Hey everyone, hope your studies are going great! Simply just posting Mock scores to get an idea of where I stand. Please post yours as well;
CFA Mock: 76%
Schweser Mocks (average of 5): 78%
I generally finish about 15 minutes early to review all my answers (I am a slow test taker/reader), but I never once couldn’t finish because of time.
Just think everyone, in less than two weeks we will be free!!! Good luck to all.
I plan to take the CFAI Mock this week.
i have been averaging around 70% on my Schweser Mocks (I have taken 3).
The plan from now on is to continue taking mocks and memorizing formulas.
I have taken only the Schweser Live Mock and I received a 70% on that. Starting Tuesday (reviewing first) I am taking a practice test every day for a week and I’ll come back and post here the scores here.
I am finding time not to be an issue at all as well, usually finish 30-40 minutes early (without reviewing of answers).
What did you think of the CFAI Mock compared to Schweser? I see you scored only slightly lower on the CFAI mock, but you’re doing well overall man! Is the CFAI Mock an old actual exam, or was it designed for practice only? Also, are you going to take any of the sample exams? The plan starting this Tuesday was to take the CFAI Mock, review all my answers on Wednesday, then take the two sample exams the following day and the rest of the days do Schwesers. I thought the order or relevancy was CFAI Mock, CFAI Sample, then Schweser, but a lot of people seem to put Schweser before sample mocks saying the sample mocks are unneccesarily hard.
I was hoping to take the live schweser mock, but it was not offered in my city. I would love to hear how the live mock compared to the schweser practice exams. Like I said, II’m averaging 70% on practice exams but I’m worried I’m not doin as well as I should be at this point. My major problem is the formula memorization.
@rayankh
I thought Econ, Ethic, & FRA way harder on CFA Mock. But others like Quant and Fixed Income way easier. Overall, I would say harder. I was weird though because some questions where ridiculously hard and some where ridiculously easy compared to Schweser. And as far as I understand they are previous CFA I exams. I took the samples a month or so ago and bombed (60’s). The CFA samples are the devil.
@Leah
I think 70% is a fairly solid score 2 weeks before. Take it for what it is worth, but I think trying to memorize every formula is a mistake. There are just to many. Focus on doing problems, because when you are doing problems it’s easy to put the puzzle together. Meaning rather then just reading a flash card that says “Fixed Coverage” and back has formula, it’s easier to imprint in your memoring doing a problem about fixed coverage and figuring out from there.
Greaattt… FR&A and Econ harder on CFA mock? … just what I wanted to hear.
Having taken the samples though, I know it’s hard for you to remember, but would you recommend taking them with a little less than 2 weeks left or would you recommend taking Schweser instead. I guess I’m asking if the morale crushing of the sample exams is really worth what you gain from taking them.
Yea, the Live Mock was really a good experience. I know it’s late in the game for this to be my first mock exam, but I don’t start work until later in June, so I have all day every day for the next 10 days or so to take exam after exam and review. I think 70% isn’t too bad of a place to be right now as long as you give it the time to reviewing and keep taking practice exams.
Completely agree with Ethics, Econ and FRA being way harder on the CFA Mock.
If you have 10 full days I would do both. The pro’s of the samples is it really challenges you to think and I have never taken Level I but I am fairly confident that is the hardest problems you will see. The con’s are it is times 120 min for 60 questions set up to give you real time answers after each question. Thus I think Schweser mocks are better aligned with real deal because it’s 120 q morning session and 120 q afternoon.
At least do one. It is only take 2 hours out of the 10 days you have left. It will force your brain to think even harder/deeper which is a good thing.
Oh shoot. It’s only 60 questions?.. I think I’ll likely take em both in a day then. Thanks for that man, that helps my planning way more.
Would you recommend doing CFAI Mock before all of the other practice exams or after taking a few other ones first and reviewing before the CFAI one - that way you’ll sit for the CFAI mock more closely resembling how prepared you will be for the actual exam.
