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2nd half… way harder than the first half.
My first half was materially harder…I assume there are a few different forms of the exam…
I feel you. First paper I thought to myself - ‘you are in the game’
second paper - lots of guessing. I know one can never determine how it truly went but that second half was rough.
For me, both parts were easier than mocks, however the head was melting after lunch.
I didn’t have much for lunch and it really helped concentrate. But yes, there was a certain feeling of “melting” before the second part, probably because of stress. But honestly, now I feel I don’t want to finish my studying)))
And after the exam I have a nostalgic feeling… just looking back at how much effort I’ve made. But I really liked this process of preparation and can’t wait to see the results)
Love you all 
Hey everyone! I would like to thank all those who helped me during this process. I had a wonderful time learning all these new things and I hope we can see each other in the Level II forum.
Best 
Mocks were way easier. After the whole exam I thought F*** anyone who says the mocks are harder, you POS. I was slaying mocks but this may also be because I am a retaker. I also was really getting questions down and focused on almost all the sections except ECON but I have a minor in Econ. After the first one, I felt pretty good. The PM though knocked me out. I felt like I guessed half that paper. It feels like there are only forty questions I knew cold. The weirdest thing is I struggled with Ethics. I have not once scored below a 70 in Ethics. A lot of people complained about Fixed Income and it was my easiest section. I breezed through that one.
PM was hard for me too. Good to know because I was worried that I lost pall my focus in the afternoon.
I share the same feelings. Found AN session much harder.
Hi everyone. I don’t think mocks were easier than the exam, but I definitely agree that the afternoon session was way more difficult than the morning’s.
For a number of reasons, I truly believe CFA remains the best and definitely the most interesting educational program in the world, nonetheless even before finishing the exam I was already sure that however it goes I will not take the next levels.
The biggest revelation to me was to see that 95% or more of the candidates were about 18-25 years old, with clearly no or little work experience; I am 31 years old and out of 450 people, I have probably spotted 3-4 persons older than me in the room (and I look quite young for my age). After the pm session I confronted with other friends who took the exam in different cities in Europe and they confirmed to me the same thing happened to them.
That says a lot to me about this exam: studying to be prepared for the CFA, working and at the same time keeping an existence which could even remotely be called life , is simply not possible. I have got a bachelor’s, an MBA, I am a qualified accountant and I covered CAIA I and II, so it’s not that I lack knowledge, or I take too long to learn stuff.
Life is too short, even shorter for the new generations (have you heard/realized we are going to live appreciably less than our parents?), and 3 to 5 years spent following a qualification is probably not the smartest option nowadays…unless you only think about career and money of course…
Good luck!
why would you take this exam (twice) and give up before you even know your result? I’m 35 and although I felt “older” at the exam, I didn’t necessarily feel out of place.
It was actually my first attempt and I was genuinely expecting 5% of the people to be that young and not the other way round. Not really a question of being out of place but realizing that in that 40% pass rate most of the people have only studied and not worked at the same time. If that makes sense…
You only have a sample of the population, and may be quite bias. Where I took the Level 1, I didn’t find that most of the test takers were 18-25, they were between 25-35, quite the opposite.
Don’t judge the whole program by your only sample. I’m also 31 and I didn’t find myself out of place. Lots of people are considering this program also at our age and it’s quite possible to do it. Of course it is difficult if you are married and have kids, but it depends on how bad you want to have the designation. Good luck to you too!
Where I took it most were young, some were students (those I spoke to, at least). But test center was so cold, I had to walk around during the break to warm myself up and outside was like 9C that day…
I agree - if you are working on a demanding job or have a family, its really hard to study enough. To me it was enough that no matter of result, I will very likely not continue.
Hey Guys,
AM section I thought was definitely easier and the Ethics questions were muchhhh more simple. For the PM section Fixed income destroyed me and the fact my head was just exploding. Overall I thought the exam was actually quite fair apart from a few random questions which im sure was mentioned in one line across a random part in the syllabus.
Just letting you guys know using the mark meldrum knowing 58% strategy I filled in all Bs when i ran out of time in the PM section haha