Can anyone who has taken the L1 before, say how similar the questions on the exam are to the Schweser practice questions? Are the exam questions similar to the concept checkers at the end of each reading, to the sample questions in the QBank or to the sample exams? Did you find you scored similar to the way you scored on the practice questions?
lilliland, this has been asked many times but I’ll add a few comments. 1) real exam questions will be more difficult than end-of-chapter concept checkers. However, these questions are valuable in that the bridge the gap (difficulty-wise) towards practice exams. 2) Schweser practice exam questions are somewhat like actual questions, but - often take longer to complete - require more calculation than you’ll encounter on the actual real exam 3) I have no experience with QBank beyond what’s been posted in the forum, some of those questions look decent. So but I think the important question is: “Are Schweser practice problems helpful in preparing for actual exam questions?” So while they’re often not similar, answering them correctly requires that you understand the material, and you must understand the material to pass the real exam. So in this respect, I think they’re tremendously helpful. Score-wise, I was borderline on all my Schweser practice exams but took the time to learn from my mistakes on those exams and crushed the real deal. Good luck on your exam.
To tell you the truth, I thought that the real exam was easier than Book 6 (didn’t even mess with Book 7 as I thought it would just crush my confidence). Schweser questions (especially the ridiculously long ones) are good for reinforcing concepts but are a bit of overkill, IMHO. The Institute cares more about understanding the materials, not the “plug and chug” of Schweser.
hiredguns…when you say borderline, what % do you mean, 70%? I will start taking book 6 exams in 10-15 days. At what score should I stop panicking?
delhirocks, yeah, about 70% Sometimes worse. Don’t panic no matter how poorly you score. Here are a few things I found helpful during and after practice exams During - mark questions you guess on. This serves a few purposes: you can track how accurate your intuition is (interesting, but maybe not helpful), more importantly, if you guess correctly you’ll be reminded to review it along with the questions you got wrong instead of just assuming you’re all-set. - practice managing your time. You can try skipping between sections, or maybe just proceeding all the way through but skipping only questions with long introductions to save for last, etc. See what style suits you best. - try to start at 9AM, have your cell-phone off and try to behave as you would under real exam conditions (btw the exam halls are often FREEZING, so bring a coat). After - review everything you got wrong and guessed on, maybe even questions you got right. Ensure you really understand your mistakes. It may take a day or two to completely review an exam, but you can learn a lot from this process. - try to consider what worked and what didn’t from a time and strategy standpoint Bottom line: the practice exams present an opportunity for you to experiment with various strategies, learn time-saving techniques, and remind you of topics you need to revisit, and it’s entirely possible that your score on these exams will not be a strong indicator of performance on the real exam. As long as you’re continuing to improve your understanding of the material and hone your exam skills, you’re progress towards a successful exam result. Good luck.
wow! thanks for the advice hiredguns1. Its really a matter of how you really understand the materials & able to remember it in the day of the BIG DAY.
Great post hiredguns…much appreciated
I would add one tip…when you sit down to take book 6, do at least one full six hour test. When I did book 6 I took the first exam as two seperate 3 hour exams. While this helps it is not as mentally trying as a full 6 hour exam. Your mind is like a muscle and it has to be trained for the 6 hour marathon that you will go through on test day. You will be surpirised at how tired you are when you finish the a full length test. Do it far enough out from the actual exam that you can recover for the actual thing. Also don’t get really stressed if you go over time with Schweser. I went over on the first two book 6 tests and had plenty of time for the actual. Keep grinding.
Thanks people. This really helps.