reviewed some questions here… and i’m getting a bad feeling that ethics is going to be the end of my passing hopes. i don’t know. i feel a lot better about some of the other sections than i initially did. yeah, i sucked on PM, but most did. but the wild card here is ethics… which has usually been my strong suit. f*ck. i might even be 50% here.
me too- and as much as I hated the MP- it was only 1 vignette… ethnics was 2. I thought the evening sessions ethics was very tricky. If they really do use ethics as a “tie-breaker” I think thats bs because 12 random questions most of which were 2 part-ers cannot reasonably determine a person’s integrity
Same thoughts over here cfasf. PM ethics I don’t think I did well on.
add me to the list of failing ethics. I tihnk I’ll be here around these forums for level 2 again next year - guess I can contribute more at the begining since I’ll know it for a second time… *tear*
The second half is where the passers attained their winning scores. Even if one did super well in the first half, one has to do decently in the second half to get across the goal line - in the 65-70% range. The criticality of the second half is why one should use the lunch break to review topics that hadn’t showed up yet. I spent my time lunching while scanning ethics, equations and processes - which paid off since I definitely scored on a few topics that I reviewed during lunch. In American football, at halftime teams are still going over their game plans, not having a leisurely time watching the halftime show and drinking gatorade…
wzupdok Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The second half is where the passers attained > their winning scores. Even if one did super well > in the first half, one has to do decently in the > second half to get across the goal line - in the > 65-70% range. The criticality of the second half > is why one should use the lunch break to review > topics that hadn’t showed up yet. I spent my time > lunching while scanning ethics, equations and > processes - which paid off since I definitely > scored on a few topics that I reviewed during > lunch. In American football, at halftime teams > are still going over their game plans, not having > a leisurely time watching the halftime show and > drinking gatorade… I have to disagree. I left AM solid and thinking I knew exactly what to review to finish strong: new PM readings, FCF analysis, time series/ multiple regression, FRA’s, binomial models, options, BSM/greeks, and of course NONE of those made there way onto the exam. I guess BOP is more “required”… basically, there were many who’s reviews were probably worthless.
wtf.
questions on the AM are worth the same as on the PM. Doesn’t matter. I didn’t bring even a single solitary notecard with me on Saturday. If I didn’t know it when my head hit the pillow on Friday, than I was SOL.
Agree with akanska. What was not in the first half of the exam was definitely not any indication of what would be hit in the second half. That balance of payments question was probably the worst possible question to see if you really knew your econ.
If one were to score 100% right in the first half - getting 60/60, you still need the second half to pass. Of course, assuming we all scored less than that, we needed to score decently to win. I reviewed all the topics you did, but somehow I caught a lucky break on several questions in the second half with a refreshed memory from my lunchtime scan. At a certain point, we confront the randomness and either do well or dont.
i have to disagree with the dude above as well, i did review some things at lunch and tried to predict what i would see…translation i guessed right on…min var frontier–give me a freakin break with that one…a couple of the afternoon ethics q’s, wouldnt know how to prepare for those, i predicted i’d see something on soft dollars, didn’t happen…next time through i am with budfox of jackson steinem…if i don’t have it in my squash the night before then i am sol…gonna enjoy my lunch in my air conditioned car with the tunes on.
Re: Ethics as tiebreaker: Guys, for what it’s worth, i’ve taken the CFA exam a whole bunch of times (not every single year, but I started back in the 90’s). And I’m borderline every freakin year. The only time I passed the exam (level one) was when I nailed ethics.
BondClipper how many times have you taken level 1, level 2? If you started in the 90s? Why go through the pain every year?
Everyone is talking about ethics, how much is for ethics to pass? 67%, 70%??..Is that just a rumor?
But is it not the case that ethics will be considered only if you are below 70%? Also, from the general feeling I got from everyone – most of the ppl I spoke to or met after the exam said that ethics was a hit/miss for them… I think they might throw out some of the ethics questions… I am definitely borderline in ethics (I probably got 6 or max 7 right in ethics) but I still feel we should be hopeful… what do you guys think?
CFAdummy, had I not passed L1 on my first try (1996), I probably wouldn’t have developed false hopes that the charter was easily attainable. I failed L2 (essay) in '97 and took some years off. All told i’m running out of fingers on one hand for L2 attempts. Although I put in some prep time, it really hasn’t been that painful because i work on the buyside…I already know or can easily learn what I need to know for my job (accounting, FI, Equity), it’s easy for me. Quant and Econ I always fail because that stuff is really useless for the buyside (at least what I do). I barely look at fixed income and nail it every year. One if these years…
BondClipper Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > CFAdummy, had I not passed L1 on my first try > (1996), I probably wouldn’t have developed false > hopes that the charter was easily attainable. I > failed L2 (essay) in '97 and took some years off. > All told i’m running out of fingers on one hand > for L2 attempts. > > Although I put in some prep time, it really hasn’t > been that painful because i work on the > buyside…I already know or can easily learn what > I need to know for my job (accounting, FI, > Equity), it’s easy for me. Quant and Econ I > always fail because that stuff is really useless > for the buyside (at least what I do). I barely > look at fixed income and nail it every year. One > if these years… maybe that is the problem, “Quant and Econ I always fail because that stuff is really useless for the buyside” - Quant and Econ is guaranteed to always come up in the exam, and knowing in advance that you are going to bomb one or two sections is not a recipe for success (like we find out year after year from all the post here) - it might be useless in your job but its required for the exam. 98% of the CFA L2 is useless for my job but I can’t really afford to skip it, can I?
The mission is to earn the pass - which means knuckling down to study what they have already told you would be the topics to be tested. I trade options for my fund - and dont use most of this stuff, but I burned lots of midnight/daylight oil to train my mind to perform in as many areas as possible. One has to accept that there will always be areas that are over/underweighted. Take heart bondclipper - keep trying - with renewed purpose, accumulated wisdom and experience, we can all earn and pass this!!!
All i know is that I need some domination on afternoon ethics to pull ahead of you boys a bit b/c of my hoarde mistakes elsewhere.