I think if someone is about 1 Question away from MPS and did really well in Ethics (over 70% score in Ethics) then they might get a bump and might Pass.
Bayes would be proud
Also one of the “Paid” report published by 300 hours suggested that the difference between each Failed Band in Level 2 is about 3 questions.
2x Band 10 re-taker. Failed Ethics last year so prob the reason I didn’t pass. As far as difficulty, the exam was in line with previous years. This year, however, you definitely needed a grasp on the entire curriculum - I couldn’t believe the weights. The last two years I think I fell for a few trap questions / answers. I was sure to be on the look out this year, and there was definitely a couple where you had to really pay attention as you could have easily solved the wrong answer.
All around, I thought each topic was fair. Ethics is always a toss up, but I don’t think it was overly difficult. Here’s to hoping the third and final times a charm.
Ethics was rough!!! I looked up some of the answers afterwards and some of the question solutions were mentioned ONCE in the text in a small line in an example case scenario.
On the mocks (and you know how many I’ve done) sometimes I get 100% on ethics, sometimes 60% and sometimes 40%… It’s a complete toss up for me.
Won’t get into details but lots of non core stuff tested later in the day was kinda strange. Pretty mad a “certain” FRA section didn’t show up. One I think is EXTREMELY important to be know no matter what field of finance you are in.
Anyways, the exam was really balanced. They don’t drill you on one particular topic which was good. Quant, PM, and FI I crushed. However, I do not understand really the grading method. If it is true that all I need to do is be in the top 53 percent or even 60 percent of candidates based on a relative basis then I think I passed.
There are a ton of people out there who I think focused only on core material and got waxed. Hopefully, I will be measured against them. Now if CFAI sits down and takes the exam and does the standard setting and benchmarks everyone based on “who they think should pass” then it is a toss up.
Yeah I had two ethics questions that I went back and changed, looked them up yesterday and found out I got them right. Whenever, I looked them up in the curriculum though? I swear 3 sentences max in the description haha.
I felt FRA was extremely weird. Nothing in that section was expected. What I thought going to be heavily tested was very lacking, and what I thought was minor was actual major.
Alt, PM, FI and Derv felt right though.
That’s CFAI doing what they can though. It’s their baby to do what they want with. Which is why from the beginning I tried to tell everyone to take every mock exam score with a grain of salt. Hopefully you guys saw why I said that now.
I felt the AM was really easy and the PM was difficult. I am shocked on how CFAI decided to weight the exam. Lots of random material was tested.
Took six Schwesser full mocks and both CFAI mocks and felt that the actual exam was easier than all of them. The questions were extremely straight forward and you either knew the answer or you didn’t. I agree that vignettes specifically focused about certain LOS but they were still very clearly outlined in the LOS. To be fair, I was surprised how little conceptual thinking was required versus pure memorization and I’m a bit disappointed about that - I felt like brute force was more important than truly understanding the nuances of the readings.
My guess is 70s-80s on AM and 80s-90s on PM.
There was a formula needed to calculate in a FRA question that I kid you not, I saw maybe twice in the past 6 months. Took 5 minutes or so, but I got it and almost audibly said thank god under my breath. Alt PM FI yeah very fair, straight forward. Dervs pretty much the same except for a couple questions.
When I really think about it, there were at least 4-5 vignettes to where I can for sure remember that my average on them has to be between 83 and 100.
It’s really difficult for me to completely blow a vignette altogether but I do think there may have been one or two that might not have gone well. 
Agreed though, I think if FRA and Equity were core focused and tested that way (which they were not and were mixed), then I would have walked out 100 percent confident. Too bad, I now get to wonder until mid August because I just don’t think it was a shoe in.
You also get to that point to where you have taken so many mocks, you just have a “feeling” of how you did. We will see though!
Either way, I am not stopping the program. I will be extremely mad if I failed though and will destroy the exam next year and then destroy level III.
I suggested that the real MPS for L2 exam historically was in the range of 57-62% in the most recent years. There was a thread on reddit about the calculation comparing the results of PASS and FAIL from the same exam. It corresponds with my estimate based on CFAI online practice tests. You could notice that it showed your % of right questions and your percentile among all candidates (that is a different thing). If you assume 46-47% pass rate for L2 then it’s roughly equal to 55-57% scored at CFAI practice questions based on percentile distribution.
i’m pretty sure I passed but you never know with these kinds of exams! But AM was a cake walk compared to PM. Also, I thought there were some ridiculously easy questions. I kept reading some questions over and over again as I couldn’t believe that the question was so easy.
Failing band 10 is one of the most pissed off feelings you can ever experience. Every damn day I walked to the library I did so with a feeling of rage and embarrassment to get better. It made me a better human being at the end of the day, and I wouldn’t change a thing, but damn it sets you on fire to get better because the only thing and person you can blame is yourself.
Yeah well, I will admit I punted on some stuff that should have been shoe-ins had I just learned them ended up being 5 questions to where I am just guessing. However, I think I got enough of the super weird ones right for CFAI to maybe look at that if I am in fact borderline. The questions you only get right if you have covered all of the material at least 2 times.
I guessed 40 questions on the AM section, and 20 on the PM section. Y’all think I got a shot?
LOL… your ods are better than guessing on the whole exam:
Ionno man think I’m pretty good at guessing. For instance I found out that whenever there is a row of C’s the next answer, statistically speaking, have a higher chance of being a B. I picked up this and a bunch of other trends out in the 6 hours of test time. (I’m not talking about topic sections, so I’m sure this isn’t a violation, but, just in case, correct me if I’m wrong…) I think my problem came from poor planning and time management. If I were to do it over again, I would plan to have enough time to run through the entire curriculum twice, and have an additional 3-4 weeks to do practice problems/ exams. I would also plan to go back periodically to refresh my memory on previous topics.
Morning was tougher than any mock I’ve done, killed me. Afternoon was much easier. I don’t think I made the cut.