AM was similar standard as CFAI prev papers but the start was a shocker! took me a bit to recover from it. Was able to complete it just 5-7mins earlier.
PM seemed better and hope i did well cause i had at least an hr to spare. Few new concepts that were never touched before caught me off guard here though. So much aching to ask where could i find them but i went with most strict outcomes.
I felt the AM was very demanding, barely finished. I had to scratch out so many marks on that exam, hopefully that is normal. The last 15 minutes was so much of a scramble, hopefully they can read the answers! In general, it’s hard to know what to think given that we all grade our own answers and guess on exactly what they are looking for and how they grade it. Of the 9 timed AM exams and this one, I’d put it in the top tier in terms of demand
PM was mostly fair but more demanding than I expected. One question I probably spent a good 20 minutes trying to figure out what they wanted because the answer as I saw it was not a choice. Odd but oh well. Now we play the waiting game…
All I know is that if I wsated 720 hours of study and failed I’ll be pissed off. I left feeling good but for whatever I can’t help but read this forum and it makes me less sure of myself. I just gotta stop coming here but these damn smartphones make it too easy to check in!
overall feeling - the exam was fair. many questions were either direct copy/paste or slightly modified versions of the ones in online topic tests, past exams and mocks. after doing all those you start seeing a pattern of how they throw in the curve balls - and the actual exam questions were expectedly structured in just the same way. finished AM with a couple of minutes left to only go back and recheck my answers, but did not modify anything. finished PM with about 10 minutes left, went back and changed answer to one question - after coming home and rechecking I think the initial answer was correct 
feeling much better this year - last year I left 2 complete sets of questions in AM unanswered and that was an outright fail.
I was doing well on the AM until I reached halfway and saw a question on a topic that I didnt pay much attention to unfortunately. Left 10 points unanswered because I just didnt know what to write.
The PM though I feel I killed it. I was done in 90 minutes so hopefully it makes up for the AM. *Fingers crossed*
10 minutes into the AM exam and I was sweating profusely. Did manage to recover though and I guess I did alright overall. But the AM was a lot tougher than what I had been expecting.
Absolutely breezed through the PM. Much easier than what I had been bracing myself for.
So overall the two sessions balanced themselves out I guess. Hoping to get home on the back of a strong PM performance.
It’s interesting to me that many people here either:
Wondering if that is a reflection of different strengths being tested in different spots or what?
Anyways, I’m firmly in the #2 crowd. I thought the AM was about as straightforward as any from 2006-2016. Obviously, the normal surprises and tricks – but, for the most part, it wasn’t terrible. I finished everything with about 30 minutes to go and had time to go through and re-check some calculations, add random formulas to maybe get a few extra points, etc. There weren’t any that I completely guessed on. Felt like all of my answers were at least somewhat relevant for partial credit.
Basically was printing my new business cards at lunchtime and feeling confident, then the PM hit me harder than expected. It might have been that I was expecting PM to be so easy relative to AM. So when AM was somewhat easier, PM felt relatively harder. Not sure… But I calculated I scored a 65% on PM if I just have a normal probability of getting my guesses right (3 total guesses so minus 0.67 points each) and my 50/50s are -0.5.
Anyways, I think I did enough to pass. Wouldn’t be remotely surprised if I scored significantly better on the AM than the PM, though. My guess is at least 70% on AM and 65% on PM. According to the link below, that’s a 90% chance of passing based on reported past results.
LINK: http://resourcetepee.com/free-personal-finance-calculators/cfa-level-3-mps/
I felt AM was easier than any old paper (2012-2016) slightly tougher than 2011 paper, which i think was the easiest of all cfai papers I practiced (2011-2016).
PM i felt was slightly more difficult than the two cfai mocks of 2017.
In the AM i had total brain freeze on 3 questions (totalljnh to 15 poonts), in hindsight they were not difficult. But the language of the question tricked me. Apart from that another 20 marks were I am not fully confident if my answer was worth full credit.
Rest i feel good about. Finished paper on time.
But i will say my performance was below expectations in PM and also on AM.
if i dont pass this year, i will be sad because AM was probably the easiest they gave in a while
AM was fair PM felt easy. I got stuck in one sub question on the AM and had to skip one sub question, probably losing a total of 10 points. What ever left I think I got 60% at least. I finished 1 minute before the exam was over… zero time to review and I rushed it big time… not sure how quick you guys can write but finishing this in 1.5 hours would be a total no go for me… maybe my answers were too long. On the PM, I had 75% on the CFA Mocks and the real thing was much easier, less text, I presume I scored over 75%. So feel confident I passed it. We will know when we know in 10 weeks. enjoy your time off!
