I’m just curious if the switch to 3 choices allowed them to make the exam harder than before.
think it was pretty on par with last year the worst part is now q’s you thought you had right (the r in quant) turns out to be negative, etc. i forgot the overcollateralization in FI and didn’t take the 5 out of what the tranche would get hit on. i used E0 not E1 for PVGO. etc… there are a lot that i thought i had in the win column that are turning on me. hats off to the CFAI to be able to write an exam that well, unbelievably tricky if you’re not on your game at all times. i BOMBED econ. 1/6 i think. i had thought my quant was ok but i may have 2/6’d it. i gave it my all- we’ll see how it turns out, but i will cross my fingers that MPS remains under 70% b/c i’m more borderline than i’d like to be after realizing some of my mistakes.
Yes this year exam was harder, 10% harder IMO on average. With all the studying i did this time around i would of easily gotten mid 70s on last year exam. AM was just killer. 10-20% harder then anything from last year. PM was on par. Quant - much much harder. They usually test on multivariable regression and problems with the errors. Ethics - WTF, honestly WTF. Hardest ethics questions i ever seen Corporate Finance - marginally harder. Negative FWInc threw some people for a loop and much less plug and chug. Equity - On par Accting - Tested a ton the accrual and earnings quality. Surprised we didn’t see international translation methods or passive minority investments. Harder then last year. Fixed income - on par with last year Derv - harder then last year. less calc more conceptional understanding rather then plug n chug. (AM was hard, PM was easy). PM - easier then last year.
I thought the AM session was alot harder than last year’s AM. PM was roughly on PAR with last year. I guess overall this year’s exam was alot harder considering this is my 2nd time and i still had trouble with it. I can’t believe it…i was expecting to whiz through it ok. sigh.
i thought the PM was killer … i thought the AM was rather fair … after coming on here though and seeing my mistakes … i feel like it was harder b/c the questions were more ambiguous …
last year I remember waling out feeling the exam was fair and that I gave mtself a chance. Boom band 10… this year i felt like that test was BS, really not that fair. way too many ambiguos questions. Hope I did enough to pass…
heh, I thought that the AM was much easier than last year and the PM was marginally easier than last year as well (I thought PM was BRUTAL last year though). I think my prep was leagues ahead of where it was last year as I totally bombed (tried to do Jun LII after Dec LI).
Definitely harder this year. Last year was a fair exam and I felt it was fair coming out (excpet for omitting time series on exam). This year not by a long shot fair. It was harder for sure. I’m not sure if I passed…
I thought it was a lot easier than last year. That’s probably because last year I walked in with no idea of how difficult the test would really be. I tried to learn from my errors. This year, I read the curriculum and did the six practice exams from Schweser and felt much better prepared. I also failed to manage my time properly last year, which I corrected this year so I didn’t feel the time pressue or have to end the exam by random guessing. However, the questions were often very tricky. The overcollateralization was something I’d just done the day before on a schweser exam, thank god.
c’mon- last year they had PM as the min variance frontier. PM def more fair this year even though i didn’t do well. econ was a push- BOP last year vs random 1/3rd rule this year- tested the small stuff FSA- harder this year for sure Equity- pretty on par Alts- pretty on par, would lean towards last year maybe tougher w/ the real estate FI- this year was harder but that might be subjective on what i know derivs- on par. pick your poison, this year’s swaps/fra’s or last year’s caps/floors, etc. corp fi- thought this year easier ethics- on par. one pretty hard item set on ROS both years. quant- way harder this year so yeah, maybe it was a little harder this year. we’ll see how it works out with MPS and passes. this year was tricky, but then again, so was last year. they have a knack for writing sneaky tests.
bannisja Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > c’mon- last year they had PM as the min variance > frontier. PM def more fair this year even though > i didn’t do well. > econ was a push- BOP last year vs random 1/3rd > rule this year- tested the small stuff > FSA- harder this year for sure > Equity- pretty on par > Alts- pretty on par, would lean towards last year > maybe tougher w/ the real estate > FI- this year was harder but that might be > subjective on what i know > derivs- on par. pick your poison, this year’s > swaps/fra’s or last year’s caps/floors, etc. > corp fi- thought this year easier > ethics- on par. one pretty hard item set on ROS > both years. > quant- way harder this year > > so yeah, maybe it was a little harder this year. > we’ll see how it works out with MPS and passes. > this year was tricky, but then again, so was last > year. they have a knack for writing sneaky tests. I agree with all your assesments. FSA was very hard this year. If they would have thrown in fx translation maybe it would have been easier. For port mgmt, my brain was fried during the last 20 minutes of the afternoon session and it showed. I think I could have scored well in that section if I did it earlier in the day. Last years port mgmt was crazy hard, much harder… Corp fin was tricky but not as bad as last year. remember thos merger valuations q’s? those were deadly and if you got one wrong you pretty much got both wrong.
just a side question to the retakers: did you keep your CFAI/Schweser/Stalla books from last year or did you buy an entire new set for this year’s exam? i’m in the process of moving and am debating whether I should throw out (or burn) my cfai and schweser books. thanks!
you will get a new set of cfai books with every new candidacy. so no need for the cfai books, the schweser books however, i’d keep. who knows. at the same time, why not keep both? they are valuable material.
bannisja Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > think it was pretty on par with last year > the worst part is now q’s you thought you had > right (the r in quant) turns out to be negative, > etc. i forgot the overcollateralization in FI and > didn’t take the 5 out of what the tranche would > get hit on. i used E0 not E1 for PVGO. etc… > there are a lot that i thought i had in the win > column that are turning on me. hats off to the > CFAI to be able to write an exam that well, > unbelievably tricky if you’re not on your game at > all times. > > i BOMBED econ. 1/6 i think. > i had thought my quant was ok but i may have 2/6’d > it. > > i gave it my all- we’ll see how it turns out, but > i will cross my fingers that MPS remains under 70% > b/c i’m more borderline than i’d like to be after > realizing some of my mistakes. yes thought so too. It was definitely not easier but I would not say harder than last year. there were some tricky portions in both of them, but we are used to the CFAI testing habits. all in all we can just wait, relax and be prepared for the worst. but still in the end, i believe that we have succeeded in 2009. 
everything was hard…i guess that I have a small brain…