The idea of doing EOC at the end is to brush up everything and questions are conceptual imho, am sure we have third party materials and way harder questions that we have practised too.
After doing all topic tests, official mocks and third party mocks +EOCs : I think this is enough
As far as the questions were concerned, barring few sections, questions were conceptual and as good as EOCs. Thats based on my last year’s experience.
Thanks for the insights saurabhm.
Real talk - is anyone finding the topic tests insanely difficult?
I thought Ethics was a strong area for me. I have done the first two, and got 1/6 on both. So demoralising.
Yep, it’s so misleading that they tell you to focus on exihibit x but then the answer says so and so embedded in the middle of somewhere except exihibit x.
Sexy Rexy,
I have only done the FRA and Equity Topic Tests…
FRA: i got a 34/84 over the course of the 14 vignettes…THEY WERE SO EFFING HARD. SO HARD.
Equity: I actually got 59/102 on the 17 vignettes… they were HARD but much more in line with what I thought was fair.
All of the feedback I have gotten so far regarding test questions is the following, let me know if you agree:
the topic tests are muich harder than schweser, and much harder than the real exam
the CFAI mock slightly harder than schweser mocks
the schweser mocks are slightly harder than the real exam
All of these people posting on AF with their low-mid 70s makes me nervous, but then again I realize that the sample size here is biased upwards because we all care alot about passing and all put in tons of time.
I did ONE ethic Topic Test, the first one, and got 3/6. Thought it was HARD but not brutal.
Topic Tests ruined me. Yet on the CFA EOC’S i score well and seem to understand that material well so to be honest I dont know where I’m at a. I am thinking of continuing to blast CFA EOC’s. Ignore blue boxes as i dont have time and then do some question bank stuff from my training provider in London. should probably do another Schweser mock too but they arent great.
is it Fitch ? have you try their mock ?
I am on the same boat, I did first schweser mock last night and got 54%, will review and do one tmr, wanna do it tgt?
Not fitch, using another company called Quartic. Might try the Fitch mock out though and buy it. My general opinion from seeing Fitch and Quartic stuff last year is that British providers tend to prepare better CFA style questions then Schweser do.
Yeah mate happy to smash it together. DM me your details. Wont do second schweser one till probably sunday. Want to run through all the EOC’s one more time from the CFA books
wow so it turns out the exam i did from schweser was the practice exam book that comes in the Schweser package. When you are all referring to the Schweser Mock were you talking about an actual official Schweser mock exam? I dont have that!
Guys I felt unconfident while I was doing the CFAI AM mock, I felt that I have a very shallow memory answering some questions, while the ones I answered confidently felt like they were easy because I was lucky they brought up stuff that I remember and I scored %68 on the AM mock.
I felt that if I remembered my shi% the mock woud’ve been SO easy, it felt as if they were nice to me giving me those questions and answer choices, and if the mock is much harder than the exam, then the exam should be like the CFA 1 exam, disappointingly easy given the amount of time and worry I’ve put in.
This is unsettling because it doesn’t make sense given that the exam should be hard. Was I just lucky when I did the mock exam, or is the exam easy and (friendly)?
pretty sure that’s been the universal experience. my two takeaways from cfai mock:
^^this is the most ridiculous comment i’ve ever read.
“…the ones I answered confidently felt like they were easy because I was lucky they brought up stuff that I remember” - no shit
“I felt that if I remembered my shi% the mock woud’ve been SO easy” - no shit
you’re basically saying that the exam felt easy because you put a lot of time in to studying but some parts were hard because you didn’t remember how to answer the question. are you being serious?
I will typically look at a tough set to learn than pondering over scores. You need to be at your best in just one exam,not that the rest matters.
Did CFAI AM session yesterday. Felt very unsecure in Ethics and FI but was able to get 78% overall. I am quite satisfied but have to read Ethics in the final week again and try to take more time for each question and not rush through things … However, the final thing will be unpredictable because there is simply so much testable material!
Just completed my CFAI Mock Exam with 2.5 hour per session, take a break lunch in the middle of them.
Morning : 63%
Afternoon : 72%
Overall : 67.5%
For the question i cannot get the number correctly i leave it blank so not make me ‘bias’ by lucky guessing.
Will work couple of days for wrong answer and will try Fitch Mock for my next mock.
I would say it depends on your learning style and how much time you can put in a given day. I find that I seem to get more out of a practice exam by doing it mostly open book- if I’m guessing on half of the questions, I’m not learning so much as just practicing guessing (which isn’t a great strategy IMO.) For both L1 and L2, I followed this basic process:
-First two mocks completely open book- my goal was to attempt to get 100% no matter how long it took. Keep in mind that this was going in completely cold after finishing Port Mgmt (no formal review of other topics.) I would say I was able to answer 30-40% of the questions without referencing any notes or books, but even so I would still double check just to get some extra context in. As I reviewed the answers upon completing the exam, I would make notes of the topics that I was useless on and put most of my energy during the week on reviewing them.
-Third mock, I would switch to a “reference notes/books only if unsure of how to answer” style- again, I just don’t think I learn as well if I’m guessing and then revisiting the concept after the exam. I try to pay close attention to how many questions I have to reference for each topic, and similar to before spend the next few days remediating those topics (and concepts to some extent.)
-By the fourth mock, I can usually go through it without needing to reference notes (again, judging this on whether or not I think i can answer the question, not if I get it right or not- hah.) The only time I’ll open books or notes is if I feel like I have never seen it or it’s just driving me crazy to know if I did it properly- I’ll usually try to answer it either way and keep my original choice regardless of what I find in the books/notes so that my score is a little more indicative of where I’m actually at. At this point (in the past as well as this year) I’m now focusing on granular concepts that I didn’t know how to answer as the main takeaway and value add form practice exams.
-Next weekend I will do the CFAI mock completely closed, and properly timed (starting at 9am, 1 hr lunch, ending at 4pm.) I’ll probably pick a few topics/concepts that I didn’t get right AND feel that I can remediate in a timely manner and focus on those as well as real legwork on the topics I’m strong in. I’m a firm believer in getting the points you’re made for and feel like I’ve burned myself in the past by focusing only on weak areas and not cementing the topics/concepts that I really understand. For example, today I am going to attempt to drag myself through time series analysis one final time (i cannot put into words how dry I find the quant material to be.) Any exposure to the material beyond today will be during my last trip through EOC and whatever shows up on the CFAI mock. The majority of my time will be spent drilling into the areas where I think I’ll be able to get 5/6 consistely (basically everything other than quant and FI.)
Keeping in mind that I did not pass last year (fiance had surgery 3 weeks out and it totally threw me off), my rationale for the process I follow:
I do agree that at some point, you have to do a mock exam in simulated game-day conditions. One or two should be more than enough to get a feel for timing and dealing with stress.
Good luck!
Chitown, heroic post mate. Thanks for going into the details. I agree with your sentiments. I prefer the open book style and as you approach game day trying a couple closed.
I am now just working through all the CFA EOC’s again as a starting point. Will leave the official CFA mock till last perhaps next week.
Good luck to you too
Does anyone know what the deal is with the CFAI mocks on the dropbox account? I did 2014 AM “A” because there are A and B versions and it kinda just seemed like topic tests? Wasnt numbered 1-60 either each item set was just 1-6.
Got an 87 which is ridiculous because I am not doing that well but I am kind of worried that I am just memorizing questions from the Topic tests. Still tried to make a point to do the calcs, but wondering if anyone knows if the 2014 mocks are messed up. Got a 67, 65 on 2015 PM/AM a week or two ago and I think thats much more in the range of my knowledge