im a retaker… you need to cram formulas… if you are an expert on the concepts but not good at the formulas… you wont pass… if you are an expert at the formulas and ok at the concepts… you can pass
there are plenty of points on the exam that are suprisingly simple… IF you know the formula… if you dont know the formula… its just a pure guess. the concept questions are at least possible to eliminate 1 (sometimes)
i agree 100%
Then go learn Chinese bro.
For the retakers: how did you find the online assessments in comparison to the exam?
Dammn…thanks for this mate, spending tomorrow on formulas and revision only now. Done with 5 mocks now, I think it’s enough. Plan to take CFAI full mock on 1st june
Holy sh#t! I am doing the practice tests - and I did feel quite confident with Equity doing Schweser - but the score gets down to 2 in some sets, so WT#? Did I waste my time and money for a score that an untrained monkey would get by pure guessing? It is so frustrating, like crashing mentally into a wall!
I passed L1 in December and started learning in January, I wonder if that was a mistake-but there is no way back if you are stuck in the middle with L1 in your pocket…
Well, be reassured it is not a mistake; at best you pass this year; at worst you will be better prepared for next year. 
This is so key. I’ve personally been breaking down the learning information into 3 broad classes
Formulas (especially in Quant, FRAs, Derivs and PM)
Methods (especially FRA, Corp, FI)
Qualitative stuff (ethics + various pros/cons, assumptions, theories throughout the curriculum)
Can’t neglect 2 and 3 but if you don’t remember your formulas, not only will you have a hard time applying 2, but also potentially 3.
real exam is more straight forward for the most part, depends on the topic area … For example the ethics questions are nearly identical to what you get on the assessments, but for FRA I find some of the online assessments to be confusing and I never felt that way on the real exam
If it’s more straightforward then why aren’t more people passing and struggling with Level 2.
The questions are still hard, what I mean by straight forward is it’s more clear what they’re asking for in the question but you still need to know the material. Some of the mock questions I find confusing but on the actual exam I was never confused as to what the question was asking but that didn’t mean I knew the answer. I would know the entire formula sheet inside and out. A good example would be PM last year I knew all the theory but didn’t put much time into the formula’s, I convinced myself PM would be 5% and that if I knew the theory I could get 50% on it at least … well you go to the exam and guess what happens, 10% PM and a big chunk of that was plug n chug formulas’. So just because its more straight forward doesn’t mean its easier questions, just easier to understand what the question is asking.
As a retaker I agree with BobbyBraveheart – the questions in the actual exam are asked in a more straightforward way than in some of the mocks/practice assessments. Knowing the formulas is key to answering many concept questions as well as “plug and chugs”. I didn’t revise the corp fin formulas last year which cost me points.
I prefer more straightforward questions. The mock exams aren’t very clear and sometimes I second guess myself.
More straightforward also means less of the “heres a balance sheet, have at it” kind of questions. Id expect more questions with all the required data and maybe an extra value and several rates, testing that you know to exclude certain key items or why a certain rate would be used. Theres no reason for an investor to have many of these formulas 100% memorized, as long as they can look at the available information and avoid the edge-case but important pitfalls.
I was just working on a question where I had to figure out the customer acquisition costs that was capitalized. There was a huge balance sheet and the solution was to take a bunch of items (loss reversal, acquisition cost, etc…) and find the plug value. OMG i hate these.
For the currency swap on the AM section, was anyone able to complete this under a test scenario (in 18 minutes) and get it right? Takes me at least 5-10 minutes to get through the reading to understand what they’re trying to get at. Had the same problems with a lot of the others. The time stressor I think was the biggest killer for me. Just sitting down with them afterwards and trying to do them they come much easier.
Take your time with the questions, and you’ll be surprised how little time actually passes when you’re done.
Thinking about it only makes things worse.
How do you manage to get grip on “3”. I am finding it difficult to remember those silly (imaginary) assumptions for various concepts/LOS?