POST EXAM: How do you think you did on am and pm?

[LouterMattheus]

I’ve had at least one coworker take L3 for every year the past 3 years and it’s always been two weeks after L1 and L2 results, so the 10th tuesday after the exam,

[BFostvedt]

Anyone else have a couple areas on the PM where they had a lot of “a’s”, “b’s”, or “c’s” in a row?

[financialstudent]

@Secyh62

First off I thought the exam was very fair both morning and afternoon. I tend to disagree with everyone that suggests there are “twists” or “tricks”. It only seems that way if you don’t truly know the material. When you truly know it, the answers are obvious right away in most cases. That said, I put the least amount of time into this level compared to the other 3, probably 180 hours total.

There were some things that I chose not to memorize because I felt they were more obscure and wouldn’t be asked. Of course, AM section, two of those items were on there. I immediately recognized the words but there was nothing connected to them in my memory bank lol. For those two sub-items, I wrote out the work for them and answered them, but might as well have been 0’s if not for some luck or partial credit, not huge points wise though. The problem with the AM for me was that I wrote for almost 3 hours straight and didn’t have time to review my answers with the exception of one of the two I did not really know, so I have very little feel for how I did. In practice, the written for me was always stronger than the PM, very little subjectivity as to if I got points or not on the mocks. Given that I have no true feel for how the real thing went though, its tough to estimate a score here. My worst mock written was a 63.3%, and that was the first time I had looked at or attempted any written material. So I will assume my floor is a 60%.

PM was a breeze, I ripped through the PM in an hour and a half and went through the entire test twice. Maybe 3 questions that I didn’t feel like I knew well. I felt good about my ethics, and I always scored very well in ethics practice for all three levels, but you never know and ethics was my weakest on 1 and 2 actual results. Assume absolute worst case 8 wrong here (don’t think it was truly that bad and I was comfortable with my answers however). Then if you assume maybe another 5 that I thought I knew 100% but didn’t just to be safe. If I got lucky on one of the 3 I didn’t know 100%, assume worst case on ethics, plus another 5: 46/60 > 76.6%.

Combined that would put me at a 68% if we’re assuming the worst on ethics and the AM. Is that enough to pass? Maybe/Probably, but would I be shocked to have to take this again? No. I will say though that if I had to take this a second time I would pass no question. I walked in pretty confident after the mock results, but after the morning I was talking to god, then after the pm I felt like I had a shot. I reflected the least on this level driving home compared to the other 2, I’m just all set with this whole program. What a miserable use of time over these past couple years. I already have the job I desired from initially embarking on the journey, so at this point I just am doing it because my coworkers have it.

May be the tricks were thinking that there were no tricks, lol! I know that’s what I was thinking…surely this can’t be!!!

[financialstudent]

@BFostvedt

Anyone else have a couple areas on the PM where they had a lot of “a’s”, “b’s”, or “c’s” in a row?

Yep…that made me soooo nervous!

[PierreCFA]

@BFostvedt

Anyone else have a couple areas on the PM where they had a lot of “a’s”, “b’s”, or “c’s” in a row?

There are many columns, but I remember a middle column that have this pattern: C C C B A B B B B B (5 times in consecutive)

[Margin_Call]

@BFostvedt

Anyone else have a couple areas on the PM where they had a lot of “a’s”, “b’s”, or “c’s” in a row?

for sure

[Margin_Call]

@PierreCFA

@BFostvedt

Anyone else have a couple areas on the PM where they had a lot of “a’s”, “b’s”, or “c’s” in a row?

There are many rows, but I remember a middle row that have this pattern: C C C B A B B B B B (5 times in consecutive)

rows or columns??

[PierreCFA]

@Margin\_Call

@PierreCFA

@BFostvedt

Anyone else have a couple areas on the PM where they had a lot of “a’s”, “b’s”, or “c’s” in a row?

There are many rows, but I remember a middle row that have this pattern: C C C B A B B B B B (5 times in consecutive)

rows or columns??

