Congratulations on surviving the CFA exam this weekend. Please respect your pledge to CFAI not to discuss specific exam questions or attempt to re-create the exam.
All I know is that I spent more than 400 hours, took 12 mocks always scored above 70, 4 times in the 80s and I thought the level 1 exam was very difficult. Much harder than the cfai mocks at least…
Wow. That’s an eye opener. Did you do any Schweser mocks? And would you say they were more along the lines of the CFA exam? ( I am now going through the material, yet to read Ethics, so I hope this question isn’t some form of violation)
I took 8 Mark Meldrum exams which I thought were harder than the CFA mocks and 4 of the CFAI mocks.
I think the exam was not so hard. Ethics was very tricky as always but I seemed mock exams a little bit harder. I already know I made some stupid mistakes in easy questions and if I miss the pass rate because of it, I will tear my hair. When do you think the results will be?
I also thought that Ethics was harder than CFAI mocks, espeically PM part nearly killed me. Other than that… all the other parts were pretty straightforward and felt easier than CFAI mocks. There were not that many quantitatively challenging questions… I did all CFAI mocks and scored 75-80 on 6 sessions.
so @generaltsoschicken and @Uruk, are you guys saying the CFAI mocks were a true or fair representation of the actual exam?
I kinda agree with ddenicola1, I think the exam was pretty hard, especially the PM session. Did put in 330 hours along with 6 mocks (3 CFAI, 3 schweser) and I scored between 65 and 70 for all of them except for the last one which I hit 77 (CFAI mock A). Most encouraging part for me was the ethics section which I thought was straight forward and relatively easy.
Anyways, we gotta start living again until we receive the results (which should be given around august 6th, apparently).
Cheers and enjoy your summer
By the way, is there a way to report to CFA about questions on the exam that one believes does not make sense or the information provided is insufficient. There was one question in the afternoon session at the end in portfolio management which I thought this? Anybody know?
Left almost 20 questions in the AM session including all questions of Portfolio management. But from the rest if I score about 70% …70-75% in PM session also…what are the chances of passing?
You should have at least guessed.
Still processing what happened on Saturday L1, but I can say something already. I studied the curriculum, couldn’t cover all (left 10% unread) but I used only CFA materials to prepare. If you are able to go through all the CFA stuff (examples, end of reading questions, online question bank and mocks) the chances to fail are minimal. May sound trivial but there is no free lunch with this. The problem is that putting all of that in your brain is going to take a toll, and that is what I am still processing btw.
Seems like I’m one of the very few who found PM easier than AM, except Ethics obviously. That was something! Out of 18, I can guarantee about only 7-8.
I couldnt agree more. I spent over 300 hrs with the material, took seven mock exams, and scored 79-85 on the three CFAI mock exams. I thought the CFA mocks were much easier than exam day. I felt very confident going in to the exam, but I cant say the same about leaving the exam. Hoping for the best.
I had the similar experience as Harper’s. I found AM to be tougher than PM and CFA mocks. In my view, PM was pretty straight forward. Ethics was tricky overall.
AM exam was exhausting, felt like the overall wording of questions was trickier than the mocks. I didn’t feel very confident in selecting many answer choices.
PM I definitely made 5-6 guesses, but overall I didn’t feel like struggling and felt confident.
CFA Mocks vs Real Opinion: AM was tougher than mocks, PM was easier than mocks. On average, I think mocks can be considered good proxy for real exams.
I have read many threads about CFA mock scores vs real scores from folks who passed. There is also the real exam pressure factor. Compared with paying attention during mocks, I felt more determined and careful in reading the questions and trying to select the right answer in the real exams. I am assuming that if one is scoring above 70% in mocks, then he/she is most likely to pass.
Practice: My CFA Mock Average was quite consistent 74, 75, 75. I hope to pass!
Currently reading Ethics…and i wanted to find out,were the questions on Ethics in the exam as text heavy as the examples in the CFAI books?