I sent this to a buddy the other day to sum up how I’m feeling at this moment,
Yeah I definitely understand the idea of social and emotional hedging. But I loved that last part, “rise up like the pheonix from the ashes.” Beautiful stuff.
Wish everybody here could pass! Let’s wait for the coming celebration
Level-I results: Estatic, scared, took the day off from work, felt like throwing up
Level-II results: edgy, slightly nervous
Level-III results: chill, composed
Also, refelct on why is your confidence gone and does it really matter? For me there is zero impact at work, zero impact on my social life until march next year.
Life is good, chill out. It’s just a dumb exam
The exam itself isn’t dumb. The dumbest part is that you have to spend months for waiting. Months of self-doubting. Another half year of preparing and another couple of months for another round of waiting. The whole process is just exhausting.
Maybe it’s karma
My point was that it’s just a test, it’s not life or death.
Agree. I do tend to unnecessarily worry abt it too much.
My experience has been my initial instincts after I left the exam were proven to be correct. If I thought I was going to be borderline, I was and if I thought I kicked butt, I did. So if you had a good feeling leaving the exam then perhaps you did fine. Stay positive.
You are probably a rich white kid with no real responsibilities, and who likely spent thousands of dollars on rich white kid prep. courses.
And you’re probably a poor black/asian/latino who is the bedrock of his dysfunctional family and somehow has miraculously found the time to grit through the entire CFAI workload himself … Dude, you have no clue about my situation and I’m sure that there are very few here that have went through some of the things I’ve went through (not that it matters because this isn’t a dick measuring contest).
Oh and from my experience most of the people in those “rich white kid prep courses” are anything but white, but that’s not important anyways.
A few things that I believe help me.
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I am an English speaker, I believe this is a huge advantage and level III often times the difference between pass and fail.
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I put in more time for level III then for any of the other two exams by my calculations I was above 700 hours of study time by the final week.
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I felt good after the exam.
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I finished all the questions in the exam.
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during the exam I did not run into anything that I did not see while studying.
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I had done well over eight practice exam.
things that I feel hurt me.
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I definitely felt more pressure before this exam then the other two
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being the type of person I am and having worked in the field long enough to know what I like I can honestly say that level two was far more interesting than level III
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while I believe I went into the exam knowing the material very well I am very unsure about whether or not I answered questions in the way the Institute desires
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history has shown that the CFA Institute is very good at placing land mines that are difficult to discover in exam questions I just hope I didn’t step on any.
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The extra three weeks of waiting is very difficult to deal with.
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Nobody was talking to you “Tyler4040”. My comment was a direct “reply” to “Galli”.
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I am neither black, latino, nor Asian, and thankfully not very poor.
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There are documented studies of the disadvantages of children/teens/adults of lower income families, which proportionately tend to be immigrants (not classified as white), to gain access to SAT/GMAT/LSAT/CFA/ACRONYM OF YOUR CHOICE tutoring/preparation courses.
Awwwe, poor minorities… how trite!
Certainly not karma, though I believe it is a form of dukkha.
- Agreed; I know 2 people that are non-Native English speakers and failed their first times because the language barrier was an added layer of difficulty (plus I think they studied relatively less)
2+6) Agreed; but I think I did 400+ hours overall but 10+ practice exams (AM+PM)
- Agreed; but the “good” feeling was slightly bittersweet in that I was happy I was able to answer the majority of questions naturally with confidence; but there were a bunch that also left me uneasy (see below)
4+5) Agreed; but there were about 20-25 points in the AM and 15 points in PM where I either forgot how/simply just didn’t have enough time to answer correctly even though I did study/practice them at some point – hoping for partial credit/luck on these. Among those approx. 35-40 points total were a few “white flag” questions - i.e. questions that I knew beforehand if they were to appear on the exam I would just have to waive the white flag, so to speak, and just guess (most of these were in the PM if I can recall)… Sort of like swaps on Level 2 ha 
1+2) Agreed; I’m a more technical person at heart, thus it was much harder for me to grasp the more “simple” and uber conceptual material, particularly when it came to not just having to answer multiple choice questions anymore
3+4+5) Agreed; I think everyone can say the same
I see a lot of people bring up native vs non native English speakers. Here I’ll have to completely disagree. I don’t get what the fuss is about. English isn’t even my second language (it’s my third) and it’s never been an issue in the exams. Neither have any of my friends who have taken exams ever brought it up. Since it’s pretty much a given that working in the financial world, you’re using English daily at work, people taking the exams are quite used to it. It’s not like English is a difficult language either, it’s one of the easier ones to learn.
I felt as confident walking into the exam as one could possibly be. Like many others, i was fully prepared both in terms of content and rehearsed from taking countless mocks. Leaving the exam, i was as confident as one can be given the uncertainty of the exam. Reading this site will impact your confidence level because of “trap” talk. I think the biggest reason people are anxious is due to the fact that they see the light at the end of the tunnel. This, knock on wood, may be the very last time you have to prep for such an exam and thus it builds the excitement. I expect to get the green light tomorrow but if not i will simply take a moment to gather my frustration and overcome and then start the process over again. I suggest some of you adopt a similar mantra.