Level II - Mock Exams?

Hi All

I am progressing well; albeit slowly. I want to leave three weeks towards the end, so can practice exams non-stop and go over notes. I am wondering, who is the best third-party provider of mock exams? I am using schweser to study and they have provided some mocks; however, not sure if these are going to be truly representative of the exam day. I will, of course, take the actual CFA two practice exams and time it. But I want to do more to maximise my changes of passing.

Any suggestions will be helpful.

Cheers

UP

From my experience, I tried Finquiz last year. I had 6 mocks, and on the 4th mock, I gave up because I realized Finquiz was too hard and not really testing the core concepts - it was instead testing my memory skills! I changed my final weeks strategy and re-did all EOCs, re-did the important EOCs again (i.e. Equity, FRA, Fixed income), and the online topic tests. This raised my confidence (which took a huge hit when doing the Finquiz mocks) and I eventually found the actual exam easy (was confident of a pass after the exam and eventually passed)

Never used L2 Schwser though, but I hear its more manageable than Finquiz.

When doing Level 2 readings did you just do the EOCs? I am currently doing the readings so for now while preparing is Schweser qbank + EOC and topic tests on CFAI website enough?

I did 4 finquiz mocks until i realised it was a waste of my time. Having few days left until the exam, I practised CFA mocks/online topic tests and EOCs only. I hit the heavy-weight topics, focused less on low-weighted & hard topics (mine was quants & portion of derivatives & PM). Come the exam day, that portion of derivatives eventually came up, and I bombed on it, but I felt that I’ve managed a lot of 5/6, 6/6 scores on other heavy-weight topics to compensate for it. Moral of story: hit the areas where u have high room for improvement, and dont waste time on areas with low room for improvement, unless your aim is to achieve 70%+ in all 10 topics.

I heard that Schwser Qbank is good for initial prep, but not so good for final prep. If you can master the EOCs, topic tests and CFA mocks, you’ll have a pretty good chance of going thru.

Schweser 6 mocks + CFAI official mock + CFA sectional tests ( and obviously BBs and EOCs ) are recipes for success

Thanks for your help lads

Kevin - why did you find finquiz a waste of time? I mean, isn’t being harder better? Do you think those Finquiz mocks had any impact on you passing the exam?

Deal_Clincher - cheers for that one. I was thinking of doing that exact format. Did you find that the Schewser Mocks for LII are similar to the exam? Or too easy/ a bit harder.

If anyone has any thoughts/ suggestions, please feel free to comment. I’m sure it will help everyone.

Cheers

Finquiz does not reflect the CFA-exam style because most of the time it tests your ability to recall “exact” unimportant phrases from the CFA books. Finquiz shot my confidence down after 3 mocks (scores were no higher than 50%, no joking). Changed strategy, practised CFA EOCs, mocks, online topic tests and regained confidence.

Schweser mock is only one each year (usually release on May).

For the “6 things”, maybe you are refer to Schweser Practice Exams.

http://www.analystforum.com/forums/cfa-forums/cfa-level-ii-forum/91350867

http://www.analystforum.com/forums/cfa-forums/cfa-level-ii-forum/91349472

I also experienced the same as those above with Finquiz…I would avoid at all costs!

I took the formal Schweser live mock and the first two Practice Exams for L2. I personally thought all three were comparable to the actual exam, and was very happy with them.

Don’t forget also to buy Schweser Mind Map to get their book of practice questions on each reading !

Boston CFA Society offers mock exams available for sale in April at http://www.cfaboston.org/

CFA Boston any good?

may do scheweser live exam based on the review above.

Schweser has a book 2017 practice exams volume 1. Anyone done a past version that can rate it? Ideally I won’t waste my time doing it if it’s not good questions.

Cheers

More practice is always better. It’s just a matter of how much time do you have for studying.

I gave the BSAS Pratice exam for Level 1 also. It’s a full length 6 hours practice exam. It was a paper based practice test which I gave in a classroom in Sydney (Not online). At the end of afternoon session of the exam, they will provide the answer keys and you need to check your answers yourself. It is very useful to test your preparation for the exam.

This year, I am appearing in BSAS CFA Level 2 Practice Exam on SATURDAY 20th May 2017 in SYDNEY (Not Online). But you can check with them, they might also be offering the online test at different time.

Just curious, whether examples in curriculum, CFA Institute PP , mock exam and TT are not enough to practice and eventually pass?

With so many materials on L2, the Institute can test whatever he want with so many variations.

the best format (item set) comes from CFAI Mock Exam & Portal TT --> but this is not ‘fully hedge’ all materials / all variations.

The BB and EOC ‘not always’ comes on item set format. (but the Fixed Income BB very good !!)

We realized that there is a gap in here.

Thats what supplement materials (Schweser or whatever) will lend his hand for you, they try to ‘minimize’ that gap.

it’s like Jerry Mcguire said : “You complete me…”

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpWAlvWNZj0 autoplay:0]

But do not try to put prioritize for 3rd party above CFA materials.

Panda,

Band 9 fail last year, so I know what Im talking about. The Schweser mocks are great. I know I sound like a commercial but I really mean it. they are highly, highly representative of the real exam, in terms of both difficulty and style.

The Topic Tests on the CFAI institute website are HARD. I would argue that the average TT item set is maybe 115% to 130% as hard as the real exam. but the difficulty is not unrealistic, and it has value because it shows you the weak areas and there are so, so, so many item sets available to take. Its like an extra 3-4 Mocks (in terms of volume of practice you’ll get if you do them all).

Another thing thats important to note is that the difficulty of the Schweser mocks increases as you progress through the mock books. For instance: There are two volumes of mocks, (volume 1 and 2) and each volume has 3 full length exams (6 total). I found that Volume1, Exam3 is more difficult than Volume1, Exam1. And furthermore, all three mocks in Volume2 are more difficult than the volume1 mocks. the difference in difficulty is subtle, but it’s definitely there. They do this on purpose I would suggest.

This is how I see mocks in total:

Topic Tests on CFAI website: 125% as hard as real exam

Volume1 Mocks in Schweser: Maaaaaybe 97% as hard as real exam

Volume2 Mocks in Schweser: maaaaaybe 105% as hard as real exam

bottom line is the Schweser mocks are exactly what youlll feel and see on gameday

Thank you! I’m going to stick with my strategy, focus on the CFA Institute curriculum only, use TT and mock exam from the CFA Institute site. It worked great for level 1 and l determined to prove that again.

@TommyJohn really appreciate the feedback mate, very much appreciated. I only have volume one; but that seems sufficient by the sounds of it + 2 real life CFA exams. Do you have an email by any chance that I can contact you on?

Cheers