I just scored a 73% on the first CFAI Sample exam. I’m a little skeptical…
I scored a 100% on portfolio management, fixed income, and alternative investments. Then my next highest score was in Quant… this is like the exact opposite of my outcomes on the full Live Schweser Mock.
I feel like the first 2/3 of the exam was unusually tricky and then the last third was unusually easy. I guess that’s why it’s important to keep taking as many practice tests as possible because I feel like I’m either getting really lucky with the questions (stuff I know well) or just plain unlucky. I’d like to limit my success dependability on the luck factor!
On to sample exam 2.
Been averaging in the mid 70’s on the mocks and feel some questions were totally brutual and others were a complete breeze. IMO, a mid 70’s scares me to no end for some reason
Scored a 76% on the second CFAI sample exam. The exam was worth taking, because the questions they asked were… different than I was used to. I have normally been doing well with Ethics but the Ethics questions on the sample questions were unusually hard for some reason, sometimes even frustratingly trivial as far as details in the question and overall trickiness.
$80 bucks spent for one day of only half an exam worth of questions?.. good grief.
I wouldn’t worry about the mid- 70’s scores. To be honest, the cut-off to pass is likely even lower than 70% - the CFAI said that no-one who has scored a 70% or above has ever failed… so I’m willing to bet there are many times that the cut-off is below 70. I don’t know how they calculate it, but when I took the Schweser Live Mock, we were able to see how we compared to the rest of the individuals who took the exam and the cumulative average score for the live Mock was a 59% (including about 1,000 exams). It wasn’t an overly difficult exam either, considering I scored a 70. If that’s any sort of reflection for what to expect on the exam, which it may not be, that’s somewhat comforting.
I would take CFAI mock sooner than later so you can pin point your weaknesses better. Then, if you have time you could always review your answers the day or two before. Good scores by the way. I plan on taking samples again this weekend since I took them so long ago I do not remember the questions.
Have not taken the Schweser Mock. However, after scoring 68% and 50% on Elan mocks 1 and 2 I took the CFAI mock yesterday and scored over 70%. Desperately hoping the test comes in closer to difficulty of the CFAI mocks and not Elan.
Wow. Just took the CFAI mock am paper. A really disappointing 63%. A did manage to get 1/12 on econ though… A monkey would have done better than me…
Curious about those taking some many mocks. When you don’t know the answer to a question, do you just guess and move on? If that’s the case, why not just leave it blank?
I keep two scores - one on my actual answers and another for wild guesses that I would leave blank otherwise. Get the best of both that way!
As saborio suggested, grading yourself on only answers you felt confident in answering (not correct guesses) is certainly a way to light a fire under your ass as your grade will surely be lower.
I never did this though, on the real exam I’m not gonna pull the honesty card and think, “well I don’t TOTALLY know this so it would be dishonest if I were to guess, get it right, and ultimately pass the test because of this correct guess.” On the real exam, you guess if you have no clue and have a 33% of getting it right.
I would recommend, however, maybe keeping a running list on the first or last page of the test book of question #'s you might consider revisiting after you’re through all 120 questions - if you have time remaining, of course.
I’m not sure how good those mock exams are. Two years ago I totally immersed myself in the L2 material. I went all out on the studying, and I felt like I learned a lot. I took EVERY MOCK EXAM offered by Stalla; I got b/w 90% - 100% correct on every single one. On exam day I felt really confident. A couple months later, I got the results, and I found out that I FAILED EVERY SINGLE SECTION single section. So, I tried to use the Stalla promise to get a free review, and they turned me away. I never went back to Stalla again. I’m just reading the actual CFA materials this year. That’s all. This is my last time taking it. Next year, I’ll read the L3 materials, no matter if I pass ro fail L2 this time around. If I fail again, I’ll just do the FRM and CAIA. I think those exams ask questions based on the material they ask you to study. The CFA consistently asks you to study certain things, like A, B, and C, and on test day, they will ask about completely different things, X, Y, Z, which are not even in the LOSs.