superstar give us some more info! there is no way to remember all the material - what do?
I am convinced that swaps questions are just evil. It’s precisely the type of problem where you can come into the exam thinking you know it down pat, and still end up with an answer that is not one of the choices. Here’s a little story to underscore my point. I had lunch recently with an L3 candidate. She told me she spent four hours just on swaps the night before the exam, jumped straight to the derivatives section to knock out the swaps question right away, did the problem and…got an answer that wasn’t one of the choices. Said she cried at that point, the rest of the exam was a blur, left the room thinking 100% sure that she failed…only to pass with all sections above 70%. That said, I now have a much better intuitive understanding of swaps thanks to this site. So when/if I see that question on the exam, I may actually give it a try instead of taking my 33.33% stab in the dark.
I’m a Level 3 candidate too. Derivative freaked me out at Level 2. I read it about 6 months before the exam and understood the concepts. I fell sick 8 weeks to the exam and was in the hospital for 3 weeks. Then I came back to refresh 5 weeks to the exam and I just couldn’t wrap my head around anything derivatives. The swaps questions nailed me. I had to rush to the bathroom during the morning session to slow down my heart beats and force myself to calm down for about 5 mins. I guessed all the remaining derivatives answers and sure enough I got less than 50% but passed the exam. I did the first sample exam a few weeks before the exam and got 54%! I almost freaked out then. The road was rough but consistency and discipline paid off. Now I’m having some nasty time with Level 3 but I look back at the stuff I passed through in Level 2 to keep the confidence up.
builders Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > lgirl44 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Thought I was ready to do the mock. > > > > AM - 62% > > > > Could do (much) better > > > > how are others finding it? are we allowed to > > discuss specific questions or is that a breach > of > > ethics (am guessing I should already know the > > answer to this…) > > you’re toast. ^^ whatever - notice you don’t have the balls to post your score!
^ haha, it’s always funny when girls talk about “having balls”.
KSTHANE Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Spanishesk, that is helpful, but it’s different > than the other guy’s system. Yours is pretty > similar to the way CFAI did it so you should be > golden. It all makes sense when I read it, I have > a problem remembering to do it that way though. > For example, I don’t know why for the floating > rate payment we revert back to .0142 instead of > using .0221. The other odd thing about your way is > that you don’t have anything about the actual > 5.15% that they give you in the problem, whereas > all the other ways I’ve read somehow includes > that. Spent waaay too much time trying to understand the solution to this problem and here is what I think re your second q on not using 5.15%. The 5.15% rate is for the bond and has nothing to do with “valuing” the swap…which is why we have to calculate the fixed rate for the swap itself (q #7). Conceptually, here is how the swap and bond tie together - the firm thinks interest rates will go down. By entering into a swap where it will pay floating (which they think will go down) and receive fixed, it will make a profit. This profit will help in reducing their payment of 5.15% for the bond. I’m using old Schweser 2010 notes (retaker) and most examples in there give a quarterly rate payment for the “swap” itself. So essentially the 5.15% is just there to confuse us and sure enough drove me nuts!! However, 45 days later, the opposite happens and they make a loss instead. Hope this helps! To Spanishesk, thanks for the detailed way on how to solve the problem! And to Cpk, thanks for those swap theads!
First attempt of the 2011 CFAI Mock AM: 55% PM: 73% Going to do the 2010 CFAI Mock tomorrow and 2011 again next weekend.
Where can I find last year’s CFAI mock ?
For some reason I couldn’t edit my previous post, anyway… First attempt of the 2010 CFAI Mock AM: 67% PM: 67%
v11 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Where can I find last year’s CFAI mock ? Not sure where you can get it. I am a re-taker and I have the print out from last year. I didn’t save it electronically either.
just finished Schweser 2nd exam 88 in the am 85 in the pm Do we think schweser will be on the same level as CFA? i know this has been asked, and i usually have found schweser to be tougher but i get a feeling not for LII
youre scoring 80+ you are good. schweser would be totally useless if someone scoring so high cant pass the actual exam lol
Just did 1st AM Vol 1. Got 88% I don’t like Schweser exam at all. It looks so different from CFAI sample exams. Many questions can be answered without looking at the vignette at all. Some are downright stupid. I don’t think it’s a good proxy for the real exam.
Just an observation… I have so far taken the 2011 am mock and scraped in with 72% I dug out the CFA 2009 am mock… It seemed fairly straightforward…hardly any tricks and few calculations, I scored 83% with plenty of time left. From the style and format of the older exam, it appears they are now making things more difficult for us??? I do appreciate, this is hardly a conclusive sample and I may have just lucked out with material I vaguely understood.
I agree the mocks have gotten more difficult.
72 is great though.
AM - 60 PM - 63 I’m F-ed
Chicago_Bull, no you’re not. 60/63 isn’t that bad for your first CFA Mock especially with 2 weeks to spare, stick with it!
58% in pm 
realy need to nail down calculations, practice like crazy to have all formulas memorised
If you think the mocks are tough…try the samples!!! It doesn’t help having the clock ticking down, but at this point as a retaker, I cannot believe how I appear to know the concept, but fall foul to the little tricks in the questions far too often.