After reading these boards for the last few months i’ve noticed a few common opinions that are puzzling. Most importantly I don’t understand the generally accepted notion that CFA exam questions are so much harder than typical Schweser questions. During much of my prep only working with Schweser texts I constantly read on this board the the CFA questions on the exams and in the CFA texts are significantly more difficult. So much so that i’ve read numerous people say you must be able to get 90% on the Schweser practice tests to pass CFA level 1. Although i have not written the exam yet (Dec) as I begin to prep more seriously, I’ve been going through all the CFA end of chapter questions, CFA practice exams, and sample tests. I’ve found my fears of higher difficulty of official CFA questions from this board completely unfounded. In fact I’ve often found the Schweser questions to be very confusing, and contrived whereas official CFA questions whether at the end of chapter, in practice exams or mock exams are much more clear and straightforward. The particular concept is targeted better and if you in fact know the concept your are almost guaranteed to get the question correct. I don’t feel the same with regards to schweser, I’ve often nailed a concept down and then been unable to answer a question that I do know the mechanics of. Unless the actual exam significantly ramps up the difficulty to the mock, sample, end of chapter questions I’m just not sure where this precept comes from. anyone care to comment on this ? Maybe the test will be significantly harder than all the other questions I’ve seen but I have a bit of a hard time believing even this.
Maybe the CFA exam questions are not as hard as they appear to be, but the culmination of the many months of work all leading up to one day of filling out a sheet of paper to see if your work paid off might make some feel pressured, read the questions too quickly, not remember things, etc. The ‘Game Day’ factor makes the questions harder.
Agreed.
Understood, But I’m not suggesting that the exam will be a breeze or the stress of the test won’t make me crack. I’m only implying that the CFA questions i’ve seen so far don’t support the general notion around here that official CFA questions are much more difficult. I just wondered if anyone agreed with this, don’t get me wrong im scared shitless about test day and managing the stress.
lots of pressure game day and people get up to go to the urinal and you sweat and you could be hungry and you have to worry about not looking suspicious, it is a lot of heat. practice will never be like the real thing…
… and to try emulating the D-day environment, especially the chaos at Jacob Javits Convention Center, NYC try taking the test in a subway on a E-line from: WTC to JFK/Jamica Center. If you manage a 66% MPS you are sure a winner for this level.
Not sure how this discussion turned into a “Test day is so hard you’ll never make it” I was hoping for some intelligent discussion on an observation I had during my studies over the last few months. Never did I comment on the level of stress, or difficulty of exam day. I’m assuming no one who has commented thus far actually read my original post, which is fine. Just please stop insinuating I implied the CFA exam, or exam day is easy. Intelligent opinion regarding CFA q’s vs Schweser q’s would be appreciated.
Well, I am only writing L1 in December so am no expert, but it did seem to me that the 2005 CFA past exam questions in the textbooks were no harder than Schweser. And I have only done the free sample exam so far and it didn’t seem harder than Schweser. Though I think it depends which Schweser - Q Bank has a lot of easy questions, while the sample exams in Book 6 are harder (in my opinion). I suspect there is a general belief that the actual exam is harder for those reasons outlined above (ie test day stress), while in reality the questions may not be much different. As I said, I haven’t yet taken L1 so it’s just my opinion, ignore at will.
jonny i tend to agree with you. i did schweser practice test 1 yesterday and thought it was quiet tough, mainly due to the amount of reading required/calcs per question and the fact that they make them unnecessarily complex? ive not sat lvl 1 yet so could be wrong but the 2005 exam questions certainly appear easier then the these schweser ones, which in some cases are just plain confusing. will know more once ive done the CFAi samples/mocks that everyone is reccomending!
Good post, I am glad you asked this from my experience up to now. I seem to fair far better with the 2005 questions at the end of chapters, the Schweser exam questions do seem to be tricky, I sometimes have to read them over to work out what they are actually asking, knowing the underlying concept is one thing, but what is the question?..Is this aspect similar to the real exam?
I failed in june, but these are my 2-cents. The way some of the questions are worded on exam day, is a lot more similar to the ones on the CFAI textbooks and to the ones on the mock exams offered on the CFAI website. However, I believe the difficulty level on the Q-bank and practice exams is ok and if you practice enough you should be ready to answer any kind of question thrown at you on exam day. Mainly because the more questions you do the better you understand the material. And at the end of the day, if you know and understand each SS’s content you should be able to answer any question, no matter how tricky or simple they word it (you will see that on the exam, there will be a few very simple straight forward questions). The purpose of any Q-Bank is to make you think about the concepts and practice, not to word questions exactly how you will see them on exam day. I had read all the curriculum, but did not have enough time to nail a zillion questions on everything… and on exam day, the SS I had practiced many questions of, went well, the others… I doubted and was unsure when answering and therefore scored lower. As to the stress, it definitely plays a role on exam day. In the morning I felt insecure… struggling to answer each question, having second thoughts about what I was answering and even panicking whether I would remember every formula, or every concept (ie. found myself trying to recall formulas, as if testing myself or as if I just wanted to make sure I still knew the material, while doing different sections of the exam). However, after lunch… and getting it together, the afternoon went smoothly. Just took one question at a time, confident that I had studied and knew the concepts and formulas, and doubted myself a lot less. Anyways, in my case definitely having had more practice on everything would’ve helped, because as I said before, scored higher on the SS I had done more practice on. But the stress that kicked in the morning, definitely did not help my results either. I was on band 9, and maybe with less panic, I could’ve gotten a few more questions right and passed… Either way, I’ve learned from my mistakes, and hope to do a lot better this time around. The pressure is on, and am still freaking out a bit, but we will see. Hope this helps…