At least that was my opinion
Dude…the first section…>WTF…seriously…r they fuckin kiddin me??? it was so fuckin ass long…i looked at the time…i was at q.5…and it was already 10.50…fuck !!! i had to rush through the rest of them like an f1 race… i think i got all ok…but my handwriting was chicken scratch…i hope they don’t mark me down for that… and p.s. i think i fucked up the ips…especially the tax part…looks like i need a break from cfa to rethink my decision to continue this prog.
Yeah, I had literally about 7 minutes to spare in the AM and about an hour or more in the PM. (I somehow changed an answer in those 7 minutes too…) Felt OK walking out of AM, but knew that the PM would crush me, and I was right. There were only a few questions in the AM where I was like … WTF, and had questions in the PM. I even wrote in my exam book in the afternoon session – “not a clue” … if anybody from CFAI looks at them.
I agree, I didn’t have enough time to finish everything in the morning section but I thought the afternoon section was fair but tricky like you said.
I thought AM was tough and PM fair. The AMC section was not kind to me.
I simply don’t think the exam is a fair representation of the curriculum. Its not my first try at the exam…but had the feeling that the better i get, the more difficult the exam gets… I do feel that questions are too random…and that schweser moto " knowing the big picture" simply does not work…someone has know even very freaking assumptions of every theory… However after reading the posts so far…I feel relieve that I am not the only one who suffered during the AM
I am with longcfa here. WTF CFAI
AM was rough (at least for me) regarding time management if you really wanted to get the point right. I think I skipped 2-3 partial questions completely just to be very certain on the other ones. I don’t think there will be many folks out there that were really able to nail AM with >85%. PM made up for the AM session and I think it was rather easy to answer & timely a good match even if you were gonna double check stuff. I am afraid there will be at least some nerdy pros out there with at least a 90% overall in PM >60% for the win - I mean I hope we got that I got it hopefully…
Butterrich… As I think i will have to retake despite 8 months of study and 3,600 qbank questions, 2 samples, 1 mock, Schweser books, etc… How do you feel so confident on the PM? I feel confident that I got 20 of the 60 correct and narrowed down another 15-20 to a 50/50. How were you so prepared for the two item sets regarding the currency hedge and forwards I believe it was. Perhaps question 7 and 8 or 8 and 9? I put in at least 500 hours on this exam and I passed level 1 and 2 both on my first attempt. But this one I just couldn’t believe some of the major topics that schweser teaches weren’t even touched on in the exam. If anyone that feels they did well on the PM, please give me some advice on how to prepare and how you prepared. Thanks.
Butterrich… As I think i will have to retake despite 8 months of study and 3,600 qbank questions, 2 samples, 1 mock, Schweser books, etc… How do you feel so confident on the PM? I felt that some of the questions could have been answered with two of the choices (entrenchment/self-dealing), I felt that Schweser taught a lot on information ratios but couldnt find portfolio IR, I felt solid on behavioral finance and then some gambler thing shows up, there were just a ton of curve balls. I feel confident that I got 20 of the 60 PM questions correct and narrowed down another 15-20 to a 50/50. How were you so prepared for the two item sets regarding the currency hedge and forwards I believe it was. Perhaps question 7 and 8 or 8 and 9? I put in at least 500 hours on this exam and I passed level 1 and 2 both on my first attempt. But this one I just couldn’t believe some of the major topics that schweser teaches weren’t even touched on in the exam. If anyone that feels they did well on the PM, please give me some advice on how to prepare and how you prepared. Thanks.
askajan Maybe it is because I felt really sick on AM so PM looked pretty ok to me in comparison. Same as you I did prepare with Schweser + also did the last two June exams on first attempt for L1 and L2. Though I don’t think that means something coz it’s long gone. I never did qbank for any Level so I don’t really know what 3,6k questions means/feels to be honest but I took full 3 weeks off from work to finish reading all the Notes + Secret Sauce extremly thoroughly like an insane monkey. Did one practice exam for L3 and did pretty bad in AM (54%) and ok in PM (like 75%). But… I generally think >60% could pass in an Exam. Regarding curriculum I think you are right there was some stuff pretty unexpected as we prepared with Schweser solely thats granted. How I prepare? I always put way to much time into reading and actually never really do practice exams. I try to really understand the concepts and ideas so I can react on questions. L1 I did one AM session, L2 I did like one full exam and one AM Session and L3 I did one full exam. But really I waste like 250 hours just on reading like every friggin page. Fingeres crossed we still pass somehow…
Missed 20 marks in AM unattempted; PM was good and hope it will cover up for the mess in AM and sail us over the finish line.
