How did so many finish so early?

In the morning session, I finished with only 10 minutes remaining and quickly checked through questions I had flagged. In the afternoon session, I finished with only 15 minutes remaining and did the same. How is it so many people finished at least 30 minutes early? I learned that there were people showing up at my local CFA chapter’s after party at only 3:30, which means they finished the 3-hour afternoon session less than halfway into it. The people who finished early must have either known their stuff much better than I did (and could breeze through with certainty) or much worse than I did (had no clue what they were doing and did lots of random guessing).

Yeah I had about the same timing as you Diehard. And they wouldn’t let us get up to use the bathroom after the 30 minute mark… and then they closed down the bathrooms after the session was over! In the morning I was so full of coffee but I held it for the last hour to make sure I didn’t waste time… then there was a huge line at this one bathroom I almost pissed myself (figuratively and literally)

no, they finished early just because they didn’t know how to do the test :smiley: anyway, no candidates can get out the exam room before the setting time, even if they finished their exam the girl who sat beside me, she did something on the morning but in the afternoon, I noticed she didn’t do the test, she simply looked at the questions and sat there until the exam finished

yeah I’ve noticed the same thing … I finished with 30mins but the guy who sat beside me finished very early … I think they must have been too exhausted to concentrate so they just wanted to finish anyway July 28 … can’t wait

I finished morning with 30 mins to spare and afternoon about an hour earlier. But I did not go out of the exam hall, just kept looking at the dumb paper. I hope that I pass, I dont have any motivation/stamina left to study for level 1 again. Really enjoyed doing the quant though, my fav section.

wellsee Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yeah I had about the same timing as you Diehard. > > > And they wouldn’t let us get up to use the > bathroom after the 30 minute mark… and then they > closed down the bathrooms after the session was > over! In the morning I was so full of coffee but > I held it for the last hour to make sure I didn’t > waste time… then there was a huge line at this > one bathroom I almost pissed myself (figuratively > and literally) I can’t believe you drank so much coffee. I specifically had to limit how much I drank (just apple juice and water) at breakfast and lunch so that I could make it through the exams without a bathroom break. I also ate homemade light, low fat, low sodium foods. The low sodium part was necessary so that I wouldn’t dehydrate. When I eat high sodium foods, I get a parched feeling, and it’s hard to quench my thirst with any amount of drinking, and I end up having to use the bathroom more often anyway because of the extra fluids. A heavy, fattening breakfast or lunch gives me that slow, sluggish, sleepy feeling.

I was finished the exam in the PM 1hr-45min in, found it really qualitative. But I stayed to the end and went through the entire thing an additional 2 more times, caught more mistakes. The PM was way easier, I was shocked. I finished it in 45 minutes. I went over it again twice, but i couldn’t go through it again so I bolted.

I agree with cfacowtown. Test seemed very easy, couldn’t believe how many people thought this was an incredibly hard year. If I would have had the same questions via Schweser (where you just run through and don’t keep checking work) I think I would have only used the calculator 6-7x, but I checked all the questions even simple add/subtract to make sure I was getting the right answer.

I took more time than I would have liked on the morning session. I only had about 20 minutes left when I finished. I finished the afternoon section in about 2 hours. I went back and corrected 2 questions. I thought the afternoon ethics was a little more tricky.

Morning only took me about an hour and 45 minutes and the afternoon an hour and 35 minutes. I took some time to go back over the questions and changed a few.

I was really bad in time management for the morning session. I finished 15-20 minutes early but had to go through the unchecked ones…at the end had 2 remaining. The pm session was seriously very simple. Finished it 30 min before, then checked it and caught mistakes which I corrected.

Finished with an hour left in both pm and am sections back in December. If you know your stuff you can really fly through the 120 questions.

AM I took two hours and PM I took one hour forty minutes. Checked my work thoroughly and had plenty of time. They need to cut L1 to 5 hours. 6 is ridiculous.

I worked to the end on the AM test even though it was easier I took my time on each question, just to make sure that i would not have to review again ( I hate review). But my time management could have been better and I did not bring a watch which was a big mistake. The PM was harder but I finished with 10 min to spare because I had the hang of it the second time around.

Yeah. I finished both sections in around 2 hours. It was really nice to have an extra hour for lunch.

billy22g Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yeah. I finished both sections in around 2 hours. > It was really nice to have an extra hour for > lunch. Your test center let you leave the AM section once you finished?! At mine we had to wait until time was up and they collected all the exams. Didn’t actually go outside until 12:30

Yeah, as long as you got done more than a half hour early, you could roll out.

billy22g Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yeah, as long as you got done more than a half > hour early, you could roll out. I think this is true anywhere. Once thirty minutes to go hits they lock everything down.

2:30 AM 2:35 PM AM section was more difficult.

I finished both with about an hour remaining. I used that hour to go back through all of the questions, especially the ones that I had circled along the way that I was unsure about. I was able to get a few of those, which made me happy. Maybe I was able to think more clearly since I had already been through everything once.