Failed last year. Passed this year (AM ~59%, PM ~69%). This thread is specifically for “ Average Retakers” , like me (yes, because my score is average). If you plan to spend over 3XX hrs on CFAI textbooks to prepare for the exam, you can skip this thread. Somehow, there are ppl who just cant spend that amount of suggested hours due to family issues, works, or you think this exam is a waste of time, whatever it might be but…….still want to pass the exam.
Point to note
You need to accept the fact that you must leave some questions blank (of course the fewer the better) no matter what the reason is - you don’t know the answer or you don’t have time.
I know the official answer is not to leave questions blank…I know I know. However, as an average retaker like me, the knowledge I got does not enable me to answer all the questions but what I gain is the extra time to be allocated to the questions I know well. It just takes few seconds to make a decision. If you don’t know the answer now, probably you don’t know the answer one or two mins later. So better save those mins to other questions. Make sure you give answers to get “full marks” to question you know.
PM section is very very very very important
Must aim to get 70% or above (better 75-80%. Otherwise, no hope to pass). PM is always easier than AM for me because I don’t need to struggle with handwriting the answers, guessing what they want me to answer…. Wishing for full marks but given partial, etc. Average retakers tend to get bombed in AM.
Do look for third party source how to practice answering question under timed and stressful environment (normally happening in AM)
Average students are prone to get nervous (when they face sth they don’t know or not sure). So you need to know how to tackle this mental condition. Need to practice even more than others to deal with AM.
Not only answer the questions correctly, but also answer them in the format and structure that graders will give you marks.
Don’t overestimate your capability
After the exam, I guess I hope to get at least 50% on AM and 80% on PM (reality is AM ~59%, PM ~69%)….Always give at least 10% discount in the mock exam. Under the real exam environment, your performance would be affected (weakness of average retakers). CFAI is good at setting tricks and traps on the questions. You can see why ppl are confident just after the exam but unfortunately it turns out badly. They fall into the traps.
Don’t rush to the answers even if you know it at the first glance. Read completely the whole questions in AM and PM and all the available choices in PM.
CFAI textbooks
I know you may not have time to read it. But to be honest, reading the official books are the norm to pass the exam. Please read it as much as possible.
Some ppl recommend third party providers who in turn recommend ppl to read the official textbooks. So everything back to the basics. Read the books.
Lastly, looks like CFAI revises the syllabus more often than before. So this poses disadvantages to retakers. Be prepared to see some topics you are good at disappear next year. And the 10% ethics can save your life (can turn you from fail to pass). However, ethics is getting tricky. Somehow I think you will see some questions that you just cant find the solution straight from the CFAI books……
Lastly, looks like CFAI revises the syllabus more often than before. So this poses disadvantages to retakers. Be prepared to see some topics you are good at disappear next year. And the 10% ethics can save your life (can turn you from fail to pass). However, ethics is getting tricky. Somehow I think you will see some questions that you just cant find the solution straight from the CFAI books……
Best wishes to all retakers.
This is a really important point imo. CFAI gives a fair amount of ethics q’s where the answer lies in the text- but some of them simply can’t be answered from relying on the text and must be answered using judgment based on what you’ve learned from studying ethics throughout all three levels, so keep this in mind when going in. I personally believe the institute does this to determine a candidate’s assessment and ethical judgment abilities when faced with new challenges in real-life scenarios, where you won’t be able to just rely on “ethics rules”- there are a few questions that will simply have no black and white answer in the text. IMO this is on purpose. Just something to keep in mind.
Ethics has been a strong topic for myself since L1 and I 100% agree with the above.
You just need to make a judgement call on the spot. When you are answering, you may try to recall a similar question from the past and think ‘oh in that question this was a violation of standard xyz, so that must be the case here’. Nope. Just judge purely based on what’s presented within the case, cross your fingers and move on.
I admit that I was really uncertain about my answers as I left the exam hall cause hey, you never know.
But if you deem yourself to be hopeless for ethics then by all means focus your time on other topics so that its ok for you to bomb ethics.
As the time spent on studying was “quite limited” in my case, I focused mainly on my weakness. That’s AM session, especially private wealth management + tax (I really hated this). Last year I did self study. This year, I subscribed a third party provider. My general strategy is simple. Kept the score on the area where I was good at. Enhanced performance on portfolio mgmt and Ethics. And it worked out finally.
Passing CFA 2 is biggest obstacle to pass level 3. The reason being we go for same approach, plan of study and number of mocks. That is a defeating approach. My 2 cents would be to completely forget the approach u took for Level 2 or the better would be to just forget that u have passed level 2 altogether.