Specifically Qbanks? I’m starting to think that was a big waste of money after taking the exam.
I did not use any Q-banks other than the one provided on the CFA website. I used Schweser notes and the 6 Schweser mock exams. I personally think that Schweser notes are great for level 1. It focuses on what’s important for the exam and breaks everything into LOS which was really helpful. I think purchasing an additional Q bank is overkill. You get 2700 + questions in the curriculum, about 1000 questions on the CFA website Q-bank, 720 questions on CFAI mocks and 1,440 questions on Schweser mocks. This is a total of 5,860 + questions for you to practice. My plan was to finish 6 mocks (3 CFAI and 3 Schweser) and keep the additional 3 Schweser mocks as a mini Q-bank that I could practice on the weekdays in between mocks. Schweser mocks have the highest quality questions (better than their Q-bank I have heard). If you complete every single question and have a good understanding of the solutions for each, there is no way you need more questions to pass the exam.
I did all of the Kaplan Qbank questions for L1 and did quite well, but it wasn’t the only source i used. I think i only used it during lunch at my desk. Care to elaborate why? How were you scoring on them? I would agree for L2 as a lot of 3rd party providers don’t use the vignette style in their questions which you may want to consider given your frustration. How many mocks did you do along with Qbank? I find those the most useful. Majority of passing candidates would have completed 5 mocks as well.
Were you blindly going through the questions or concentrating on why you a question wrong or even right? For example, it could be a Du Pont analysis and they give you ROA and DFL…but I would also think, what if it was NPM, asset turnover and DFL or what if i had to get the info from the financial statements…what if i had to average the movements from the balance sheet and would i remember to do that.