Hello all,
I am averaging a score of 65% to 70% on Schweser mocks, which are supposed to be easier than the real exam. Mostly, I am having a bad score in ethics, econ and fixed income. I also noticed that the mocks arent so calculation oriented, so I am not gonna waste time in memorizing all the small formulas.
I was planning to do mocks until the exam day, but now I am not sure that will be a good strategy.
How much should i get on mocks to guarantee a pass?
There is no score that will guarantee you will pass, but at 65% to 70% your clearly in striking range. I would keep doing mocks, only going back to the books if you dont really understand why you got a question wrong, and if your struggling wiith ethics hit that again. When I did level 1 my first few mocks were all in that same range (65% to 70%), and I was fine.
I’m in the same boat as you. I’ve been hammering out Qbanks and I’ve been scoring around 60%-70%, with some scores at 75% here and there. There’s an overwhelming amount of material and each time I take a new practice exam, there’s questions that just throws me off whether it be knowing the formulas or just something very particular/specific.
Some of these Ethic questions are paragraphs long and have a lot of grey areas. For example, I had one question where an asset manager left a large firm and whether this is material information or not. I selected that it was material information particularly drawing from Bill Gross’ recent departure from Pimco which large redemptions.
In particular, FRA is most gruesome for me. Either you know it or you don’t. There’s no way to logically come up with the answer. Yes, I understand most of the concepts like the balance sheet equation, LIFO/FIFO, leverage and liquidity ratio. But when they start asking you the different rules (IFRS vs GAAP) etc…, I just can’t seem to remember it.
I’m an almost chartered accountant (14/15 exams done) and since I studied IFRS, then its those US GAAP questions that really throw me off.
What I find most bizarre is that instead of focusing on the big financial reporting topics of how things should be accounted for or what effect something has, they instead ask so many questions about the small marginal differences between US GAAP and IFRS which I think is really the least of any analysts concern (relative to the bigger stuff).
Weird focus but you just have to learn it.
I just got a 60% on my first mock. I am going to review my weak areas during the week and take another mock every weekend before test day (at least 3 more mocks). And then im going to do a final review the week before of my weakest areas paying close attention to where my weak points are in relation to heavily weighted categories. I have been timing myself on each section and I am meeting or beating it for the most part.
Does anybody have any special advice for the last few weeks leading up?
I do one mock per week. I started the week-end before last, that will be 5 mocks before the exam. During the week I review my notes mostly, and I review EOCs questions (from CFAI and Schweser) and saturdays I do a big review of my past mistakes. If this is not enough, I don’t know what is.
Just use the mock scores to gauge where you stand. Your scores in the mock isn’t a good indicator of pass/fail in the actual test. I’ve never reached 70% in any of the mock exams that I took. But it helped me concentrate on my weaknesses and fill in the gaps during revision.
You’re in a good place. Hammer ethics from CFA text multiple times and just keep drilling questions.
May not feel like it, but you have plenty of time to solidify everything.