The MPS will not be 80%. Historically it has always been sub-70, no particular reason why it would be significantly higher this time around. And I agree that more people were unprepared for the test than we think. Keep in mind that this is AnalystForum and for the most part the people who come here are the ones who actually care about passing. One of the guys sitting in front of me finished the morning section in 45 minutes. For a while we thought maybe he was some kind of genius until we asked him about it during break and he said he was only doing it as a practice run for June. Also, not to sound racist but a lot of Asian people sit for the exam and I imagine for most of them English isn’t their first language.
Took the test in Detroit and enjoyed the company of my fellow test takers in the back rows of Section D. Overall, I found the exam to be easier than I anticipated, but I prepared quite heavily since July. I thought the questions would be much more dense, obscure, and complex. I did find that there were a few instances I made mistakes in the AM session, which were silly stupid ones, and they conveniently left the proper incorrect answer there for me to select. (Curse you forgetting to divide by sqrt(n) in population variance!) Looking forward to seeing the results, I think I’ll be legitimately heartbroken if I didn’t pass given how I felt the test went. Is there a date for when we will get the results or is it the vague ‘end of January’ time frame? I found our testing center to be mostly mid 20s fresh-out-college students. I was very surprised by that. We only had about 200-300 test takers and probably 15-20% were no shows. I had extra arm and leg room at my table. Curious, why are the proctors forbidden to be charterholders?
Exam was a piece of cake. MPS are definitely going up this time!
notic4lyf Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The MPS will not be 80%. Historically it has > always been sub-70, no particular reason why it > would be significantly higher this time around. > And I agree that more people were unprepared for > the test than we think. Keep in mind that this is > AnalystForum and for the most part the people who > come here are the ones who actually care about > passing. One of the guys sitting in front of me > finished the morning section in 45 minutes. For a > while we thought maybe he was some kind of genius > until we asked him about it during break and he > said he was only doing it as a practice run for > June. Also, not to sound racist but a lot of > Asian people sit for the exam and I imagine for > most of them English isn’t their first language. I would totally agree with “Keep in mind that this is AnalystForum and for the most part the people who come here are the ones who actually care about passing” I would disagree with the last sentence though - English isn’t my first language and I nailed all sections in the exam except for ethics. It is true that I had my undergrad studies done in English too which helped but there is really no need at all to be fluent in English to pass this exam.
I really wished they gave us more time for lunch. I didn’t get out until 1230 and the restaurants nearby were packed. Given that the testing center was downtown and it was lunch hour. We Overall, the exam was okay. I think its going to be close for me but wish everyone the best.
Hey guys, This is my first post here (although I do keep up with the board all the time) … Here is what I thought of the exam: Overall, I found the exam very straightforward. I think I had trouble on about 3 or 4 ethics questions out of the 36 … the rest of the sections were decent as well. One thing I think people should know is if you are using stalla, questions from their mocks might be too hard. I had no sleep the night before and went into the exams needing a couple of “5-hour energy” drinks. I made some questions more complex than they needed to be. This ended up with me losing 14 marks guaranteed on the second exam. I did come up with a strategy that should help some people if they have no idea about a question. I eliminated one of the answers. If I had A and C remaining, I used the random key on the calculator. If the number that came up was below 0.5, i chose A. Otherwise I chose C. This way the answer is not dependent on any bias I may have. If the MPS is around 70, then I feel confident. If it is higher than 75, then it could go either way. Regardless, I now have an idea of what I need to do for June. I got one of the CFA scholarships through my prof and only had to pay $225 US so I guess it was good practice and not too expensive. I was extremely stressed out the whole time and had no life for 4 months. I would not recommend a lot of people do what I did, which is studying for the CFA and taking a full course load in your fourth year and trying to maintain a high GPA. I am now left with the awesomely enviable task of completing three assignments for audit, accounting theory, and advanced managerial accounting, as well as a final for advanced accounting this week followed by finals for the rest of my courses. Anyways, that was quite a rant. Good luck to everyone who completed the exam. If you do not pass it this time, do not beat yourself up about it. You will definitely have a better understanding of the material the next time around. PS. does anyone who did the exam in toronto know why they asked section 130 to stay back? I heard from a friend in a section close by that one of the guys in that section left early and they were missing one of the papers. Lemme know …
