15%
  • Corporate Issuers: 5 to 10%
  • Equity Investments: 10 to 15%
  • Fixed Income: 10 to 15%
  • Derivatives: 5 to 10%
  • Alternative Investments: 5 to 10%
  • Portfolio Management: 10 to 15%

FSA, Equity, Fixed Income, and Portfolio Management anchor the exam. Each is a full item set or two, and they are where the deep valuation questions live.

How to Practice for Item Sets

Budget about 12 minutes per item set

Two sessions of 2 hours 12 minutes across 22 item sets works out to 12 minutes per vignette: roughly 4 minutes to map the case and 2 minutes per question. Practice against that clock from the start. Untimed vignette practice builds knowledge but not the pacing the exam actually tests.

Map the vignette once, then answer

Read the questions' stems first so you know what the case is going to ask, then read the vignette and mark where each exhibit and data point lives. Candidates who re-read the full vignette for every question run out of time in the second session.

Track accuracy by topic, not just volume

A 70% overall accuracy can hide a 50% Fixed Income problem. FreeFellow's Level II question bank tracks per-topic accuracy so the weak areas surface early, while there is still time to fix them.

Finish with full timed sessions

In the last 4 to 6 weeks, sit full 44-question sessions under exam timing. The mental fatigue of holding vignette context for two hours is a real variable, and the first time you feel it should not be exam day.

Common Mistakes

Carrying Level I habits into Level II

Level I trains you to answer from memory in 90 seconds. At Level II that instinct makes you answer from what you remember instead of what the exhibit actually says. The distractors are built for exactly that.

Underestimating FSA depth

Level II Financial Statement Analysis moves from ratio recall to intercorporate investments, pension accounting, and multinational operations. It is consistently the topic candidates rank hardest, and it carries one of the highest weights.

Saving Ethics for the end

Ethics is 10 to 15% at Level II and the vignette format makes it subtler than Level I. CFA Institute has confirmed that Ethics performance can decide borderline results.

What FreeFellow Offers (Free)

FreeFellow is a CFA Institute Prep Provider. The CFA Level II question bank includes 1,518 practice questions across all ten topics, with:

  • Vignette-grouped item sets that mirror the real exam format
  • Step-by-step solutions with per-choice notes explaining why each wrong answer is wrong
  • 49 full lessons with AI-narrated audio
  • Three difficulty levels, a formula sheet, mixed practice, and readiness tracking

All free. No trial period, no credit card. Timed mock exams, spaced-repetition flashcards, topic-level drilling, and performance analytics are part of the optional Fellow tier.

Key Concept

All 1,518 questions are original and written for the 2026 curriculum year. FreeFellow does not reproduce CFA Institute exam or mock questions.

Building a Study Timeline

Level II candidates commonly report 300 to 400 hours over 4 to 6 months:

  • Months 1 to 3: Read the curriculum, drill 30 to 50 questions per topic as you finish it
  • Month 4: Shift to item-set practice, tracking accuracy per topic
  • Month 5: Mixed timed sessions, targeted review of the two or three weakest topics
  • Final weeks: Full timed sessions, error-log review, Ethics refresh

Start Practicing Today

The item-set format is learnable, but only through repetition. Start with the free CFA Level II question bank, or take the free Level II diagnostic for an instant readiness read, no signup required.