reading the curriculum just once and then repeat by looking at Schweser will not work. Read CFAI curriculum twice. during the second reading, you can do a summary on the side. but not too detailed - waste of time. more like general “aha” experiences. then you will do practice Questions and re-read the curriculum where needed. as exam approaches, I would try to re-read as much as possible as you do more ad more practice exams. there is no shortcut. time and dedication are key.
Relax. It’s easier than you think.
On one end, it’s all about being positive but on the other its all about honesty. Takes big people to admit to themselves that they may not have done as well as they liked or expected as opposed to blaming the test or something else. For that, you all should be commended. In regards to the exam, I’m in a similar boat as you guys. I actually was a finance major, but I HATED Econ so I’m sure I bombed that section even after studying it. FRA and Quants were straight-forward on my end, and so was FI and Equity. I probably should have looked at Derivatives and Alts more than I did. And I was always weak in Corp Finance for some reason as well. Overall, my AM session was alot easier than the afternoon, and that seems to be the consensus among most other candidates (some randomly got the hard session first, some got it second…its random). I saw the number of people taken the second half of the exam was significantly smaller than the morning (they threw in the towel). I will say this guys, I think we should all not worry about the test at this point. We’ve studied incredibly hard and deserve a break. Lets enjoy our families and friends and these next 60 days or so of relaxation. We’ll cross that bridge regarding whether we passed later. Honestly us thinking about it now can’t help us. We’ve stressed it enough at this point (I actually point on weight).
This test is not a reflection of your intelligence nor does it imply that you’re a failure if in fact you do fail. Only 1/3 of the people who get through the entire program pass each test on the first attempts.
P.S. You guys are probably younger than I am I presume (I’m 26 going on 27) so you have much more to look forward to and much more room to fail if in fact you do. You guys will be fine either way. Have faith.
Hi All,
I’m joining the “heartbroken” team. To be honest I went into the exam with not much hope because I’m so lousy at Econ, that Iwas sure I wouldn’t socre above 50% for that topic.
However I thought I could do above or very close to 70% in any other topic, so I expected a band 10.
And then the exam: Econ as I was expected, I hardly knew any, FI was something “different”. I think my preparation didn’t focuse on it should have.
And during the night after the exam I started to remember some of very stupid mistakes I made. So stupid I’m ashamed of myself, and I’m afraid the stress and fatigue took their toll. (Afternoon session my blood pressure was so low I could hardly go straigth when going out for a washroom break, I thought I was gonna faint).
So lessons for me:
-
Do not ignore the topics you are struggling with.
-
Do not overtire during the last week. All those mocks and EOCs I did and re-did the last week did not help.
@ Greg5802: I’m 40. Just imagine this. And now I can go in Dec. again, which means my 1st attempt of Level II will slip into 2016. If I pass in Dec. But who knows after this.
T_T
I also found it unexpectedly hard,especially morning session.
Made about 10-15 100% random answers, although did Schweser quite well, scoring around 80%. But I hope, that I still have a chance. Could someone please explain me how bands work and what is it in this case?
Bands:
Failing candidates (those who show up) divided into 10 decilies. Band 10 is closest to passing.
I’m sure fatigue plays a significant role in poor performance and/or apathy on the PM session. One 3 hour exam is more than enough. Hell, make it one 4 hour exam if you must. Otherwise it’s just a test of mental endurance
And also, I don’t think Schweser mocks helped me very much… In fact doing well on these probably made me a bit complacent. So from now it will be EOCs and CFAI mocks ONLY.
Don’t want to make you cry buddy but I did 4 sets of CFAI Mocks, I did all CFAI EOCs (still in the learning process) and on the last week I especially redid the Fixed Income EOCs from the book. You think it helped?
But I agree. Schweser is good to make you understand the stuff, but not to make you prepared for the exam.
Relax Monkey! If I can do relatively well on the Qbank and practice questions, ANYONE can! If you fail, you fail and there is no shame in it.dI know an MIT finance grad who failed his first time around - you can start reviewing for the test come December, especially if you have an idea of what topics you didn’t fair well on.
As a new candidate you shouldn’t read too much into this discussion, yet - wait for the results to be emailed out and then look at how people did here and then decide how to go from there.
Everyone at all levels (myself included) second guesses themselves during the “wait” - I did it at every level, am doing it now, and have seen others on AF do it as well. If the test is harder than the practice material led you to believe (which is what I am hearing here) then it is hard for everyone. Mastering the material is not as important as it is to outscore 2/3 of the other takers. This may seem like nonsense but how well you socre on the exam or don’t score only matters in context to the rest of the crowd. Pass rates seem to be in bands and I am guessing that this L1 will end up in the typical L1 band of 1/3 pass +/- (usually +), if you are someone who consistantly does well with the practice material then you are in a good spot on exam day as if you are struggling then so will most everyone else.
well said jay
Thank you for the exam wisdom. 
This is a great thread. Everyone needs to relax a little bit.
My wife had our first baby last Wednesday night, so any last minute review and sleep went out the window.
i figure I at least have a good excuse if I failed.
I’ll weigh in too. This was my third try at Level I and I thought it was terribly hard. I got band 7 in Dec 12, very underprepared. Then I took it again June 13 with much better preparation and hit band 10. The pass rates for those exams were 37% and 38% respectively. I skipped Dec 13 and the pass rate that time was 43%, dammit!! The quality and quantity of my studying this time were double what I did before and I still felt destroyed afterward. From my experience and what I’m hearing here and from people I’ve spoken with, this one seems to have been the hardest. I really like Alexander James’ theory about closing the LI/LII difficulty gap.
