What do you think of the Mock Exam?

CFA Level II
#1

What do you think of the Mock Exam?

I just finished the 1st morning session and the 1st afternoon session. I got 60% and 63%. Somehow disappointed and scared as I was told 70% is the bar to pass. But I am also not panic. I just feel very strange about the mock exam. The following is what I feel so far:

1.Ethics in mock exam is very difficult to get it right and confusing. My score was 17%, only half of a random guess! I probably wouldn’t spend any time anymore during the actual exam if it was like this.

2.There are quite some topics tested on the mock exam I feel are very “cornered”, not the mainstream knowledge points from the official reading. Mock exam tested some terms on real estate, regulation, option of interest rate securities that I kind of rarely know or read them but forgot the exact meaning. Where are the questions on equity valuation, fixed income and FRA? I found very small amount of questions on these “bulk” part.

  1. Before taking the mock, I also went through all the practice questions in the official reading. I feel those are easy, but questions in the mock exams are difficult. Don’t try to make me feel better, I feel the actual exam’s difficult will be between the two. But I am not sure. What do you think?

Also, does any one know whether the mock exam’s weights on topics correctly represent the topic weights of the actual exam or not?

#2

I mean the official Mock Exam given by CFA institute

#3

I’ve only taken Mock A so far and I thought FRA was very difficult in both AM/PM sessions. Equity tripped me up on the AM session which was surprising because its usually my strongest area. Derivatives in PM was tough.

As far as topic weights, its anyone’s guess because neither Kaplan nor CFAI provided mocks with the new exam format which has varying length item sets.

#4

I think the mocks are gold dust.

After spending 400+ hours learning concepts, understanding nuances and forgetting the aforementioned these mocks are my best guess at what might be in the exam… Averaged 64% for the CFA mocks and I’m 70th percentile apparently - lol. (I’m going to pretend they don’t factor in all the candidates that haven’t touched the portal yet).

#5

With regards to topic weights the CFA have flexibility on this but my game plan is to give most of my attention to the heavy sections - Ethics, FRA, EQ and FI.

#6

I’ve been doing so many mocks between Schweser, IFT and CFAI that I totally forgot we will be walking into a new exam format haha.

In my opinion, I think the new format could actually benefit well-prepared candidates with a very well-rounded preparation coming in. Yes, while it allows CFAI to test more concepts potentially, it could also protect well-prepared candidates from getting an item-set that centers majority around that ONE area that they wish they were better prepared on.