Hi everyone. Anybody take this months level 1 exam? Thought on it compared to upper mark database questions? Thanks
From my experience UpperMark questions were more difficult.
How’d it go guys? I felt it was a fair test overall; took guesses on more questions than I thought would. If I fail, it’ll only be due to not putting in the requsite hours. The test was balanced IMHO. No complaints overall.
We’ll find out how I did.
i don’t think that i put in the requisite hours but still thought that it was easier than upper mark and think i could definitely pass. expected it to be more calculation-intensive than it was interestingly.
Yes, I agree. Easier than Uppermark. I scored only 63% on their mock and 70% on the CAIA mock. I’m worried about all those questions (and there were quite a few!) I took random guesses on. Good luck with your test results.
I thought the exam difficulty was at par with the Schweser sample exams. It was way less challenging than the level I of the CFA and FRM exams. I was also surprised with how few calculation required questions there were.
Good luck!
Regarding Kaplan, I used their materials exclusively (didn’t even open the official text, though I do own it…looking back, it definitely would have helped) and passed with about 300 hours of study (68% average over the three Kaplan practice exams). Though I found the questions in the real exam to be more challenging than Kaplan’s, it seems as though my absolute score (though not provided) must have been higher than 68, given two 15-20 “higher”'s and two 5-10 "lower"s (so probably a bottom-quartile pass…que sera, sera). I have never worked with alts in any capacity, and knew less than nothing about hedge/PE or anything else in the curriculum going in…which is precisely why I am pursuing this charter (can’t speak for others). To that end, it’s been great so far, and I look foward to Level II.
p.s. regarding its difficulty level, a friend of mine who took Level I prior to what was apparently a major recent revision (in 2012) states that there is no comparison between the exam then and now (based on his brief review of current Kaplan materials)…still likely easier than CFA/FRM (certainly less to remember), but definitely not what it apparently used to be (I’m not going to lie–I found it extremely challenging). On to Level II…
Does your friend say it is easier now or harder now?