mps will never be 80%
But that exam looked so easy … if you had studied the right stuff …
I think both AM and PM sessions were easy and straightforward. I expected the PM to be much more difficult than the AM session as was the case for me in CFAI mock but again it was much easier than Elan or CFAI mockups. In hindsight, I probably wouldn’t need to spend as much time as I put on the preparation if i knew the difficulty level of the exam. I just hope that the comments on AFers doing better than others are correct. Because if thats not the case, I doubt if CFAI would pass lets say 50-60% of the candidates because the exam was easy. crossing my fingers…
mo_khan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hey guys, > > This is my first post here (although I do keep up > with the board all the time) … Here is what I > thought of the exam: > > Overall, I found the exam very straightforward. I > think I had trouble on about 3 or 4 ethics > questions out of the 36 … the rest of the > sections were decent as well. One thing I think > people should know is if you are using stalla, > questions from their mocks might be too hard. I > had no sleep the night before and went into the > exams needing a couple of “5-hour energy” drinks. > I made some questions more complex than they > needed to be. This ended up with me losing 14 > marks guaranteed on the second exam. I did come up > with a strategy that should help some people if > they have no idea about a question. I eliminated > one of the answers. If I had A and C remaining, I > used the random key on the calculator. If the > number that came up was below 0.5, i chose A. > Otherwise I chose C. This way the answer is not > dependent on any bias I may have. If the MPS is > around 70, then I feel confident. If it is higher > than 75, then it could go either way. Regardless, > I now have an idea of what I need to do for June. > I got one of the CFA scholarships through my prof > and only had to pay $225 US so I guess it was good > practice and not too expensive. I was extremely > stressed out the whole time and had no life for 4 > months. I would not recommend a lot of people do > what I did, which is studying for the CFA and > taking a full course load in your fourth year and > trying to maintain a high GPA. I am now left with > the awesomely enviable task of completing three > assignments for audit, accounting theory, and > advanced managerial accounting, as well as a final > for advanced accounting this week followed by > finals for the rest of my courses. Anyways, that > was quite a rant. Good luck to everyone who > completed the exam. If you do not pass it this > time, do not beat yourself up about it. You will > definitely have a better understanding of the > material the next time around. PS. does anyone > who did the exam in toronto know why they asked > section 130 to stay back? I heard from a friend in > a section close by that one of the guys in that > section left early and they were missing one of > the papers. Lemme know … hahaha I WAS IN SECTION 130. It was so annoying! The proctors lost track of one of the exams and so they couldn’t release us until they found it. I think they had just miscounted it… They were searching through all the booklets until they finally found it. There was one guy in the morning who thought he could leave without telling anyone, and so when he finished his exam he just got up and started quickly walking out of the room. The proctors almost had a heart attack when they ran to stop him. They thought maybe he was trying to take off with the exam, but he wasn’t. Overall I thought the test center was very organized. They did a good job at managing the 3000 people who wrote it in Toronto.
Anyone sat in the javits section NYC where they couldn’t close the main door automatically and someone had to do it manually for 5 minutes for the darn thing to close? May be I was watching it and having too much fun instead of circling the ovals with my name.
Sat the Melbourne exam yesterday. Was much easier than expected. Also, there was alot of empty seats. Can we reasonably assume that they are no shows?
If the exam really was that easy, then the % of people passing will be really high. The CFAI has all the statistics on every question. They know pretty accurately what % of people will get any specific question correct. They don’t come up with a magical % pass rate, and use it as a cutoff. The pass % is just a result of the difficulty of questions put on. If they wanted to boost the pass rate, they just put more easier questions on. I think it was last year, L1 had a 12% increase on the passrates 6 months apart. Statistically, there’s no way 2 massive groups of 40,000+ people will yield that huge a gap. They definitely tweaked it.
I mean this means that it is not good, If everyone thought it was easy, then they have to adjust the curve to reflect that. They can’t hand out a 50% passing rate. I don’t think they have done that recently (last 10 yrs?)
