CAIA Uppermark Qbank Scores

Hey Guys,

I’m writing L1 in a few weeks and was wondering if my Qbank UM scores were adequate. I just passed L1 CFA so i haven’t committed nearly enough time as i would’ve preferred to this exam.

In any case i’m scoring in the low - mid 60’s and i have yet to do the CAIA mock so no scores there.

Is this enoughish?

p.s coming from CFA - the resources provided by the CAIA association to prepare candidates are really quite inadequate…

Hi,

I writing the L1 exam in september too, but without your cfa experience.

I had the same question before posted in this forum, not much feedback on that. I score something around 75% in average on the uppermark q bank, but have significant lower scores in the mock exams.

So I am not sure if a low 60 score in uppermark q bank is sufficient.

Thanks for the response,

I don’t think many people do CAIA so the candidate pool is just really small… for example the CFA subreddit has 17000 subscribers and the CAIA one has 200. So i guess it’s hard to find answers to all of these questions.

It’s my first pass through UM and i have read less than half the material so i’ll just keep at it until the exam

Cheers

Hey Guys,

I’ve now completed the CAIA mock and scored 72% - although i have yet to read real assets so i guessed many of them.

What’s a good mock score to give yourself a strong chance of passing?

@eddyble - For Level I I would say 80%: really strong/you got this, 75%: looking good, 70%: bubble

70% is a passing score and there is likely a curve, but I would hedge 5% to factor in exam day anxieties, test center quirks, etc.

Really?!?! 70% is the passing score? Surely the MPS would be lower than that right? CFA is estimated to be ~62 - 65 or something. Also with CAIA historical pass rates hovering between 60 - 65% it would stand to reason that the MPS if anything is even lower than that no?

Either way, definitely need to hit more mocks - is there any way to get old CAIA mocks?

@eddyble - 70% is a guaranteed pass, no matter what. Like I said, there’s likely a curve, it’s just that no one knows what that will be. My instructors always said to target 75%-80% in the mocks (again, hedging ~5% to account for exam day anxieties and quirks) to be safe and sure. If you are scoring mid- high 60s in the mocks, then you are on the bubble of a guaranteed pass and would be relying totally on the curve to carry you over the pass line.

Best of luck everyone.

FWIW I found the Uppermark Qbank to be way tougher than the final exam. I was averaging 65-70 on that but came out of the exam feeling like it was easy, ended up with most “Highers”. If you are scoring 65-70 I would say you are in a good space.

There is also a lady that lectures for Uppermark (I think its Pady Jalali). If you are looking for some late craming I’d strongly recommend picking up one of her crash courses. I can genuinly say she made a massive difference to me.

I agree - i found the UM question bank to be overly granular whereas the mock exam was far more general which was i thought was significantly easier.

I’ll just keep at UM until the exam and do the mock once again beforehand. I still can’t believe they have 1 mock… it’s really kind of absurd

I thought the UM Qbank was about the same difficulty level as the actual exam.

@ Lucille2009,

Are you referencing Level II? Did you take your test? If so, how was it?

No, I just sat for CAIA L1. I feel like I probably over studied. I went through all of the questions in the Kaplan and UM Q-banks and thought the UM questions were definitely closer to the difficulty level of the exam. I scored overall 90% on both test banks. I didn’t take the CAIA mock exam. I thought it was a tough exam but felt pretty good about it walking out…of course, you never know.