I retook the exam today and found that it was not as hard. I scored only 67% but I was very tough on myself with grading. Obviously lot more effort has gone in this year but looking back I really could not understand how I did so badly last time around. In the real exam I panicked, did not grab some easy points towards the end. I dont even remeber reading the core satellite manager question, black litterman etc… This time I even got the return calculation almost right… I see that now CFA calculated return by geometric wt rather than simpls arithmetic based on some of the CFA answers. I just left this exam till the end to see how well I do in a tough exam condition. I would think it has boosted the confidence level a bit. I only hope that I retain all that I have learnt so far on the exam day. Did anyone else score themselves on 2007??
I did. Got 77%, but i was not tough on myself :), so expect real score to be worse. Just hope that not too much worse. I did not think the exam was all that hard. It was not easy of course, but pretty much in line with other 2000-2005 tests (I probably think 2005 was harder, 2006 i have not done yet). Hate how they had a question with two correct answers (equity collar and exchange fund) - I spent tons of time trying to chose between the two. Other than that, the questions were quite reasonable. Do you remember which questions people found particularly hard last year?
krishna, how many hours did you put in last year for the exam?
I did it this morning and graded myself a 71%, with a policy of subtracting some points if my answer wasn’t up to the guideline standards, even if on the right track. I get the feeling that the graders last year were much tougher… After seeing the grades from last year, I was expecting a bear, but I thought it went fine. The corridor width questions were a welcome softball, as was the operating profit economic question, and the global attribution went fine (although I had read in advance that there was no benchmark, so you should just consider the benchmark weight zero… and I hope I would have been smart enough to happily accept this simplification on the real exam). I feel absolutely no pressure to get the return requirement right, as I haven’t gotten it right once. But I missed on the risk tolerance badly, which is inexcusable. That’s just reading comprehension and a bit of judgment.
I must have spent about 200 hrs, started around mid march but got distracted due to some med problem and World Cup Cricket but even then my preparation I thought was better compared to level 1&11 and still ended up goofing up. I guess it is all due to panic. I just got stuck in to the return calculation and equity collar vs ETF. After an hour I was barely done with question 1&2 and it was all down hill from there…
corridor width questions & global attribution are really easy, took me less than 15min in total to get 100% right… the endowment has a bit of trick there, but fair.
I was chatting with my bud about this too and he mentioned 2007 was pretty fair and 2006 was pretty tough compared to it at times, I agreed with him. But I rationalized that some of the material in 2006 that your required to know would be different from 2007 and so on.
you dont assume that wb = 0. what really happens is wb = wp then wp*rp (total port return) = currency contribution + security alloc + market alloc + market contrib leaving cc alone (rp-rb)*wp + (wp-wb)*rb+wb*rb. since wp = wb second term is 0 opening parenthesis of the first term we get rp*wp - rb*wp + wb*rb. but we know that wb = wp so - rb*wp + wb*rb = 0 we end up with rp*wp that is it 
I took 2005 in late April and got around a 61%, but I’ve studied a lot since then. Got 77% on 2006 and 71% on 2007. I’m expecting that the graders will find more things wrong with my answers than I have… What I’m wary of are those short answer questions where you have to explain something; I didn’t react all that well to the Black-Litterman question, for example. I can sort of say what it is, but a grader can easily find fault with the whole thing because, unfortunately, I haven’t memorized what’s in the CFA curriculum.
If you get 60% in the real exam on the essay part I think you will be in a very good positon to pass. I am hoping that afternoon session will be easier of course…
I hope afternoon section will be easier then Mock
I will take the mock exam anyday. this is the first time I ever felt confident(level 1 thru 3) after a full exam…I do not think it was as tough as last year’s real exam. Dont expect the ethics session to be so easy. also the GIPS section was very easy in the mock compared to last year’s real exam. first two questions entirely fit in to my screen which wont be the case. you will end up reading for ever before answering. But you will certainly do fine.
krishna1 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I will take the mock exam anyday. this is the > first time I ever felt confident(level 1 thru 3) > after a full exam…I do not think it was as tough > as last year’s real exam. Dont expect the ethics > session to be so easy. also the GIPS section was > very easy in the mock compared to last year’s real > exam. first two questions entirely fit in to my > screen which wont be the case. you will end up > reading for ever before answering. But you will > certainly do fine. i think it is just your stress talking. L2 and L1 both were comparable difficulties to online tests
krishna1, was there a GIPS Q in last yr? PM session?
Yes, for the first time Ithink they tested GIPS in the AN session. it was not straightforward. they dump you with data and ask for calculations. it was far more difficult compared to mock exam. I kept reading everyday for half hour in the last week hopign that I would pick up enough points in GIPS but to my shock atleast 3 of the questions were problem type if I remember correct…
thanks krishna1. “I kept reading everyday for half hour” haven’t thought about this… will do “I kept reading everyday for a hour FROM NOW ON” - hope i could catch some easy points on gips…
krishna1 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yes, for the first time Ithink they tested GIPS in > the AN session. it was not straightforward. they > dump you with data and ask for calculations. it > was far more difficult compared to mock exam. I > kept reading everyday for half hour in the last > week hopign that I would pick up enough points in > GIPS but to my shock atleast 3 of the questions > were problem type if I remember correct… Just checking, but you’re saying that GIPS appeared in last year’s PM session and they required some calculations? When I did the 2007 essay, I certainly noticed that GIPS wasn’t on it, and I was wondering how it appeared in the afternoon.
yeah I said afternoon(AN) not AM session and it had calculations more than the normal excpetion kind of question that you would see in pre 2007 exams.
Thought this year none of the LOS in GIPS require calculations with the exception of the Real Estate section on Capital and Income Return.