Miss cleo, how do we prepare for the ethics questions. Is the ethics book enough to read through the examples? can eassy be anything calculations and non-calculations
The nerves are really setting in now — 6 days to go for me. Last year the pass/fail results were ready on the website exactly one month from the closing of Level II. If that holds the same we should get our pass/fail info on April 16th.
Yeah but last year they did it on a Sunday, I’d say the 17th is more likely
Its down the last week for me - just want to get this thing over with. For whatever its worth, the Lattice Tree questions are just plain obnoxious…i dont see the value in these
I agree with you — you are talking about the convert arbitrage binomial trees, right?
Folks who have already sat for the exam, was time an issue at all?
Wrote this morning. The first part (100 questions) was nasty. DO NOT DODDLE - GO FAST!! Lots of deep drilling questions. You won’t have time to review many - answer and move on. I actually found the “essay” part was the easier part. BTW: its not really essay, mine was a whole bunch of questions that you have to draft individual written answers to. All were just one to two sentences answers. Good luck!
how does on prepare for the ethics ?
Took it on Friday. Time was not an issue for me, finished the entire exam in just over 2 hours. I tend to move fast though. Overall I thought it was a fair test. A few out of left field questions, but overall if you put the time in studying you should do fine.
Congrats the The.Unit.Root, but seeing as how you got a flawless on Level I, and already have a CFA, I figured you would f*&%$ up the curve for us normal folks. Did you find any overlap between the CFA III and CAIA that was helpful?
There was definite overlap between CFA and CAIA. Without saying too much, I don’t think I would have gotten one of the essays without the CFA background as it was a fairly minor LOS in the CAIA curriculm. Specifically between CFA L3 and CAIA L2, I didn’t notice a lot of overlap. The biggest overlaps come from the CFA L2 with the MBS, CMO, and structured products. You also learn about binomial trees in CFA L2. Obviously ethics overlaps directly. Though the CFA ethics are much more tricky. CAIA L1 I thought was too easy, I thought they tried to make harder by making you memorize all of those stats on skew etc that really isn’t anything other than rote memorization. CAIA L2 I thought was easier than CFA L2 and L3 (but not by much) and definitely harder than CFA L1. I thought they made CAIA L2 easier than it could have been, which is why I said overall it was pretty fair.
Just got back from the exam. I got the strangest essay asset allocation, did anyone else get crazy weird essays from current and integrated topics? Got one on hedge funds and another on Real Estate. Since the exam window is closed I’m guessing we can discuss this now.
Ah…no…I still take mine tomorrow…but thanks! I honestly don’t think I am adequately prepared for this exam and even if I do pass (by some sheer stroke of luck) don’t think I deserve the designation at this time…Think I will have to go back to the Level I forum and become friends with them! lol.
Window closes on the 16th fyi
Yikes - thanks Miss Cleo - can someone tell me how I can delete my message?
Just took the exam this morning. It seems like I was in tunnel vision just cruising through the exam; finished MC with 30 minutes to go and cruised through the essays in 30 minutes. I feel like I must have gotten at least 70/100 on the MC which would net me 49% and the essays weren’t so bad. I had a response for each one. If I got 15% of the essays that would put me at a total score of 64%. Hopefully did better, but I’m wondering what the curve will be. I used Uppermark and they did a great job of preparing me. There weren’t any huge surprises. Things that I got wrong were my own fault, because I saw most of the stuff. Overall I would say the exam was very fair. Still think it’s a toss-up for me pass/fail. I gave myself a chance. If things don’t work out for me, I’d love to get a group together of repeat test takers to discuss strategy on how to pass this exam.
LFM3RJ- did you use the Uppermark testbank? Was it helpful for the MC or the Essay part on the test or both?
I used the Uppermark Testbank. I didn’t use any practice essay questions. My rationale was I’m definitely not going to get an essay on the exam that matches any practice essays. Instead I did all of the Testbank with rationale for each questions. Whether right or wrong I tried to understand the rationale. I found this to be a good way of actually understanding the information rather than just understanding how to choose correct responses. The flash cards were a big help for the essay section as well. Pass or fail, I am very pleased with Uppermark all the way around.
Took my exam yesterday morning, agree with most above that it was fair… frankly the MC section was easier than the Uppermark test bank questions, finished them with 20 minutes to spare. I also found one question without a correction answer as a choice, wrote my comment on that at the end of exam. Surprisingly I had zero question on topic 1, kinda makes me anticipate an essay question on that! Now onto the essay section… Question 1 was indeed what I expected…breeze through with no problem! questions 2 and 3, different story… think my chances are good but I was definitely challenged by these last 2 essay questions…
That’s great feedback all the way around…still trying to figure out what the min raw score is we will probably need to pass this thing…I have heard it has been as long as 55%…that sounds really low. The Uppermark MC was fine but I didnt depend on it for anything except to learn concepts, as opposed to level 1 where we could memorize a lot of it.