Now that results are out, the exam was surely not as easy as the posts after the exam were suggesting. Hats off to the CFAI for writing an exam that was perceived as easy, but judging from the subject area breakdowns of the posts I have seen, was clearly not so. Look forward to smashing the level 3 exam. Congratulations to those who passed and all the best to those who just fell short.
I passed, but it was a lot closer than I thought it would be. I left the exam feeling pretty confident, but looking at my breakdown, it looks like I was kind of borderline. Not sure how I got <50% on Corporate Finance. I didn’t leave the exam feeling that CF was a particularly difficult section. They must have tricked me with some wordings there or something.
Ditto, I thought it was cake when I took it but failed like 3 of the smaller sections. Guess I was deceived. Didn’t matter though, I rocked the major sections across the board and that carried the day. Happy I don;t have to deal with l2, looking forward to the L3.
I personally don’t know anyone who came out of L2 comfortable
AM was messy/ PM was comfortable IMO.
KilgoreTrout said: < Not sure how I got <50% on Corporate Finance. I didn’t leave the exam feeling that CF was a particularly difficult section. They must have tricked me with some wordings there or something.> That’s what exactly I thought, one of my favourite topic is infact Corp finance and didn’t feel its difficult during the exam. However, surprised to see <50% and on the other hand alternative investment, which I thought very tough, however scored >70. I would really appreciate if CFA could release the exam questions and correct answer along with the results, so that we can correct our understanding.
I had 8 sections >70 and 2 below 50. I knew I bombed Corp Fi, but did not think I scored less than a 60 on it coming out of the exam. Quant has always been a thorn in my side so I wasn’t too surprised to see my score come in under 50. It was by no means easy, but the exam questions definitely played to my strengths. This was definitely a very deceptively tricky exam. There were many questions that had multiple “layers” that assuredly tripped up a lot of people. The post-exam sentiment of the exam in the L2 AF forum suggested that the exam was somewhat easy. After reading through the results it appears that this was not the case. I believe I saw one 10/10 result, congrats to that guy. Just another reason why L2 is so much more difficult that L1. It’s no wonder why a perfect score has never been recorded for L2. A score in the 90s would be BEASTLY.
I finished both sections with about an hour left in each. I felt the FSA and Equity were a joke and disappointed they were not more difficult. I scored well above 70 in those, plus ethics, PM and ALT all the rest except Quant I got 51-70. I am glad I failed Quant. Hate it. But having said that - I believe the difficulty comes from comprehension of wha the CFAI wants out of the single question, which I find hard to do when I do their exams. Everyone here can pass a difficult test if it is clear in what they are asking. But for them to be ambigous like they were in some sections, is it not fair.
Exam was a joke, I missed an opportunity that comes once in a lifetime. Now I have to hang my head low and study for the next 310 days.
I said it since the day of the exam - it was not easy and there were many little tricks or details/curveballs. Ive seen many people surprised by their results. I really did not think this was an easy exam.
i still think it was an easy exam and i expected a pass rate of 44-46% (typed in previous thread). i was pretty close. my score wasn’t as good as i thought it was going to be. it may be because i changed a lot of answers and didn’t erase properly. i don’t know. i did well where i thought i was going to do well (accounting / equities / fixed income, etc.) and weaker where i thought i wasn’t as prepared. it was straight forward. THE BIG CONCERN i have long term is the quality and reputation of CFA. I’m investing in this program and credential and I see it having a steroids/baseball like crisis in a few years. There are clearly people who are cheating on this exam (taking index cards w/ written notes in their pants pocket and viewing it in bathroom). I don’t think CFA takes cheating seriously enough. And I don’t want these easy tests where any idiot can pass. It was too easy IMO.
prophets - have u seen some of the passing scores? the MPS looks like it was prob low 60s. Yes, a few questions were easy but overall tough exam. I thought the mock on CFAI was easier than this. What did you score prophets im curious? Maybe the exam hit on all you strong areas? I passed, got less than 50 for econ and 50-70 for derivatives. Rest above 70. Its weird too cause i thought econ and derivs were two of my strongest subjects going in. Who knows.
All above 70%, except quant (below 50%). Ironically, quant was my best subject pre-exam, and thought I went 100% in quant on exam day. I was much more unsure about other areas. Regardless, I believe that people correlate exam difficulty with how calculation intensive an exam is and how often they have to use their calculator. I think the opposite. A swap calculation has a clear right or wrong answer, and if you know the calculation, the question is easy to get right. The qualitative and less calculation intensive questions are much tricker, and a lot of times require more critical thought, a deeper understanding of the formulas, and can be dependent on the wording the question or vignette. This exam was certainly less calculation intensive, but more difficult than any practice exam that I took. That is why I got such a kick out of people talking about how easy this thing was post-exam. Results tell the story.
ftwcfa - couldnt agree more. Funny, sounds like we had a similar experience.
Prophets is right, and for my sake I hope they make it easier. However I’m calling it next year Level II’s pass rate will be sub 30% for the first time on any level ever. The CFA is a money making machine. And the sick thing is it really doesn’t qualify you to do anything. But they keep collecting 80,000 x 1,000 or 80 million dollars a year. It’s absolutely sick. From their eyes the lower the pass rate, the more $$$$$$ they get. The pass rate started out in the 90s, and has gotten lower and lower since. 50 years from now you’ll see sub 10% pass rate for each level I guarantee.
^ that might be part of the story (the ever expanding curriculum being the instrumental factor) but I think the real driver of the falling pass rate has to be the changing characteristics of candidates. For example, people are now able to sign up for CFA L1 before they have their undergrad degree. You’ve got engineers and lawyers signing up for CFA exams who wouldn’t know discounted cash flow from a bar of soap. But of course they are interested in the $$$ - are you saying that you are not?
I’m not interested in giving thousands of dollars to some people in Charlottesville, who can arbitrarily fail you, or do whatever you want with your results no.
prophets Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > i still think it was an easy exam and i expected a > pass rate of 44-46% (typed in previous thread). i > was pretty close. > > my score wasn’t as good as i thought it was going > to be. it may be because i changed a lot of > answers and didn’t erase properly. i don’t know. > i did well where i thought i was going to do well > (accounting / equities / fixed income, etc.) and > weaker where i thought i wasn’t as prepared. > > it was straight forward. > > > > THE BIG CONCERN i have long term is the quality > and reputation of CFA. I’m investing in this > program and credential and I see it having a > steroids/baseball like crisis in a few years. > There are clearly people who are cheating on this > exam (taking index cards w/ written notes in their > pants pocket and viewing it in bathroom). I don’t > think CFA takes cheating seriously enough. And I > don’t want these easy tests where any idiot can > pass. It was too easy IMO. Yet, in spite of the apparent rampant cheating and “easy” exam, the pass rate was not CONSIDERABLY ( this is relative, but I consider “considerably” like 10%) higher than last year. Additionally, the majority of people (over 50%) still failed the exam. Finally, a lot of people did WORSE than they expected. I’ll admit it was easier than I expected (I passed by a good margin) and it certainly LOOKED very “plug-and-chug,” but there were certainly a lot of questions which required meticulous reading.