L3 2017 Band 8 Fail after passing first two levels on first attempt:
AM matrix: 6/3/1
PM matrix: 2/5/2
Definitely put in the requisite time and was scoring well on mocks; (5 AM / 6PM, including 70+ on CFAI PM mocks)
To be honest, I don’t believe I could have done anything else / more to pass this exam, so I’m really confused as to how I should change my study routine for next year. The AM portions that I scored poorly on were related to my stronger sections (PM Individual / Institutional), which I thought were straight forward on the exam.
same boat Band 7… i was expecting a borderline fail as the worst case… but really surprised at my matrix. I gave an honest effort on this exam… studied countless number of hours and did everything.i could
For AM, I ran through previous year’s exams a bunch of times until I was flushing them 100% (judged by myself of course). I did 2012 - 2016, making sure to space them out enough so that I needed to legitimately recall information that wasn’t on the tip of my tongue already.
I would estimate maybe 1/2 of AM is material that was covered in a previous year’s exam, just rehashed. If you can start the test knowing that you should nail 50% of the questions on AM right off the bat, you are well ahead of the curve in my opinion.
I know the pain of failing and feelings of discouragement will subside with time, but I’m not really sure how anyone regains the motivation for re-taking a level of this exam again after they’ve already invested / sacrificed a substantial portion of their year to this exam.
The biggest factor for me was making flash cards and then WRITING the answers down. That gave me a ton of practice on the concepts and really drilled it into my head. It was like muscle memory on the exam writing out formulas that I had already written down several times before.
It’s painful and awful to dig through that many flash cards, but I have no doubt that pushed me over the edge to a passing score. I finished the AM with 45 minutes to spare and went back to change answers or re-write a few that I had missed because of nervousness, etc. Without the speed and repetition of the flash cards, I think I would have been slower on exam day with less precise answers.
I did tons of AM past exams. In my case, seems it didn’t help many. I did tons of TTs and Portal Mocks and seems this was a winner course. Hope it helps a bit. Sympathy for you.
I can say it with assurance as I was in the same boat on August 9th 2016 when results were out
either you make an oath to your self that you want this
or give up
if yoru planning on- please do cry it out-I mean it-to the extent i kept my score matrix in favourites and I saw it everyday and I promised myself I will change the words.
Coming to preperation- there is no set formula-everyone recipe is different-I meant it
please plan ut what you think its the best best shot-for example-if you thinking reading the institute text 3 times and answering the essay question /blue box- by writing the answers without seeing is the best for you-go for it
if you thin 40papers for last 45 daya go for it
if you think you can afford taking abreak for last month go for it
it all depends on how passionately you want this and how much are you ready to sacrifice
there will come a point where you can think-is it worth it tooo.given all the above points are really gruilling
trust me-I had to get through this myself.
A mother of 2 girls,moving countries, quit job-said no to new employer-all of the above
Feel the same. I over-emphasized studying for the morning and felt more confident in the AM after writing. No idea how I bombed the AM, it truly is a mystery to me.
Same B-M…didn’t leave any portion blank and had about 10-15 minutes of extra time to review. As most of my stronger AM subjects were <50, I’m almost convinced that my handwriting was illegible or that I might have written answers in the wrong box or something. I know that neither of those instances will get reversed in a retab request, however, I’m still planning on forking out the $100 to make sure all of the AM points were at least totaled properly.
How conservative were you in self-grading your responses?
I realized about a month out that i was being way too lenient and starting really focusing on nailing the details in my strong topics by using CFAI guideline response as the only “full credit” response. Had I not made that change, I think I would have flopped in the AM section.
It’s pretty much a moot point at this juncture, but I was overly conservative in my self-grading from the beginning to avoid that trap. If my response didn’t mirror the “full credit” response, I awarded myself 0 points.
Definitely interested to re-read the 2017A AM exam when it’s released by CFAI. Does anyone know if that’s available immediately upon re-registering or do they wait until the Fall / Winter to release previous AMs?
I’m a little dumb-founded. Took it in 2016 Failed Band 7. 2017 Failed Band 5. So I went down after studying more for a year…
Although after reading I think I should have spent more time with CFAI material compared to schweser and I think I should have redone some topic tests where i bombed (1/6 - 3/6) vingettes but didn’t. Also didn’t finish all the blue boxes. I also redid only the previous mocks 2x from 2012 which I thought was reasonable.
Schweser mocks were a little weird in my opinion. Umm…might have to take those less seriously and rely on the real CFAI mocks and materials.
Anyways this is going to be my THIRD time at this. Geezzz…I feel retarded.
Schweser notes are great and more than enough to pass the exam if you read through them at least twice. Their mocks do suck, but it’s practice. They need to improve those.