I kind of knew I wouldn’t pass, but was hoping for a miracle…But no, I did not pass…
Majority of my topics, except FRA and FI were either 50-70%+ or 70%+. I have no finance background and my weakest has always been FRA. I must have done miserably on those two topics to fail.
The pass rate this year is 44%, which is a lot higher than any other times. Is the exam just getting easier…?! So demoralized…
Any tips on how I should tackle FRA and FI? I’ve been using Schweser. I didn’t read the CFAI due to lack of time (plus most people said it’s a waste of time and that Schweser was good enough…)…
You were bad on Alternative Investments? Well, you just didnt study that I guess because AI is kind of easy. About FRA you are forgiven.
44% of pass rate is high, but the exams are always hard, so I think the people were better now. Dont give up, you have 4 months to master everything.
If you want to boost the FRA part just check the Elan Guide Videos on youtube of FRA, is a 7-hour video which pass through ever chapter, even the fundaments. But watch it entirely!!
Im almost good on FRA, but that video is a really really help, trust me.
Remember, Accountability is a system, a method, a thing that can be understood, you just must learn it.
I don’t think FRA needs a lot of memorization. the more understanding of FRA, the lesser amount of memorization is needed, so like just I wrote above, accountability is a system that can be learnt, that simple.
Thank you. I keep on trying to understand accounting (BS, IS etc), but when it comes to the latter part of the FRA studies (such as DTA, DTL etc), I have a hard time even understanding it…I’ll focuse on these two for the June exam. Hopefully i’ll be more strategic this time…
Oh ok Fixed income… you are forgiven again. FI topic has been simplified for 2014 from 2013, it has a couple of chapters gone and is being simplified for the june 2015 exam as well (the weight is getting lower).
Be carefull about checking too past study resources for FI, it has changed and keep the eye on the official chapters (dont study unnecessarily).
For FI, Schweser is enough, but solve the end of chapters excersices when you finish a chapter, dont wait to cover the entire FI book to start practicing!
Not necessarily true. The accounting knowledge that is the basis for FRA is primarily memorization but performing the actual analysis of the impact transactions/events have on the health of a company and its financial statements is highly conceptual.
I despise accounting, but I like FRA because it actually requires you to use critical thinking. Honestly, I think it may be one of the more conceptual areas of the CFA curriculum.
Come on, you know is a 4x2 questions of AI, and the reading is not heavy, I got 50-70% score of AI at the last exam. Since the lower band is <=50% I didnt do 4 bad questions, im higher than that. I did not score 70% band so I would need 6 good answers to stay there. I scored 5/8… that is not a king anywhere.
I was referring to the fact that you told the other candidate that he clearly didn’t study since he didn’t do well on the item set… Again, it seemed arrogant, given that the OP was asking for advice.
As for FRA, I hadn’t made any comments about the difficulty. I believe difficulty is relative. I have a finance background, and I ended up scoring >70% in each content area on the exam, which is congruent with the practice questions and mock exams I completed. I think the exam and preparation would have been much more difficult for me had I not earned a degree in finance. My hat is off to people who study the CFAI curriculum in a few months and pass.
He made a mistake saying AI, he already meant FI, which he said got <50% score, and I wasn’t arrogant since getting <50% on AI is just simply because you didn’t study and you must be agree. But if we talk about FI, the figure changes.
The topic he was talking about or meant to talk about is irrelevant…I think getting less than 50% indicates you didn’t understand the tested material, even at basic level. I don’t think that necessarily means the person didn’t study. Things just don’t click for some people, and people often blank on exam day. I have a few friends who are like this. They study a lot: read, write notes, read notes, practice questions, and even sound like they know the material when you converse with them. Yet, they fail the exam.
I guess my point was more that the OP asked for help, not for your opinion on whether or not he or she studied…
But, I’ll let you have this. You did forgive him, and that is the important part.
Well, I prefer to tell a guy he didn’t study properly to tell him he is a mental handicap. Check this, he enrolled CFA 1 exam so he is finance interested, he must know finance is not easy, he indeed scored 70+ on some topics, he studied many months on this hard task and he even sat that day. Well, all this things is a proff he is a “mental handicap” for the god sake!.
I wont ever tell a ppl it is a retarded and that it cant get all information to the brain, thats absurd. I think you are sensitive with this case because your friends have biased your common sense and you just relate the “failure” with “disability”. Thats wrong.
Hi Js426, I would just say that donot listen to every one. Have some filters in you which only let the motivation to come in and not other crap.
Everyone is different, some are good in one area and some in other. FRA and FI didn’t work for you this time, as those are actually difficult topics for you. All you need to do is put some more efforts this time. Study hard. There is no ground rule on which material you should refer to CFAI, other notes etc etc. You have already spent some time on it. Read it from the books which makes you understand the topic. It can be CFAI as well for 1 or 2 subjects. Yes, that will take more time , but that will make to understand the subject and get you much needed marks.
I am also non-finance background so FRA and FI were difficult for me too. I failed my 1st attempt last year with Band 5 !. I was also very demotivated.
This time I read few subjects from CFA books , few from schweser. did lot of questions from qbank, and I passed with >70 in most subjects.
I wish you all the best. Just forget last time and look forward to June exam now.
A lot of your conclusions are laughable… I’m not saying the OP is mentally handicapped (in fact, I didn’t ever say that). To me, it seemed arrogant on your part because he was just asking for help (again, this was my point-- nowhere did I assume he didn’t study or is handicapped, as you put it).
I made a point to say that someone can study and not perform well for any number of reasons (which made it sillier for you to outright tell the OP he didn’t study). There are many reasons why you can underperform on topics, but I made no attempt to pin down why the OP didn’t perform as well as he wanted (I only offered the reality that other things could have caused this). It’s highly variable why people don’t do well. For example, blanking on an exam doesn’t have a whole lot to do with intelligence or ability…
I have friends and acquaintances that run the spectrum, so no, I don’t think my friends have biased me in any direction. Some people I know do struggle with academics, while others consistently perform extremely well. Should we assume these people study all the time because they perform so well? I’ve found that many of the “underperformers” are busy balancing a job and family along with school, so they’re more impressive to me than someone with fewer responsibilities who is acing every class.
Another comical assumption you’ve made is that I relate failure with disability, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. I have a friend who is labeled as “disabled” because he falls on the autism spectrum (high functioning). But, let me be clear, he surpasses almost anyone I’ve ever met on an intellectual basis.