westeast Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I mean this means that it is not good, > > If everyone thought it was easy, then they have to > adjust the curve to reflect that. > > They can’t hand out a 50% passing rate. I don’t > think they have done that recently (last 10 yrs?) AGAIN, I think you guys should really consider the fact that people who come to this forum DO CARE about CFA and thus are most likely to have done better studying habits than people outside. Many people who have taken the exam did it for an experience only - before I go into AM session, I ran into 5 candidates coming from a neighbor country to take the exam in Dubai. I was surprised that none of them has prepared for more than last 3 weeks as they all decided to take this exam just to experience how would it look like for June. I would suggest that you don’t worry about MPS now … or else, you will have to keep worrying for 6 weeks 
I wrote in toronto, and bay.street I do agree the proctors were on the ball. although the leaving traffic was insane. lmao though when the speaker guy was like “its a CFA offense to continue writing after the exam is over.” guys lets remember only the people’s opinions in this thread represent a tiny fraction of people who wrote the exam… just because we found it easy that doesnt mean everyone found it easy. I suspect the pass rate to be consistent and the MPS to be in line with historical MPS. I found the am session very straightforward, the pm was harder, but still easier compared to the mock. from leaving the exam I did hear people saying the pm was really hard so you never know. I also agree that those who are serious about passing would be searching for forums and extra preparation methods/ material - thats how I found this site.
bay.street Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > mo_khan Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Hey guys, > > > > This is my first post here (although I do keep > up > > with the board all the time) … Here is what > I > > thought of the exam: > > > > Overall, I found the exam very straightforward. > I > > think I had trouble on about 3 or 4 ethics > > questions out of the 36 … the rest of the > > sections were decent as well. One thing I think > > people should know is if you are using stalla, > > questions from their mocks might be too hard. I > > had no sleep the night before and went into the > > exams needing a couple of “5-hour energy” > drinks. > > I made some questions more complex than they > > needed to be. This ended up with me losing 14 > > marks guaranteed on the second exam. I did come > up > > with a strategy that should help some people if > > they have no idea about a question. I > eliminated > > one of the answers. If I had A and C remaining, > I > > used the random key on the calculator. If the > > number that came up was below 0.5, i chose A. > > Otherwise I chose C. This way the answer is not > > dependent on any bias I may have. If the MPS is > > around 70, then I feel confident. If it is > higher > > than 75, then it could go either way. > Regardless, > > I now have an idea of what I need to do for > June. > > I got one of the CFA scholarships through my > prof > > and only had to pay $225 US so I guess it was > good > > practice and not too expensive. I was extremely > > stressed out the whole time and had no life for > 4 > > months. I would not recommend a lot of people > do > > what I did, which is studying for the CFA and > > taking a full course load in your fourth year > and > > trying to maintain a high GPA. I am now left > with > > the awesomely enviable task of completing three > > assignments for audit, accounting theory, and > > advanced managerial accounting, as well as a > final > > for advanced accounting this week followed by > > finals for the rest of my courses. Anyways, > that > > was quite a rant. Good luck to everyone who > > completed the exam. If you do not pass it this > > time, do not beat yourself up about it. You > will > > definitely have a better understanding of the > > material the next time around. PS. does anyone > > who did the exam in toronto know why they asked > > section 130 to stay back? I heard from a friend > in > > a section close by that one of the guys in that > > section left early and they were missing one of > > the papers. Lemme know … > > > hahaha I WAS IN SECTION 130. It was so annoying! > The proctors lost track of one of the exams and so > they couldn’t release us until they found it. I > think they had just miscounted it… They were > searching through all the booklets until they > finally found it. > There was one guy in the morning who thought he > could leave without telling anyone, and so when he > finished his exam he just got up and started > quickly walking out of the room. The proctors > almost had a heart attack when they ran to stop > him. They thought maybe he was trying to take off > with the exam, but he wasn’t. > > Overall I thought the test center was very > organized. They did a good job at managing the > 3000 people who wrote it in Toronto. and I thought 1000 candidates in Dubai was a lot LOOL
here in Singapore there were around 2K of which roughly 200-300 were no show…and there were many oldies, like me ;-),
o man anyone else out there so anxious? i dont know how i am going to wait 6 weeks without knowing… are you trying to take L2 in June? if so, will you start studying before you find out if you passed level 1? I know i should be more confident in my L1 perfromance, i just hate not knowing my score! haha i think these next 6 weeks will be tougher than the previous 6 weeks
Spanishesk Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > o man anyone else out there so anxious? i dont > know how i am going to wait 6 weeks without > knowing… > > > are you trying to take L2 in June? if so, will you > start studying before you find out if you passed > level 1? > > I know i should be more confident in my L1 > perfromance, i just hate not knowing my score! > haha i think these next 6 weeks will be tougher > than the previous 6 weeks Yes into level 2 immediately but is there any way to study before knowing results? I mean how would you get access to books if you don’t register for level 2?