For those who just took the Level 1 exam, how did it compare to your mock exams? I am Mainly talking about the Stalla and CFAI mock exams. I just wanted to get a good idea of what I need to be scoring on my mock exams by November to feel confident about the real exam. Thanks for any input and grats to those that passed!
I got 67% on the CFAI mock exam 2 weeks before the actual exam. I got 71% on the Boston Society mock exam one week before the actual exam. I felt I did somewhat better on the real exam than on the Boston Society mock exam. Amazingly, I passed with >70% in everything, even the sections I felt most nervous about. I hadn’t dreamed I’d clear 70% on everything - I felt certain I’d fall short of that in ethics and quantitative. Getting >70% on quantitative was a miracle, because I had trouble clearing 50% on the mock exams. This section gave me the most difficulty - there was SO MUCH stuff to know. (I was lucky that the exam didn’t delve into the obscure stuff.) In the last 2 weeks before the exam, I thoroughly went over the questions I got wrong or felt uncertain about in the mock exams and made sure I knew the right way to solve them. I made sure to take notes on things to remember for the ethics questions in the textbook, self exam, and mock exams that I had trouble with. (Ethics is a major part of the exam. Also, doing poorly on ethics would have looked bad.) I made sure to refamiliarize with the calculator problems. I made a final push to learn leases and taxes. (FRA is a big part of the exam, and I’m a value investor. I barely cleared 50% on the Boston mock exam. Doing poorly would have looked bad.) I really studied up on derivatives (only got 2/12 on the first mock exam).
this is a great question, and I would personally love to know the answer. a friend of mine said the practice exams are MUCH harder than the actual level one exam. Just one opinion though.
The Boston SAS mock exam was really good IMO. Also, I realized while I was writing the exam that a lot of questions I had already seen on the Schweser QBank. Mind you, I did almost 2,500 practice questions from the QBank alone. Hence, I felt pretty comfortable in both AM and PM. I finished with 1 hr and 20 mins remaining in the AM and about an hour left in the PM. Edit: to answer the original question - I scored 68% in the AM CFAI mock, 72% in PM. Scored 72% in BSAS AM and 73% in BSAS PM. And I passed with 7 sections >70, Econ 51-70 and AI & Der <50. (I did not pay attention to AI & Der at all). This is one good thing about L1 prep, that you can afford to ignore the smaller weighted topics and still pass, which will be a suicide on L2.
for me cfai Mock and Real exam were equal, several questions were exactly the same. If you can score above 80 pct (mock), you can be 99.9 pct sure you will pass the real one. good luck!
I scored only 64% in the CFAI mock a week before and was pretty worried. On the real exam I scored above 70% in all areas except quants and AI. Either the real exam was easier or I improved a hell of a lot in that last week.
Agreed CFAI mock exams were a very good representation of what the real exam would be. I scored high 70s I think on the mocks. I used Schweser not Stalla, and their mock exams were retarded and much longer, more numbery questions than the actual exam. Though still if you score over 75, on the mocks you will understand most of the material to pass.
CFAI mock 54% And schweser mocks ( book 1 only ) never exceeded 68% And I passed I felt the real exam was more straight forward plus no tricky questions
I was averaging between 66% and 74% on the mocks. And I did about 6 of them. However I failed band 10, so I was quite gutted cause I thought I was on the right track. Next time I won’t be confident going into the exam unless I’m getting in the 80s on the mocks.
I personally feel the CFA mock exam was tougher than the real one…scored about 68% in morning & 72% in the afternoon. CFA sample exams…took all 3 scored 69 - 71%. Stalla mock exams, took 2…68 & 72. Passed CFA exam with >70% in all except Quant…50 - 70 %. Like someone mentioned earlier, the Stalla & Schweiser exams are kind of retarded. They are good for practicing questions but not for a simulated exam experience! Good luck!
got about 50 for CFAI mock on day before exam… didn’t manage to try any of Schweser’s although I bought the books already… managed to pass the exam with only 6 parts >70. so i am borderline case
My scores ranged between 60 - 80 on the Schweser Mocks and I passed. I felt the written Schweser mocks were the most representative of the actual exam if not a touch more difficult. The Qbank was significantly easier than the real exam, I think it’s useful for brushing up on topics but your time is better spent banging out the mocks.
