thanks pryan. thats the difference with the schweser material. p 109 in book one does not really address when the payments start unlike the CFAI material. hence the reason that i say the schweser stuff really fell short. i dont expect to pass anyway.
I finished 30 minutes early on AM and 45 on the PM. Went back and reviewed the Qs i marked as unsure and left with 305 minutes left in the session. I feel very confident about passing and will be very surprised if I dont. Surprised Cowtown didnt find Schweser useful for FRA and ethics. I thought Q bank was very helpful for those sections. I definitely am a Schweser convert with Q bank, its like running laps preparing for a marathon, you have to excercise until it becomes second nature.
ov25 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > you mean 2/10-45 or such discount? I havent seen > any either. Are you saying there was one? I am saying I am mad there wasn’t one of those. I would have dominated it! There wasn’t one, unless I completely forgot, which is entirely possible
HHI indes. closer to 1000=monolpoly. I think the exam had 500 or so, so I put perfectley competitive. The NYC javits center was filled with a bunch of asians or tools. Either way, it sucked. For all the people who say the exam was sooo easy, how much time did you spend studying?? and was this your first time?
ScarletKnight04 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > HHI indes. closer to 1000=monolpoly. I think the > exam had 500 or so, so I put perfectley > competitive. The NYC javits center was filled > with a bunch of asians or tools. Either way, it > sucked. For all the people who say the exam was > sooo easy, how much time did you spend studying?? > and was this your first time? This is my first time. I would say the exam was easier than expected. In fact the CFAI mock PM was tougher than this. I dont think I got like 90% (like cfacowtown and some others usually get) but I am pretty confident of getting around 80%. I registered in the mid of february, listened to audio tapes in the first month. Started studying the books from April. Did mocks, qbank on the way. However, I majored in Finance,Accounting and Economics in my undergrad which may have helped.
cfacowtown Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 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. You finished the entire exam in 45 mins? You almost make me wanting to fail and re-study the whole thing all over again!!! 
Just kidding… I cant solve it in 45 mins even if I’ve seen it and solved it before! That’s really impressive. Well done.
I’m glad to see my experience aligns with so many others’. I also found Schweser and CFAI samples/mock to be way harder than this. I finished an hour early in both sections - I stayed and reviewed in the AM, but left early in the PM since I double-checked most answers as I went along, I hope my confidence doesn’t end up biting me in the you know what. Glad to see that I had the same answers as discussed above by ScarletKnight04, sbmarti2, and pryan. I was also annoyed that the trade discount question wasn’t there, which I too forced myself to memorize. Oh well! Now to sit on our hands for 7 weeks in wait…
Scarlet, I wondered if I got this one right too, and looked it up today. In Econ book they discuss that a perfectly competitive market might have an HH index of less than 10 while an oligopolistic market would have at least 1000. 500 lies in the middle and so suggests monopolistic competition…
Flobee, The perpetuity starts in one year; I read that as meaning that the money (35K) was going to be taken out then. Meaning that the PV is 700K because in order to take out 35K a year for ever at 5% you are going to need 700K at the start. You would only discount a perpetuity back if withdrawals start in two years. If they start today then you add up another compounding period PV * (1+r). So, the PV of the perpetuity was larger. flobeebhead Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I struggled to get finished with the exam in the 3 > hour allotment. In December I was done at least an > hour early in both sessions. I also came out of > the December exam thinking that I aced it (which I > did not). I think the difference this time was me. > I spent a lot of my exam time re-reading the > questions and looking for what they were really > asking for. In December I did not do that. Let me > give an example… > > A person is offered a $35,000 perpetuity starting > a year from now or an $800,000 lump sum payment in > 3 years. Using a discount rate of 5% is the > present value of the perpetuity: > > 1) less than the present value of the lump sum > 2) equal to the present value of the lump sum > 3) greater than present value of the lump sum > > Now, the math will tell you the PV of the annuity > is $700,000 and the PV of the lump sum is $691,000 > which on a first pass of the question will tell > you its answer 3. But reading the question closely > states the perpetuity starts a year from now which > requires discounting the PV back 1 more year. It > comes out to $666,666. The correct answer is 1. I > think a lot of people will wind up missing a > question like that on the exam. > > I found many questions like this on the exam and > spent a lot of time making sure I was reading the > questions correctly. I dont have a good feeling > about passing this time so I dont know about that. > But I do think that I had a much better handle on > the way the institute asks questions. > > By the way: I think schweser did a horrible job > with the test prep this year. It fell way short. > just my opinion though. > > Good luck everyone.
Finishing early to me means two things: #1 You were well-prepared, smart and v. quick. Being on this forum does not necessarily make you smarter or more well-prepared. #2 You didn’t have any clue what to answer, so you randomly chose the answers and left 90 minutes early. If you barely made it you could still be: =========================== #3 Smart, careful and well prepared. You would probably be quick too, but you are not v. quick or you actually didnt want to rush into finishing too early by making silly mistakes. So I consider someone who finished on time just as good if not better than someone who falls into category # 1 OR #4 You didn’t know your material well, so had to ponder over the questions for longer than necessary. #3 followed by #1 people have best chance of passing. I finished both papers 30 minutes early. I will know whether I was smart or just making haste when they report in July. -
pryan, I’m confused. Can you tell me the page you found this on? Because the CFAI Vol 2 Page 110 says that the index less than 1,000 is regarded as being competitive… while page 212 lists indexes from 76 to 465 as monopolistic competition… 
BizBanker Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- Surprised > Cowtown didnt find Schweser useful for FRA and > ethics. I thought Q bank was very helpful for > those sections. I should have been more specific. The schweser NOTES were not very helpful. Qbank was essential in the review process for all sections. I am also a loyal Schweser customer thanks to qbank. I’ll see you in L2 BizBanker, i’m sleeping easy these days.
You are correct that the CFAI text isn’t explicit on this, but inductive reasoning tells you that monopolistic competition is the likely paradigm for an industry with HH of 500. If perfect competition is measured “small” like 0.5 (p 110) and anything greater than 1000 is less competitive (p 110), what does that leave you? Then your citation of the EXAMPLE on p 212 shows one monoplistically competitive industry at 465, plenty close enough to 500 for a general match. In order of competition: Perfect competition => tiny HH (at best less than 76 per the example you found, p 212) Monopolistic competition Oligopoly => at least HH of 1000 Monopoly => HH of 10,000 Of course HH isn’t a science, it’s an estimational tool… HTH