Hey Everyone, First of, congrats on surviving the exam! I think we should all be proud of this accomplishment! I guess I am the only one who found both AM & PM to be very close in regards to the level of difficulty. I felt overprepared in some areas, and underprepared in others… I was extremely tired for the PM session, I had to push myself over and over to finish all questions and like most of you, I checked my notes after the test and of course … I made a bunch of stupid mistakes like changing a correct answer to a wrong one… I also thought all the pressure will be gone when the exam is over, noo wayy…I kept thinking about how I did and how I studied so hard and that there is still a high chance I might fail…it just sucks Good Luck to us All
@Roya I feel your pain. I thought that I would feel relieved after the test, not more stressed. I put more than enough time and effort into this test. I will be pretty bummed out if I don’t pass. I can’t stop thinking about it argh.
Is anyone else planning on studying for December before getting their results back just to be safe? On one hand I don’t want to look at that stuff for months, but on the other hand if I have to retake in December I want to get as early of a start as I can.
I feel the same as you Roya. No matter how hard I try I can’t get the 15-20 questions I know I missed (by checking as soon as I got home) out of my head…nothing worse than choking on the ones you know you should have had but blanked on during the test or changing correct answers which I seem to have done at least twice… That said, I agree that the morning section seemed easier than the afternoon. I felt that I was only questionable on about 15 questions in the AM compared to closer to 35 in the afternoon. The only support I can offer everyone is that I was band 10 last year and judging from my matrix could not have had a higher score than 60 per cent, so I would guess that the MPS is probably closer to 65 than 70.
Also a heart-warming rumor I heard at my center is that the MPS is maximum 70%. As in they will lower it if the average was bad but don’t really take it higher than 70%. But then again, it may be just a myth.
I must say Elan guide did a better job than other providers for me this time.
Wait a minute… so you guys think getting lows 70s in the exam will not be enough to pass? I was getting 70% - 80% in Schweser mock, elan mock, CFAI mock, and I felt that I got somewhere close to low 70s in the actual exam…
no, he means at least a 70% will pass. maybe even a few points less. i think it’s probably between a 65 to a 70, likely on the higher side. remember for level I there are a lot of people that just completely bomb it, whether it’s because they underestimate the test, don’t study nearly enough, aren’t familiar with the format, etc etc. we’re likely the most overprepared sample of the population there’s likely to be a LOT less leeway on level II when EVERYONE taking it is intelligent and prepared.
Contrary to the majority here, I felt good about PM than AM. Maybe it was the anxiety factor in the morning. in AM it was like i do the calculation and do not find my result in the choices, in PM it was a whole lot better. I finished both AM and PM with about 5 mins to spare. I did change a choice in the last minute only to find out later that I changed it from a right to a wrong answer, Oh well, I will not verify anymore answers.
As with everyone else, the AM was many times easier than PM; I would say, knew about 85%+ for morning, and probably 65+% for PM. But I think a lot of it had to do with fatigue. Around the 30-40 question range in the PM, I thought to myself, wow my thinking feels significantly harder and slower. But for sure almost every part of pm was harder than am.
I also felt AM was little easier than PM. First I finished question that I knew and counted the left ones. They were around 25 in both sessions. So, if I dint make much silly mistakes then I believe I can pass. Yes, I didn’t go over my notes to check the answer. I dont want anymore stress.
I thought most of the questions were very straight forward. My mock scores ranged from 74 - 79% and I thought the exam was easier than any of the mocks I took. I feel pretty confident. I didn’t find either AM or PM more difficult than the other but I did start to get burnt out by the end of the exam. On a side note, in the level 3 forum the candidates are talking about specific questions from the exam. I am dumbfounded. How do you make it to level 3 and make a mistake like that? Hope they delete these posts ASAP.
cfai releases the exams every year for level 3 so it’s ok to discuss since everyone will see the questions anyway (i think)
I took the exam for the 2nd time in Dec 2010, I failed - band 9. This time I thought I was more prepared, but the exam proved me wrong. AM was fair - wouldn’t say easy but PM was very challenging, maybe it was because of the fatigue. All in all, we can only wait and see.
