So tomorrow is the first day of my ‘Official’ May review plan of one mock each Saturday, then 2 mocks the week of the test. I’ve been quite nervous about it today, but I know it will be a good experience. Just want to put it out there to you guys, since there is literally no one else in my life that understands the nature of the CFA exam, the significance of the May study plan, the mock exams-- all that. Library opens at 10 tomorrow, so hope to start by 10:30, will take a 1 hour break for lunch, then take PM session at 2:30. A little off the actual exam schedule, but close enough. Will grade Satuday night and review on Sunday, as many have suggested here.
I know a lot of people are taking mocks tomorrow-- I’m interested to see what people’s thoughts are on Monday (not about how crappy this brand or that brand of mock is, but what everyone’s experience was and how it directs their review plans for the coming week).
I took the 2012 CFAI Mock exam today as if it were the real exam under exam-day like attack. I thought the 2012 exam was very tricky, it forced you to really dig for the numbers for calculatuons, unlike elan or schweser or any of the other cfa mocks (except 2013 which i havent taken yet).
My strategy works well for me… take a full length exam on friday or saturday and then grade it the next day questuon by question. I also have planned for the next 2 weeks to dedicated my time to re-doing all EOC questions for EVERY reading for the 3rd time with no notes in front of me at all. The more I do practice questions and translate the crap in my head to solving problems, the more the formulas come to life in my head and the easier it is for me to recall them during mocks. I too was very nervous during my first round of mocks which i started in early April… once you get one mock under your belt you will feel better. I have done 6 mocks so far and I feel decent.
No need to be nervous about it. In the event the practice exam destroys you, just use it as a catalyst to drill the material over the next four weeks. Good luck
How did everyone else do? did anyone else find the AM session to be extremely hard? PM was surprisingly easier, but was filled with easier topics in my opinion. AM i did poorly on the ethics, and corp finance section. ande one of the FSAs i only got 1/6. Anyone with similar experiences? i guess i’ll go back to review those section more thoroughly now
I did Elan Mock 1. Expected to get about 50% on this one given my study hours and lack of much review so far, and sure enough got exactly 50%. Even though my performnace met my expectation and I took it knowing that I have a lot of work and review left, it was still extremely frustrating. I gave the exam the middle finger more than once… I knew it was time to take a break after the morning session when I got to Corp Finance and said out loud, “Who the F*&% cares?!?”
Anyway, I’m glad that first one is over, so I can focus my efforts on hardcore review, practice problems every day, going through all my flashcards and preparing for next weekend’s mock.
I have a strategy for taking the mock exams and it works well for me so I thought I would share it in the forum. To add a little background info, for level 1 I would take a mock grade it read through the answers I got wrong and move on to the next (usually scoring between) 65-70% in each mock. For Level 2 I have adapted my approach and I feel it is working well for me so far.
Instead of moving onto a new mock I repeat the mock I have just taken several times, sometimes re- taking all 60 questions at once, or in groups of 20 questions. As a result I feel I am getting more confident with the answers I already knew and the concepts associated with those questions. The real benefit is though I am gaining a leval of familiarity with the questions and the concepts I scored wrongly that I feel I would not get by reading through the answers in the back of the book.
Quest I think there is a lot to be said for that. I had the idea of doing that with this weekend’s mock this week, after I review all the answers and ways to work through the problems, a good check to see that I’ve mastered them might be to take the same test again and make sure I have mastered each of those questions. Thanks!
Good plan. I didn’t get to a mock this weekend as planned but I spent more time reviewing EOC and a final revision on topics I simply remembered nothing about. Hopefully getting to a mock this weekend.
