I’m a LII retaker. I didn’t study nearly enough last year, got over-confident and my scores definitely reflected it. So I decided this year to eat it - order the Schweser Online Videos (I think I’ve seen more Andy Holmes than I have my boyfriend in the last 4 months) - and really take the time to study hard. I did exactly what I was supposed to do - finished studying and watching the videos at the beginning of May, and then go through practice exams. Imagine my joy as I open up Book 6, sit down with a freshly sharpened pencil and a quiet house for the day, and concentrate like I’ve never concentrated before. “This is it.” I thought to myself. “Here’s where I can prove to myself that last year was a fluke, a reflection of under-studying - and I can actually pass this mess and move on with my life.” (You see, at this point, the exam had become personal. A personal battle between me and the CFAI, and damned if I was to let the CFAI win this round.) 2 hours later, I emerged from my cocoon of silence, hit submit on the Schweser page and awaited my results. 82. 82!!! That’s fantastic!! Book 6, Exam 1 AM, I LOVE YOU!!! I CAN PASS THIS THING!! Let’s try for a repeat… Exam 1, PM. 60. That’s okay… that averages out as a pass, I’m still feeling pretty good… Exam 2 AM - 65. Exam 2 PM - 73. Exam 3 AM - 55. 55??? That’s BULL!! Exam 3 PM - 70. CFA Sample - 73. CFA Mock 1 - 75. CFA Mock 2 - 65. Do I dare open up the dreaded Book 7? These marks aren’t good enough to feed me the confidence I need for 06/06. 65. 60. … I think I’m getting stupider with each exam. Anyone else in the same boat out there?
Is there any trend in the item sets that you’re not doing as well on? I would go back and compare each topic for each test to see where you need to focus your attention.
I’m exhausted, frustrated, and tired of taking practice tests and coming up against new weak areas I completely forgot about and need to review/relearn. I feel stupider by the minute but i might just be burning out! I have yet to re-review Emerging Markets valuation and something tells me it’ll be on the exam this year.
Definitely the FSA synthesis stuff - that’s my weakness. Swaps too, I try to avoid derivatives. Other than that, it’s just a mess of silly little mistakes. I think I’m getting frustrated and need to go back to the basics. Maybe I’ll watch a couple of the Schweser videos again and pick up what I’ve lost…
Well. … I’m attempting for the first time… In my first exam of the Schweser software I scored 77, that was on May 1 and I was really excited. I thought that I hv one whole month and I can easily reach 85%. Since then I have given over 20 exams and my average score is 72%, in particular for Book 6 , my scores were 76, 75 and 69. I didn’t touch 77 again , forget about 85. Everytime you attempt a new exam , there is something that you don’t kno. I dont know how else to improve , but all I can do is try harder each time. Tomorrow I will attempt the first exam of Book 7. Lets see what happens! My advice is think positively. Think that after every practice exam you are improving your knowledge., provided you don’t make the same mistakes again. Revise every exam and learn the mistakes, all it will do is prepare you better. Don’t worry much about the score. I think this shud help. Anyone to comment on this???
Don’t worry. Just put in some extra time on your weak points. You have 1.5 week remaining! You could get up from 40% to a consistent 75%. Just keep at it and you’ll be fine. I just wasted doing the 2007 BSAS exam where half of the FSA questions are not in the curriculum anymore. I felt incredibly dumb doing the exam wondering why I never saw similar questions…
I think this exam is all about peaking at the right time. No matter how well you know the stuff, if you didn’t think about it for 8 weeks and took a practice exam, you would do poorly because you are out of practice. As a second timer (me too) who has put the work in, you don’t have to worry about understanding the material, you have to be sharp at answering questions about the material. The Schweser exams are, in my opinion, too wordy and too tricky. I also don’t think there is that much you can get out of doing 3 hour practice exams at this point. I compare it to marathon training: you don’t run a marathon the week before to prepare for another marathon. Spend the next week and a half drilling QBank questions on your weaker topics and working on CFAI questions on your stronger topics to sharpen your skills one topic at a time. Accept that there are going to be a few things on the exam that you will wish you studied more, but don’t let perfect get in the way of good. Think of it this way: If today you would get a 60 on the real exam, just try to earn one point a day from here to June 6th, and you will pass no problem.
Thanks - that actually helps a lot! QBank is keeping me going right now.
I’ve been looking through each topics LOS to see if there’s anything I’m clueless about as well as reading the summaries and doing all the end of chapter Schweser questions as well as the CFAI questions I marked the first time going through. I’m also reviewing the questions from the practice exams I’ve done. Sometime last month I got in the high 80s on one of the CFAI sample exams, but then got in the mid to low 70s on book 7. I feel incredibly stupid when I can’t answer a question when I know I understood it at one point. I almost feel embarrassed I can keep forgetting this material after studying so long and hard.
^^^^ No don’t feel stupid. CFA tests are about volume, not quality. You could memorise 1 dictionary page. 2, then 3. As you learn your fourth one, you will have forgotten about the first, etc. To put it another way, imagine a test that would put together in one 6 hour test everything you learned in high school. Were the individual topics hard ? No. But such test would be very difficult to pass because of the volume. Just my 0.02. I think the retaining part of the CFA path isn’t the understanding, but the retention.
^^ I meant to most challenging part of, bla bla.