I actually finished everything in the AM, but there were certainly some tense moments when they flipped over “under an hour and a half to go” and I was only on question 5 having skipped some of the parts for the first few questions… I actually though the individual IPS was pretty straight forward and easy, except the last part… First Institutional I also though pretty straight forward… there were about 2 sections on the morning where I really had no clue, and did not even know enough to write anything in hopes of partial credit… the PM was a different story for me… I actually think it was more on the easy side than anything… sure there were some challenging questions, but when you think about what could have been on there I think we lucked out… overall i feel the test was pretty fair in all regards…there were parts that I knew well and nailed on the exam, and there were parts that I had no clue… now the waiting game begins and I have 2 months of thinking about how to vote proxies with takeovers and whether I got the required return correct on the first question…
Proxies with takeovers was no big deal but again…how did you feel comfortable with the PM questions on currency hedges, forwards, or whatever it was…I didn’t even know how to address the question or what they were really asking on those two item sets! How did you prepare for those to think they were easy?
7.05%?
Echoing the sentiment that the AM was pretty tough, but I thought the PM wasn’t bad at all. Don’t want to sound overconfident or jinx myself, but I felt more confident with that than in the practice exams where I was getting ~80%. Obviously not going to get into specific questions, but in terms of preparation I fully agree with Butterich - focus on reading and less on practice exams. Practice exams are great, but doing all six Schweser exams plus CFAI mocks, samples, and previous years exams takes a substantial chunk of time that could likely be accomplished with a few practice tests. Personally, for Levels 2 and 3, I started reading CFAI text in January and set modest goals of averaging 100 pages per week, working through every sample and EOC problem. The last month I pick up Schweser material since many people are through with them by May and speed through 'em cover to cover, again doing all the EOC problems. Did a practice exam a month before the test and then 2-3 the final week before. The lack of preparation for the AM format showed a bit, but having used the CFAI material and methodically working through it week by week successfully removed almost all elements of surprise and made the PM section seem like a breeze. Certainly put in more than the benchmark 300 hours, but 400 hours once sure beats 250 hours two or three times!
I had to guess on the very last question in AM but finished the exam. I didn’t spend a lot of time studying/preparing for the exam so I was a little surprised that I was totally lost on only 1-2 questions on the entire exam. In the PM, I had enough time to go back through the entire exam and assign a probability to each question (the probability I got the answer right). I summed up all the values in the end and I got 40/60 so that didn’t make me feel too good. I’m hoping that I did better than that in the AM session as it would be annoying to have to take the exam again. For level III, there’s very little math and memorizing stuff, most of it is just being familiar with different topics and there’s no substitute for that but careful and continued re-reading of the texts. I only bought the Schweser flashcards so I wouldn’t have to make them myself, but all else I got from the book. We’ll see how well that worked.
For me this AM was the most difficult of all those 2006-2009 CFAI previous exams, Schweser PE’s and so on. It was just a nightmare. Only hope that PM will save me.
Agree that first part was tough from time management - I struggled to write on every question. You just have to be a machine - reading, start writing immediately and at the same time being sure what to write…I messed up 2-3 questions just of hurrying and misunderstanding the issue. Second part was very tricky according to me, still more or less fair - there were some easy questions, some average and a few really difficult and time-taking.
I was killed to death in the morning session. For me this was a 4 hour exam, for which there were 3 hours available. All of the questions were eminently do-able, but the pace I had to move through the paper resulted in a trail of stupid mistakes and mental blanks. The 20 minutes of high frequency feedback through the PA system at London’s Excel centre wasn’t exactly helpful. WTF was that about? No proctor trained in using their initiative to hit the ‘off’ button? Jesus wept. On the other hand, I absolutely killed the afternoon session stone dead. Might have fluffed the micro attribution question at the end because it was so basic and I was looking for something more complicated, but overall absolutely nailed it. Only went 50/50 on one question. Now we play the waiting game… Now we play the waiting game…