Real talk- these are insane. I am through the first five and can barely answer any, in many cases not even sure where to begin. So demoralising 10 days before the exam. Is anyone else finding FRA topic tests really hard? I know they wont be like this on the exam but to be honest even going through the answers I am not sure this is the most efficient way to be learning around this topic.
thoughts please
Just keep at it and start jotting down why you got it wrong. Some of them are seriously tricky.
Yeah they’re tough. I feel like I have a reasonably decent handle on FRA but I averaged 63% on my pass through the topic tests. The only subject I did worse on was Fixed Income (which I sort of expected).
Same here. My scores actually go up and down. Ill get 5/6 or even 6/6 on one and feel great then ill get 3/6 and feel like I got kicked in the groin. I felt like the wording in these was extrememly ambiguous and tested more of your ability to not get tricked rather than testing the actual concepts. I just have a hard time believing the actual exam will be that way.
Also the answer explainations suck.
The exam questions should be 1) a bit shorter and 2) a bit more straight forward. After going through all of the topic tests this year (I didn’t have time to get through them all last year) I’ve begun to suspect that their practice vignettes (used for both topic tests and mocks) are former exam question candidates that didn’t make the final cut for the exam due to whatever reason (clarity, length, time to solve, difficulty, etc.).
Oh man, tell me about it, I only did FRA and Equity topic, they are hard to be sure but what I found is you will be surprised how accurate your guesses are…
I also agree the FRA topic tests are ridiculous and I’m not learning much even from the answers. Equity on the other hand I found extremely helpful.
i’m moving on to more Schweser mocks and maybe QBank for FRA…
i’m not sure how much i even learn from the FRA topic tests. aiming to get 3-4 passes in on all FRA. but sometimes think you can still improve agility at this stage by repeating blue boxes. will probably do both.
So you are averaging only 75%? Terrible fate.
Yea these are ridiculously hard… more than anything it is the wording that makes it tricky. I can pretty much nail all of the FRA questions on Kaplan mocks and EOC from CFAI, and then I get to these, and wonder if it’s even worth my time…
Question for you all… Is it just FRA or are all the topic tests similar in terms of difficulty?
Which sections were the most helpful?
EPhilly…I hated the FRA ones as well, but did the equity ones and found them very helpful!
I did Aeulous and got 6/6 on FRA. Was pumped. Did the next one and got 0. What is this sorcery?
How is everyone revising FRA in the final days? EOC questions? Schweser Questions?
I got above 80% in schweser 2016 mock exam and I can solve all questions in CFAI mock exam.
but CFAI topic tests are extremely brutal to me… especially FRA and ethics part.
I havve been going through the FRA EOC questions. They seem overly simple. E.g no goodwill calculations in intercorp, barely any calculatios for pensions - just loads of conceptual stuff. hmmmm.
Such a nice topic ! I spent the day on those FRA TT, a nightmare.
But I stay motivated knowing its the highest level of difficulty 
rexthedog it’s very frustrating. Just keep pounding through them and learn from your mistakes. I agree the explanations are horrible.
Wallstreetfit,
It’s a discussion from last year, but still very informative,
Would be interesting to know how they found the real exam FRA difficulty
lol, can’t believe this thread came back to life.
Safe to say these topic tests feel much better second year round
Bad news then as i found them terribly difficult
I’ll keep what you said in an other thread only:
Hello Steve.
I am a retaker but I can safely tell you the difference between FRA Topic tests and the exam were night and day. The actual exam will lay out questions in a crystal clear manner and are all very fair, given you understand the material.
Good luck this year rex! 