Apparently a lot is changing with CBOK next year for level III. A retake would be a killer.
Then, seems only retakers from multiple attempts really masterize CFAI during years of their preparation under constant changes. Exactly, they are the ones among charterholders with the best knowledge.
I don’t have the best feeling coming out of the exam. The AM session killed me - I was under extreme time pressure, and I had to ditch some examples. The afternoon session, on the other hand, was very comfortable. Cleared it in less than half the time and I felt it was all rather straight forward. Best of luck, everyone!
We are in same boat. I was well prepared but pressure killed me and probably did many mistakes on AM. PM was as an ordinary portal Mock by difficulty level.
I feel like I couldn’t have done better on the AM. Maybe a little light in the explanations on a few of the questions, but overall I’m thinking I broke 75 or even 80. Pretty much no questions where I didn’t feel like I caught and capitalized on the trick.
I’m lucky enough to live in NY so I’ve actually had 40 past exam essays graded by a former CFAI grader. People really overestimate how hard these people read your responses. If the question doesn’t say discuss or explain they’re barely looking for more than a few words. Even if it does, you need to take in to account how many boxes there are in the problem.
PM really annoyed me. Realistically I got in the mid 60s to mid 70s, but I studied ~700 hrs for this stupid thing and could have studied for another 700 and never touch some of those obscure ones.
Oh well. Would be really surprised if I didn’t pass.
Pressure is definitely not your friend. There are technics to speed up, most important one is to always jump to the question before reading the text, then skim through trying to extract the important data. Your eyes must be drown to figures and terminology that you recognise.
Rapid processing of what the question will lead you to is important as well.
Hope it went well overall
All we can do now is enjoy the freedom while it lasts. Hope it works out and both of us are laughing at the end of it all!
I studied almost exactly 725 hours so I’d be interested what you found obscure. A lot of people saying thus but I did not come across a single question the CBOK didn’t address with a BB or EOC. I’d have to disagree with you. Not saying I did well haha. But I am saying it was a fair exam and if I fail it’s my own problem.
with that much work put in and access to resources i’d expect you to say 90%+ and no obscurity. Why do you feel that your PM is so low? i’m more surprised you found it difficult given the time you put in, it’d make more sense for someone who spent 300 hours focused only on essays. But regardless a pass is a pass.
now reading this I get the impression the difficulty you sense during the exam could really be related to how you prepared, I spend 70% of my final mock hours doing AM tests, I did AM tests for past 5 years twice, with 5th-8th years once, I thought the am section was easy, I did only past 3 years PM mock, that was a bit challenging for me, interesting
Apparently Fixed Income is getting a big overhaul for the 2018 exam. I am hoping that this year is successful so i dont have to go through this crap again
hi everyone
was scoring at around 70/75 in essay and around 80 on multiple choice so was nervous but thought I had really studied hard - got killed in fixed income in the morning and am really reeling from it… felt less alone reading you all. thanks for that
most were not able to finish i just put in 6th gear and went for it - but stuff not commented etc.
also something very simple i was not expecting was the booklet format which made it hard as I had been working with sheets before. if i have to redo will be aware of that!!!
i did Berry Berry goooood. HAHAHAHA
This
in the AM …i had a slow than should be start with the first question, but, went past it fine. … got stuck in part A and part B of another question but skipped them and went ahead hoping to come back… but rest of the AM was mostly fine…thought i had good reasons for most of the other questions…except for one sub-question which i believe wrote the wrong answer/explanation on it…but other AM seemed ok… there were a few curve balls but seemed noticeable, had no extra time to go back…was just done with the last answer with 1 minute left…do not know if my answers were elaborate enough… PM seemed to be pretty good…know of 1 wrong answer and 1 question for which no matter how much I tried I could not get any of the choices…I believe the choices were wrong…and then ethics is always unknown…overall the questions seemed fair.
anyone else think ethics was a little easier this time around?
^ Easy peasy…(lemon-squeezy).
I rather have a super hard item set where I’m confident on to get 5/6+… than an easy one where “everyone” gets the points
I missed 2. Well, maybe, I guessed. It’s always been my weak spot but I know enough so it doesn’t impact much.
or his admirer haha