I agree with the consensus. Found the pm harder than am, some sections in particular that I usually do very well on too. Talked to a handful of people after the exam and most felt the same way as well. I thought the CFAI Mock was very representitive of the difficulty of the actual exam. Going to be a looong wait for the results. Very nervous. Completely agree w/ your last sentence smuggy. I haven’t gone back over my notes, nor do I plan on it. What happened, happened (as they say in Lost lol). Anyone feel that there were more ‘trap’ questions in the pm session? Or maybe in the am and pm as a whole vs the CFAI mock?
Agree with most of what’s been said here. A little annoyed that some of it appeared to be more trivia in nature. The dude next to me finished both sessions in under 2 hours. I felt like a moron for taking my time with each Q.
Like most people, I found the second half of the exam harder. My main issue is that I used the 2010 material to study from and only found out the night before that there were 3 entirely new readings. Most notably, technical analysis, nearly all the stuff on leverage, and some stuff in corporate finance. It’s my own fault for being such an idiot - but I already took the exam in December (band 10) and figured I would be fine - overall probably cost me around 10 questions though which is enough to be a difference maker. In both the June and December 2010 exam people came out saying that the exam was pretty easy (esp Dec - you can look up old threads with people saying they’ve killed it etc.). I think I really only struggled in the PM due to the new material which was more heavily tested. Since this test was harder, I think the MPS will lower and more people will pass - I’m guessing that the passing rate is around 43-45% of candidates which is much higher than 36% in December. I’ve come to realize something about the CFA throughout my time - it’s really not a test of intelligence; it’s more of a test of endurance, patience, and memorization. I understand/know a lot more than 70% of this material, I’m confident of that. Each question in isolation is very straight forward, but when combined into a 240 question 6hr marathon, it can get a little trickier. When you are in school, exams are structured in a way that want you to pass - if you pass, it reflects well on the teacher and the school and that’s a good thing - everybody is happy. In university, the school wants to sell degrees and the professors want you to pass for the same reason as above. The CFA institute has designed these exams to exclude - not include. They want to limit how many people come in, they want to add to the ora of “The CFA”. Exam taking is there primary source of revenue. With 143,000 people taking the exam on Saturday at $1000 a pop, that $143MM dollars of revenue and hey, if they can get you to pay it twice, they sure as shi*t are going to fail some of you to make sure that happens. They are a profit maximizing business just like the rest of them. Some things that I really hate about the exam are that they give you extraneous information - stuff that isn’t needed to solve the question - and as soon as you see that there, the seed is planted and that seed of doubt grows (like inception) and suddenly you have a concept that you were sure about, but now you are like, hmmm do I need to use Net Profit or Gross Profit because they’ve given me both. To make matters worse, they know what you’re thinking and they put all 3 possible answers down there to f*ck with you. The CFA is not your friend, they want to trip you up, they don’t want you to pass, they want to exclude you from their club. It kind of reminds me of the pledging/hazing process that you go through to join a fraternity in college. I’m beginning to sound a little bitter aren’t I? Well, I am I suppose. And talking crap about the CFA is not a violation of the Code so I’m free to share my beliefs. Finally, some other things that really annoyed me about the exam was 1) I had the same song in my head that kept playing over and over in my brain (Young Blood - Naked an Famous, good tune). 2) There was a buzzing from the AC vent that became overwhelming and there was a point where I couldn’t think about anything other than the AC (it was like a form of Chinese water torture). 3) I had a couple of pretty hot proctors in my section which is a rarity and messed with my focus. I have no expectations of passing or failing. Last time I failed one section and failed the entire thing (scored over 70% in 6 of 10 sections including ethics). I thought I had done enough to pass last time and look where I ended up.
I don’t feel real confident at all… Did anybody else use Stalla? I didn’t really feel like their Mock prepared me as well as I had hoped.
Exam was easy for me and I think for many of you from this forum.
ctay61983 I used Stalla! I haven’t done all of their Mocks, but the one I did seemed harder than the CFAI mocks. I am kind of worried about Ethics now…