Anyone else think the topics tested on the 2012 CFAI Mock for FSA and Equity were from the weeds of the curriculum?
I just went back through to count and there were 0 questions on current rate method/temporal method, 1 on pensions, 5 on intercorporate investments. I thought those are/will be the 3 biggest FSA topics and they represented only 6 out of the 24 questions.
As for Equity there were 2 different item sets that had 1 FCFF question each and 1 item set had 4 DDM questions, there were no questions on residual income.
Hopefully the actual test on Saturday focuses more on those 6 areas.
They want to make sure people taking the test learn all of the subject material, so they throw random topics on the mocks so that people review them and go back and try to learn everything. If the material is predictable from year to year and people can earn the designation just by leaning 5 or 6 big topics, whats the allure?
I think one of the main reasons is that they don’t like to test the same topics on the exam than on the mock. Some people believe that items specificly tested on the mock have a lower chance of showing up on the real exam and vice versa.
Not sure how true that is, but if so it leaves room for those types of more main-stream questions to be tested on the real exam. At least I am hopeful, because I normally crush those intercorp investment, translation questions!
I agree 100%, the 2012 FRA questions were from obscure corners of the curriculum.
The last two post kwal & nvestn hit the nail on the head imho. Especially with FRA in the am session. I’ve done every EOC with regards to FRA and felt '12 FRA (am session) came out of no where. The questions appeared more like riddles than questions meant to test your candidate knowledge.
I won’t be fooled by this CFAI scare tactic since I know CFAI Mocks are always much much harder than the real exam. I’m a band 9 L2 retaker (and a former band 10 L1 retaker lol) so I’m already use to this “extremely hard Mock/ hard but doable real exam” routine. I got 72% overall on this latest installment so I’m pump for saturday!