Sharing a few words of advice / encouragement because this site was so helpful to me from 2016-2018. It’s super weird for me as it is for many charterholders not to have studied for an exam this year.
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For each question, figure out what the question is actually asking, and answer it. It’s easy to be in a rush – just remember you get no points by answering the wrong question, or answering something you thought they asked.
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Test day is from 9am-5pm. If you have a rough go of it like I did in the AM, have some lunch, maybe meditate or get your focus back, and get yourself ready to crush the PM. You’ve studied up to a year for this exam, and you cannot affect your score after this weekend, so leave it all on the field.
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Get points where you can find them. It’s impossible to know everything perfectly, and no one gets a prize for getting a 100% on the exam, if that were even possible. If you don’t know the answer to something, move on. Had I not done that I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have passed the exam last year. Bringing it back to #2, if you felt like you lost a bunch of points in the AM, get 'em back in the PM. Until 5pm hits, they’re all up for grabs.
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Just enjoy it! This is for many of you the last time that you’re going to have the privilege of ripping open a fresh exam booklet and sharing the knowledge you’ve learned over the past year about how to provide real thought leadership, investment analysis, and recommendations in a variety of finance contexts. The real world, the markets, etc, are much more complicated. Enjoy the camaraderie of the day and be proud that you’re with 20k+ of some of the smartest financial professionals in the world strutting your stuff. L1 and definitely L2 are no cakewalks, and you got through those and had the courage and the energy to come back for more.
Take it from someone who finished: Passing the three exams, especially for those who have the designation, will never not be a source of pride and hopefully a positive memory of the determination and pluck you’ve demonstrated these last 3, 4, or however many years in the CFA program. It’ll always be something you can remember and lean on in tough times, telling yourself – that was very intense, but I didn’t give up, and I got through it.
Leave it all on the field on Saturday! I’m sure you’ll do great. Thanks again to AF for being a great resource.
MG