I noticed everyone apparently did WAY better in PM as opposed to AM. I believe my performance was exactly the opposite. To be honest, a friend of mine (retaker) warned me before the exam time management was even more challenging than what I thought. So, i stepped in focused on solving everything rather quickly.
I was able to complete 100% and, on most questions, was fairly confident of my answers. However, on the PM part of the exam, I was unsure about many of the questions. I quickly counted answers I was confident about, and that was like 65% of the exam.
My question is: is AM correction VERY strict? Should I be extremely worried about not writing too much in each question (since time is limited, I wrote down main concepts without giving many details or examples as I would like to)
IMO, you should not be worried at all. If you are confident in AM and have written short and precise answers to every question as you are saying, your chances of passing is far more than most of us out here who are relying on PM score (provided you have not totally messed up PM). Great job btw
I am in the exact same boat. I felt very confident walking out of the AM session. I will get under 50% on the first question but felt confident on each of the other ones. However, PM was very difficult for me. As a first timer, I spent so much time on practicing AM questions, I think I didn’t spend enough time on PM material. I counted 30 questions that I was 90-100% certain on. My hope now is that I was able to take educated or blind guesses and get another 10 or so right while having a strong AM score. We’ll see though, as you never really know how the questions are graded on the morning.
I feel the same way. This was my first time taking Lvl 3 and focused primarily on the AM given the difficulty I found in past CFAI exams. I felt very confident about my answers for the AM aside from the first question and two sub-boxes towards the end. I counted the PM questions I did not feel comfortable with and that was about 20 questions. Given my previous mocks, I am fairly accurate in circling the questions I felt I got wrong. I am just hoping this still applies to the actual.
Same boat here. Wasn’t as prepared for Level III as I was for Level II where I was able to go home and map out the questions I got wrong but for Level III, AM is in the 70-80% range while PM was in the 55-65% range (fingers crossed on the high side). I am hoping this, plus a pretty easy ethics portion where I think I went 10 or 11 out of 12, will push me through. Have a bad feeling the PM will be enough to drag me down to the dreaded band 10 category.
I have heard a lot of people from previous years say that they thought the did well on AM, but then were surprised how poor they did when they got their results.
I hope that is not the case this year as I too felt I did better in AM than PM… not very reassuring.
If the question asks you to calculate X… I don’t understand why the AM or PM format makes a difference. Either you know the answer or you dont. Sure you get the benefit of “guessing” on PM but outside the time constraint which is tighter in AM… your knowledge should translate to AM and PM type questions
Time constraint is what makes AM harder. You are forced to think quick and write quick and exact what you are asked. Definitely not same challenge in PM where you can simply eliminate incorrect answers and pass even by partial knowledge.
I had not such experience. I was almost well prepared for calculations and had naked guessing only in 2-3 questions where I had no idea about solution. I had additional 5-6 enhanced guessing where I just wasn’t sure if my answers were correct ones but at least eliminated 1 of 3. The exception and only issue may be Ethics and If I did well there I am confident about my PM part. AM is more uncertain because I have no idea how my answers which I supposed as correct would be graded. I was guessing there on 5-6 questions totally between 20-30 points. I had no idea how to answer on those 5-6 questions.
Well another thing with PM is if you know your stuff and able to calculate an answer you get the reassurance of seeing the answer as one of the three choices. With AM you not only should show your work, write down the equations etc… you move onto the next question without truly knowing if your answer is right or not.
This is why I’m stoic about the outcome. Had same post-exam sense as OP. Answered 98% of AM, most with confidence. Only confident in 63% of PM, and surely got some of those wrong too. But ready for Band 5 – I’ve never driven a lap in an Indy race, and never had CFAI grade an essay answer. Have given up predicting.
That bold sentence puts you (most likely) above majority of exam takers and you should be fine even if some of your answers were incorrect. If you can score 65%-70% in AM that would give enormous cushion for your PM mistakes. Bottom line: don’t worry.
I know one of my friends ( he never been abroad and rarely use English in daily basis so his English comprehension is great while English production is just awful ) who took level 3 last year. His Matrix is both shocked and in a way, expected: 10<50% in AM and all>70% in PM(He was somewhat confident that he got nearly full score). Needless to say he failed lol Good luck for him if he ever retook this year.