I used Stalla. On the CFAI sample exams, I think I scored 61, 72, and 70. The sample exams were by far the hardest questions for me because they really did try to fool in you in my opinion. That was not the case on the real exam (except for a few ethics questions). On the CFAI mock (the first exam I took in full format), I scored 78. On Stalla Mock 1, I scored 85, and on Stalla Mock 2, I scored 83. On real CFA, I passed with >70 in all sections. For me, the Stalla mocks were the most like the real exam. I highly encourage you to work all Passmaster questions at least once if not multiple times. A lot of the Passmaster questions are more advanced than what you’ll see on the exam, so if you can do well on those, you’ll do fine on the exam.
mona_porsche_targa4s Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > CFAI mock 54% > And schweser mocks ( book 1 only ) never exceeded > 68% > And I passed > I felt the real exam was more straight forward > plus no tricky questions Totally agree with you I only used CFAI textbooks for my preparation. Just reading the text and taking notes but it took me a lot of time and I finished all the text about 3 days before the exam 
I did CFA sample exam on 2 days before the exam, got 55% I did CFA mock exam the day just before the exam, got 59% for AM and 62% for PM But I passed :D, as the real exam was way straight forward
I scored in the mid 70’s on both the CFAI mock and the Boston mock. I found the CFAI mock to be a very good representation of the overall difficulty of the actual exam. BSAS was by no means a bad exam, the questions just have a different style. Passed Level 1 with above 70% on each section - just as I did with the mocks. Aim more the mid 70’s, you’ll be fine.
I got 62% in the Mock AM, and 70% in the PM. Passed with 70+ in all sections except Corp Finanace and PM The mocks were extremely useful as I used their results (weaknesses in FRA and Deriv/AI) to hone up on them
wow, i had to leave town for a few days after i made this post but thanks for all the great and helpful comments! Did any of you do the practice exams that are in stalla passmaster where you just select how far you are in your study schedule and then if gives you the amount of questions you will be tested on each subject and the correct amount of time you will have for those on the real exam? If so, how did those compare? Are they just as good as mocks or are they kind of just there to get you used to answering questions? For example I just took one that covered Ethics, Quantitative methods, and econ. I scored an A on ethics, A on quant 1, B on quant 2, and a B on all of econ. I just wanted to know if that is sufficiently showing me how i am learning the material or if i should be scoring 100s on these things. Thanks again guys!
The progress tests on Passmaster are NOT representative of the real test in my opinion. By all means you should do the progress tests where you select the sections you’d like to be quizzed on as you study, but in my opinion they didn’t feel like the real exam in the end. Stalla’s book exams and the CFAI mock were much more indicative of the real exam as far as difficulty and subject matter. Your scores are fine, but really don’t worry if you’re not getting high marks in the interim on the first go around. Retake the questions until you understand why you missed it. Remember that it’s still very early. If you hit it hard for the next 4 months then spend the last month reviewing CFAI texts and questions (critical towards you passing) and banging out full 120 question exams, you’ll be fine.
Thanks help and advice jcaseyjones, I will definitely ll make sure and get done with plenty of time to do plenty of practice questions and exams.
I used Schweser guides and was averaging 75% on Volume 1 of the Practise exams. On the CFAI Mock, managed 85% on the am and 68% on the pm, but did not really put the samre effort into the pm mock. I passed, managed 8/10 in the >70% and 50-70% in 2/10, but obviously there is no way that you can actually calc ur aggregate for the exam, and thus it may be the case that i actually scored better overall than candidates who had 10/10 in >70% range. I felt confident going into the exam but had started to get sick a couple days before, so wasn’t as focused and comfortable as I would like to have been on the exam, so be healthy and avoid any sickness as much as possible. I was also seated next to this guy who snorted throughout the first paper, and Im not talking little sniffs here, this guy was snorting so loudly and so frequently that it really distracted me. This guy received so many complaints that he was sent to write at the back of the venue for the second paper. And so, in my opinion there are these additional challenges that can pop up which you actually have no control over, and thus I fell that you need to be hitting over 70% consistently on all mocks. ideally to go in knowing that you have been getting a few 80%'s before hand will do so much fro your confidence levels.