Felt easier than any of last four years’ CFAI mocks, but probably down to a lot of studying done in last final days
PM was marginally trickier than AM
Quant and Port. Man. raised biggest question marks for me, still only on c. 2 Qs each
Was happy seeing one of the vignettes ‘took place’ on a cold island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean
After the exam, I overheard people talking how they didn’t have enough time, struggled, and had to guess last 6 Qs. One of those guys didn’t know how to use the CF function on his calculator!
The last point just underlines that this forum doesn’t represent the population of L2 candidates. Most people on here feel like the got >70%, whereas there are many people out there who struggled with the exam. I’m sure that AF members are more likely to pass as they are generally more pro-active in their studying.
I think there were lots of conceptually testing questions, were on ecan make mistakes, while this exam do look easy on the face, as one will be 60 % confident while answering/ educated guess in conceptual questions, as against getting nothing in complex problems& feel bad, & percieved difficulty levels.
I feel it is as tougher then last year, may be this forum is not the correct sample as Selective biaseness of maximum retaker & people who puts maximum efforts, out of those only those who has done well is reporting there views about test. Also they were well read all the topics, so will not be get trapped in tricks.
I formly belief it will not be more then 67 % max, as PM was definetly tough with lot of unexpected stuff & weights of paper in exam. Quant, PM, AI & derivatives were definetly tougher
AM was easy. PM was relatively much harder (had same experience in L1 last December)… Thought I did very well in ethics. Guess I’m in the minority here.
overall, a fair exam: a well-prepared candidate would have passed that I think. Can’t really complain.
as I suspected, the real exam was nothing like the mocks.
schweser did a good job overall of covering the curriculum. They didn’t cover PM very well though.
I do think that the difficulty of CFA Level II is exaggerated on this forum. It isn’t the massive jump up in difficulty from Level I that most people here claim.
I covered port mgt with the books and had a pretty good grip of it prior to walking in. I was able to answer the first four questions of the exam and couldnt get the last two. Could anybody get out the last two? I tried everything
I think there were lots of conceptually testing questions, were on ecan make mistakes, while this exam do look easy on the face, as one will be 60 % confident while answering/ educated guess in conceptual questions, as against getting nothing in complex problems& feel bad, & percieved difficulty levels.
I feel it is as tougher then last year, may be this forum is not the correct sample as Selective biaseness of maximum retaker & people who puts maximum efforts, out of those only those who has done well is reporting there views about test. Also they were well read all the topics, so will not be get trapped in tricks.
I formly belief it will not be more then 67 % max, as PM was definetly tough with lot of unexpected stuff & weights of paper in exam. Quant, PM, AI & derivatives were definetly tougher
althought the exam is fairly manageble, I do not know why so many people called it easy, straight forward, walk in the park etc… Can those who said so be sure they can score at least 80%? There are tricks and traps here and there, one may think it is doable but end up being tricked to choose the wrong answer! So beware!
I could totally relate to that. The last 3 questions made me go bonkers. For me, I generally felt Ethics is the toughest (as I had no clue whether they were right/wrong) and FRA pretty tricky, but doable, port mgmt on that 3q, and the rest pretty straigtforward. I got band 10 last year, so hopefully with 200 added studying hours and practices, I will pass.
I found the FI questions ticky as well, Morning I thought performed much better and in afternoon had to make educated guess atleast 7/8 questions. Personally I think exam was deceptive to an extend, gave you a feeling you are on track unless you have identified the traps which were here and there… So I do not think MPS will be in 70% range as few people tend to think. Also they changed weightage a bit this time (if you compare it with Mock)
Morning ethics was frustrating…I do not think these arguments are so clearly stated in the material to not have any reasonable doubt at all… Afternoon ethics was fair for me! Guessed in derivatives and PM, the last three randomly guessed… B,A,B. Any idea if this is correct? haha, just wonder…
Good to see the avid dicussion and anyone who has survived to tell the tale deserves kudos and respect!
IMHO:
Reading comprehension is key. The questions are very well written but you have to pay attention or they will get you.
98% does not cut it like in L1 - if you don’t remember whether there is a “+” or “-” at the end of something, you must guess.
For me the AM was easier than the PM. The last two sets on the PM (we all know what they were) were a bit of a brutal shock. Luckily I had enough time to close my eyes for 10 seconds, say to myself “this is where the passing candidates separate themselves from the rest” and battle with the questions.
I have a simple system I applied back in L1 and for L2 as well and it helps take of the pressure of waiting for 7 weeks for an answer on how you did. Starting with the mocks, I rate a question between 1 and 4 as follows:
(1) I know the answer;
(2) Anything from I have managed to eliminate 1 answer and upwards;
(3) Cannot eliminate anything but have a gut feeling / hunch / have a logical reason to choose something;
(4) No clue whatsoever;
I check these four rubrics for every mock and over the several hundred questions answered over all of the mocks, I know my correct answer rate for each rubric - e.g. for something I know let’s say I answer correctly 90% of the time, for something in rubric (2) it’s 73% of the time, etc.
During the actual exam I mark every question “I” “II” “III” or “IV” and I tally them up at the end of the session. Once I step out of the exam room I write them down. At the end of the day I add the numbers up, weigh them according to their statistical “correctness” and then I have a simulated score. In theory you can even check the STD for each of the rubrics and develop an overall STD for the exam, but I guess I’m too lazy to do it
Cheers and hope we are all celebrating come July 22nd (?)
I don’t think the exam fully tested the strength of a strong CFA candidate. It was a fair exam and completely on par with the mock exams, if not slighly easier that some of the mocks.
I was frustrated that they didn’t ask certain questions, and they seemed to focus on a couple of topics I didn’t know so well. I was also hoping for a larger FI section and less in the AI.
Overall, I don’t think I passed. That was probably due to a poor showing on Ethics and being unable to figure out the answers on 6-7 Equity questions, a few guesses on Derivs and a Port Man section that screwed me. I did fairly well at FRA, so hopfully that will pick my score up a few notches…
I’m looking at a band 8-10 fail as I think the exam was easy for someone who knew the answers…it was a difficult exam to make educated guesses in.
I felt like some questions were too easy, while others were impossible for me. Taken overall, I don’t think it was too easy…no one well prepared could pass this thing without tons of luck. Lastly, derivatives were my weak point, and I probably had 5ish more questions that I had to take guesses on both sessions. We’ll see what happens. I have a feeling its either band 10 or pass though. Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.
First session was okay (not easy, ok!). The second session was very difficult! I’m surprised that certain individuals found it easy. Where i sat for the exams, most of us found it hard. Anyways, hope the pass rates would be acceptable.