I believe strongly that variance has a lot to do with this. There are over 500 LOS and only 240 questions. Obviously more studying or better studying improves the number of facts you can retain, but frankly it comes down to if you remember the subset of stuff they actually test. I felt like a few of the questions this time were so detailed that the answer came from one sentence in the 3200 pages of curriculum. Other questions had words that were synonyms to concepts I knew very well, but by using a different word it made me second guess myself a lot. I used up all the time in both sessions, which I usually don’t need. I also felt OK after the first half and was totally demolished by the second half.
Thanks to everyone who has shared. I know it’s anecdotal (over 45,000 ppl take level I), but it feels really good to know that other people thought it was ungodly difficult as well. I also think one of the reasons this is so hard is that most of us who get into this process are not people who have failed many things. Maybe it builds character, but it kind of feels more like PTSD I actually feel a lot better after reading this thread.
Regarding background: I have two masters degrees, and the second one is in Finance. I saw some of the material in school, but that is not a permanent difference (sorry, DTA humor). _ You have already probably already made up the gap with your self-study. _ Everyone in this conversation is really smart. But this exam tests the memory in addition to the ability to comprehend ideas. For me, my retention rate is a huge liability (oh god make the cfa jokes stop). The other thing about this test is that it attracts Type A people who will study obsessively at the expense of family, friends, quality of life, etc. I know I am smart and dedicated, but I’m nowhere near the smartest or the most dedicated in this group.
MonkeyMath, watch some TV and hang out with your friends and relax. There’s nothing we can do now. However, when you get your results and are deciding whether you want to take the next test, remember how this feels. While my ego is really attached to getting those letters after my name and (theoretically) a higher-paying job, I now believe the question is not whether I can do this, but whether or not it’s worth the cost to play that lottery again. We’ll see.
Gabriel
Historical results if anyone’s interested: www.cfainstitute.org/programs/cfaprogram/documents/1963_current_candidate_exam_results.pdf
Ok well take this for what it’s worth, because I’m only a LII candidate (actually not yet until they open up registration for June 2015).
I took L1 in December and since I’m working two jobs and raising a child I’m taking my time and not writing the next test until June 2015.
I can assure you that it’s quite possible to pass L1 without a finance or business admin degree, because that’s what I did. 13 months ago I had absolutely no knowledge or experience with finance - just a passion to learn about it. Like you, everything was new for me. That kind of made it more exciting for me, to be honest. No boring rehashes.
Here’s my advice:
-
Stop thinking about this until you get your results. In January I was second guessing myself and going crazy, and I even managed to convince myself I had likely failed. Then the results came and I had passed by a fairly wide margin (based off the mark ranges I received and the mark ranges of other people who passed). From when you write until you get your results it’s all just a big head game that doesn’t help you one bit. Just stay out of it. Easier said than done, I know…a year from now I’ll probably be doing the same thing as you.
-
I don’t believe that you spent 1200-1500 hours, because that would mean you studied 60 hours a week for 6 months. That’s 12 hours a day Monday to Friday for 6 months, and nobody can effectively study that much - your brain needs time to absorb and interpret the material and 60 hours a week is just overload. My guess is that you are estimating incorrectly. 400 hours is about what I spent on L1, but it seems like I spent much more than that because I was studying for hours every day for a while. If you have, truly, spent 1500 hours studying and don’t pass L1, I would seriously take a look at whether the program is right for you or not. But I really don’t believe that you have, because if it took you 1500 hours to get the curriculum down you should have had a much worse mark than Band 8 after your first try with no previous experience. Getting Band 8 means that you were right in the middle of the pack of all test takers. For your first try with no finance or business background, that’s not bad!
-
Do more mocks! The fact that you got 77% on the mocks bodes well for your exam. 77% is an easy pass, and the mocks aren’t that far off the real thing. That being said, you need to do more mocks than just two. I did 6 and my marks ranged from a 61% (the first one I did) to a 79%, with 5 out of the 6 coming in the 71%-79% range. As it turned out, 72%-77% is probably the range my actual mark landed. Mocks were the best thing to help.
Of course, #2 and #3 should be ignored if you take #1 to heart…that being just ignore everything CFA until you get your test back. Enjoy the freedom from studying. Don’t think about FRA, or Ethics, or Quant. Just enjoy your life while you still can. If you fail and got a Band 3, then you can be heartbroken…but from the evidence you’ve given I don’t find that very likely.
Thanks to all of you for being so supportive. Many of us, evidently, are in the same boat. SpareTime, just a clarification. The time estimate of 1200 to 1500 hours includes the first go around, the prep class I went to, etc. So it’s easily 1200 hours at this point, unfortunately…spread out over a year and a half and two attempts. Did you use the CFAI curriculum or Schwezer? The first time I used Schwezer. This time I read every word of every page in the CFAI material…That leaves one with less time at the end to do problems.
Wait until you get your results. Everyone feels terrible leaving a CFA exam – and many of those end up passing.
Also, should you not pass – there is no shame in that. CFA exams are very difficult exams.
I took the test first in June 2013 - very underprepared as well. I had studied only 4 out of the 10 topics. I was band 7. Did > 70% in these for (but I’m pretty much sure it was very close to 100% because all questionsseemed straightforward to me).
Now I’m not sure I jumped the 70% hurdle in any, and neither in those 4 “favourite” subjects of mine. This is the difference between the difficulty level of June 2013 and now in my view.
Relax monkey math.dnt worry … If you have decided you want to be a charterholder then no one can stop you mate. Dnt get bogged down by failures and dnt get overconfident by success… Keep going ! Wishing you luck