Hi all,
The last time that I took the CFA LIII was back in 2017. I know that the CFA has gone under a lot of changes in the following two years.
Previously AM would always have topics such as:
PWM I and II (SS12 and 13 now): 40-50 points
Behavioral: 15-20 points
Fixed Income: 20 points
Econ: 15 points etc.
While PM would always have:
Ethics: 36 points
Fixed Income: 18 points
Equity: 18 points
PWM: 18 points etc.
Has that trend changed since 2017? Since the CFA has changed the results format, and stopped publishing actuals it’s harder to decipher. I’m sure Marc LeFebrve has it, but any one have an idea of what the tests looked like in 2018/ 2019?
Yeah the breakdown in 2018 was somewhat similar to 2017, although this year felt a little different than past papers, seemed like they steered the AM in a more technical/quantitative direction. Given that they hey have stopped publishing AM papers and overhauled the curriculum majorly, 2017 (which i remember being by far the easiest mock i took for what its worth) is probably gonna be nothing like 2020 in terms of both layout and material. to answer your question, 18/19 were harder than 17 (not sure if CFA changed the tests before releasing them, i only took 19 as the real thing) and the classic layout that everyone is used to (lots of PWM and qualitative stuff) didnt seem to be present this year- not actually sure if its a violation to mention how much certain areas were tested, but this year one area was hammered in the AM that wasnt really in the past. 2018 was similar to 17 tho in terms of broad topical areas tested. 2019 was not. 2020 probably will be even less so.
Thanks this is helpful. I may end up having to shell out for Marc’s course since he always has his ways of subverting the CFA and finding what the actual layout of the exam will be. I’ll be sure to track down the mocks from 2018-2019 on reddit/ dropbox and see what they’ve done to amp the difficulty up.