killer exam scores

In reading these posts, it seems that many are scoring in the 70’s and 80’s on the practice exam…maybe I’m just not as smart, but these scores seem ridiculous. I’m in the mid-50’s scoring range now (and have been studying like a maniac) and my goal is to get in the low 60’s by next week. Is there anyone else out there scoring like I am or am I just doomed to fail??

You can do it. I’m mid 60’s right now and have been steadily improving. Learn the stuff you miss. The idea is to peak on June 6th, not May 1st. In one week of undergrad, you crammed for 15 hours worth of finals in 10 days. Mind over matter.

relax. I think the sample size of people posting their scores is small. And who knows if they are actually taking them without looking at their notes, or guessing. (I don’t like to guess on my practice tests personally, a blank answer i’m more certain to read into later - if i guessed correct i might end up skipping it).

People tend to report good news and suppress bad news. That’s why in statistics, you don’t study individual data points but the distribution of the data points.

high 50’s to low 60’s here… no worries, lets do what we can until the day. dont worry about the others, just be sure they wont be here to help us next year if we fail…

wasn’t there a name for this? survival bias ?

I’m doing crappy as well . . . but I think guessing is good on the practice exams actually. Even in the back of your mind you have some notion of the concept and are negating one of the answers so it is at least 50/50. It is a good habit to practice as on test day we will most likely have to guess on a handful of questions on 6/6.

However, I have been circling the ones I am guessing on so I can go back and fully learn the concept after the practice exam.

i actually write the word guess on the paper a lot of times…Much like phillip, i like to guess just to see my score for real

Cherry picking is the more appropriate term. People tend to report the good marks and suppress the bad marks. Surviver’s bias is more like the lack of data in a certain range because nobody bother to keep or report these data. e.g. data on busted hedge funds.

^^ this is known as self-reporting bias (hedge funds).

People here gotten high 80s here. I wonder what are the top 1% of AF scores? We can then guesstimate the mim passing score.

dude I never EVER scored anywhere near the high 80 for level 1 and I got above a >70 in all sections. I know it’s a different test, but still I mean WTF I think I could study for 2 years and I wouldn’t score that high.

“I’m doing crappy as well . . . but I think guessing is good on the practice exams actually. Even in the back of your mind you have some notion of the concept and are negating one of the answers so it is at least 50/50.” Agreed - why would you discount answers where you eliminated a choice and have a coin flip? I’m going to be guessing on the real test (hopefully not that much, but without a doubt some), so why wouldn’t I practice like I want to “play”?

I wouldn’t focus on the scores as much compared to what weak areas you should be focusing on.

I’m in the same position - I got excited over a 62%. Logged on to the forum and was crushed. Good to know some others out there are with me. Like dlpicket said, the goal is to peak on 6 Jun…

Yeah, I wouldn’t worry so much about the exam scores. Just focus on yourself and constantly improving. Speaking for myself (since I’m one of the ones posting pretty high scores), I’m a retaker so I’d be kinda ticked if I went through this twice without posting some pretty good scores. The other thing is that Schweser and the CFAI really don’t change their exams, so even though its been a year I feel like it has to help when I’m taking an exam for the second time. That being said, I’m a little disappointed more people aren’t posting their scores this time around. Even though it hurt I still posted the 47% I got last year because I feel like it makes me more accountable and its somewhere to track your progress. So, I think its only fair that I get to report the good scores too… but really, I wouldn’t take the practice exams to be that representative of what will happen on the 6th because its all about what CFAI decides to throw at us that day. Also, about the guessing: you can be really well prepared but you’ll find yourself guessing a lot more than you’d like to think… but I think the intuition that you develop by going through all of this helps a lot. So, while I can understand not wanting to take credit for something you didn’t know, it will definitely be a factor on game day.

whatever works for you with the guessing. Circling it to come back, but putting an answer down def works. long as you make that make so you know you guessed. I circle ones that give me trouble too.

As I do more exam questions, the less confident I have on the actual exam. I need to go over the important concepts within 10 days. Q-banks is useless for this lvl 2 exam except for quick topic refresh. I don’t know how ppl can score 70 or 80 on the schweser practice exam, but I might not be as smart as they are. Dumb and Dumber!!

If things still look fuzzy to you at this point, it could be a sign you are not retaining enough materials.