Second time around here writing level III with a Band 10 in 2016.
AM - I thought was fair. The first individual question I struggled on I know that but the other two were quite easy I thought. Institutional was fair as well, nothing to much out of the ordinary. Overall, came out of the morning with a good feeling.
PM - i thought was very easy compared to the mock exams as i found those much more difficult. There were a couple of questions (2 or 3) on topics barely focused on in the ciriculum (the topics found on page 326 in Book 3 blah blah blah).
Overall, came out with a great feeling and knowing that i did the best i could and that i definitely have a chance. Fingers crossed
i found both fair. should be a pass.
Same sentiment as Pachstar. I spent way too much time on some AM problems and then had to rush through the rest or leave blank. I really hope that I at least scored some good points on the ones that I did answer…
PM was fair. Ethics, as always, was a crapshoot, so that’s not saving me. I think I got around 60s for PM, which unfortunately is not high enough to offset AM…Looking at a band 9 or 10. Sigh…
I think I killed AM and just about survived PM, contrary to the normal expectations.
At first AM was tough given some unfamiliar topics but shuffling the questions and eliminating easy ones I realized I can solve pretty much everything. My surprise was the timing though; was constantly under budget and had to write to the very last minute. After AM had a good feeling about the way I nailed some questions “over the board” and there was nothing in PM that could surprise me.
In PM, as usual, I did 4/6 questions in each vignette in 1/2 time, went for a water break, had a chewing gum, cracked my neck, did some stretching and went back to kill the remaining 2/6 of the exam.
I was shocked that most questions were simple guesses. After countless attempts I just couldn’t get the exact answers.
Probably I did well but the way I finished the exam will keep me on my toes till the end. Talk about anchoring bias!
P.S. During the last 30 minutes of PM I realized my calculator (which I had reset to factory setting before exam) was in Chn mode while I always used AOS mode. I realized the reason I had guessed many answers was because of wrong calculator operation even though the formula and inputs were correct…
If I pass the exam the first thing I will do is smash the calculator to smithereens.
Last year I tried to go sequentially through the AM only to find myself rushing through the end, wound up Band 9. This year I switched it up and targeted all the low hanging fruit first, then longer to answer questions and then the hard ones. Seemed to work so much better time-wise and I finished up with about 5 minutes to spare on AM.
That said I gave up on the first parts of the AM first question, and left that blank. Apart from that, I was pretty comfortable in the AM. Felt that PM was harder than last year, but think I did okay in that too.
Overall I think I did a smidge better than last year, and hopefully that smidge is enough to push me from a Band 9 to a pass.
AM was also desaster for me, the time is just not enough… and I was too nervous and didn`t read several questions clearly… and made really silly mistakes… by the way, i wanna confirm one question (if this is allowed) [_ nope - admin_] what is asked there bc a friend of mine who also wrote the exam told me he is sure that question asked for [deleted by admin] but i thought it asked for [deleted by admin]…
i am not sure whether bc I was so nervous that I did not read the question clearly… this is just one example…
PM was way better although some questions not sure…
Does anyone else find the AM portion to be a blur now? Maybe I was just cruising but for example I can’t even remember what the last item set was or the subject it covered. I know I did it, but I couldn’t tell you what it was heh.
i was concerned about beginning and end of period cash flow settings. I had two calculators, set one for each. Left the one set for Begin with the cover closed.
A few topics i’ve punted (because they appeared so unlikely to come out) actually came out, but was overall satisfied with both AM and PM.
Got a false start from the 1st AM question, took me some time to regain composure. Had 20 min to spare in the end.
First time I felt pretty good about ethics, with 67% sure answers - did not had that feeling back in L2 and also failed L2 ethics.
PM was slightly harder than i expected due to some out-of-the-blue questions, but still managed to cruise. Had 50 min to spare. Expecting low 70s in the PM.
Crossing fingers now…
AM was easier than I thought but it could just be that I rushed from the start to the end, the PM section was tough for me, also realized a couple/conceptual calculation errors once I finish the test, including changing one correct answer to a wrong choice in the last minute. I had to make about 4-5 guesses where I just have no idea how to do the calculation or have very blurry idea about the answer. Somehow I always feel a mix of having failed and regretting making stupid errors that after every level, yet passed on the first try during the first two. I have given my all during the level 3 and if I fail I won’t take it again, I hope I did alright. We will see.
I found it very tricky - both AM and PM. Nothing was plug-n-chug, I had to think long and hard for a lot of questions that in the mocks were just plug-n-chug. Not very confident overall - 50% chance at passing I’d say…