Sorry, column

[Margin_Call]

yea i had that towards the middle left but def had a column with consecutive c’s towards the middle right. i stopped and looked at it said to myself that this will be brought up in the forums for sure lol

[tibwa]

Obviously, if you pass with barely 180 hours in total, this is as close as I come to meet with Albert Einstein lol. If you can average 68%, why not 70. Please come back after the result and let us know. By the way, have you took this level before? you talked about " the other 3". I am assuming you had failed one test. Then, again even a repeat offender cannot survive with only 300 hours.

[tibwa]

Obviously, if you pass with barely 180 hours in total, this is as close as I come to meet with Albert Einstein lol. If you can average 68%, why not 70. Please come back after the result and let us know. By the way, have you took this level before? you talked about " the other 3". I am assuming you had failed one test. Then, again even a repeat offender cannot survive with only 300 hours.

[BFostvedt]

@financialstudent

Yeah I got done with PM and looked over my score sheet and thought to myself WTF?

[bazz]

@PierreCFA

@BFostvedt

Anyone else have a couple areas on the PM where they had a lot of “a’s”, “b’s”, or “c’s” in a row?

There are many columns, but I remember a middle column that have this pattern: C C C B A B B B B B (5 times in consecutive)

All right, this makes me feel somewhat better. Definitely saw a lot of same letters. Unfortunately I can’t remember if it was A’s or B’s? I definitely remember a lot of C’s lol

[Secyh62]

@tibwa

Obviously, if you pass with barely 180 hours in total, this is as close as I come to meet with Albert Einstein lol. If you can average 68%, why not 70. Please come back after the result and let us know. By the way, have you took this level before? you talked about " the other 3". I am assuming you had failed one test. Then, again even a repeat offender cannot survive with only 300 hours.

Took level 2 twice. Probably put in ~350 for level 1, was the December exam and went straight into level 2 the following June. You don’t get the December result until almost Feb so I probably put in ~200 or so for the first try, probably about 300 for the second. This was my first go at level 3, it was more so a lack of motivation than thinking I had the material down with less time needed. The material was much less stimulating and I didn’t feel like I was getting anything out of it that was value additive, whereas I thought the first two levels had much more relevance. I will say however, that I felt as prepared for this exam as I have for the other times where I had passed, a lot of the material is overlapping and there is physically less volume page wise. I assume that also played into the 180, laziness + lack of motivation + less volume = 180

[KentC]

AM is harder than expected. PM is OK.

Some of the questions in AM is not as straightforward as prior years. Have to skip around 20 points… Finished PM in less than 2 hours. Ethic questions are designed to be tricky. Hope to get 70%+ in the PM, 60%+ in the AM.

AM is HARDER than prior years (at least for the years that I practiced 09 through 2017). Overall, the questions are less confusing than the MOCK exam.

Chance to pass and fail 50/50…

If I did not pass, I will spend much more time on reading through the CFAI materials rather than rely on Willey materials…

Good Luck to all of us!! Now ENJOY the summer.

[financialstudent]

I like Darren miller but the guy for fixed income and asset allocation were not as well.

No one beats Peter olinto though

[sp03673]

For me AM was very difficult and PM was okay. I finished PM on time but couldn’t finish AM. I left one full question blank. The comments like AM was easy and PM was much harder make me feel if CFAI had two versions of level 3 papers

[KentC]

Love Darren Miller, too. Willey material is not bad, just the Fixed Income part, the video lectures are too short. And the practice questions for LEVEL III are not well written.

CFAI materials and CFAI sources are SUFFICIENT, no need to spend extra money on review course.

[DPBass88]

@sp03673

For me AM was very difficult and PM was okay. I finished PM on time but couldn’t finish AM. I left one full question blank. The comments like AM was easy and PM was much harder make me feel if CFAI had two versions of level 3 papers

I feel like you’re right. PM questions had all these twists in scenarios that I did not practice and had to adjust to. AM was pretty straight forward. I remember in PM knowing exactly the answer but within the vig another event/situation was going on that just added to the question. I just remember nodding my head every time I read that extra detail of information on some questions and being like “WTF”.

[Megha_Malpani]

I thought AM was tricky and not difficult. I was completely on time till I was going sequentially and in order for about 2 hours. However, once I changed the order after that I got badly trapped. Probably the next few questions that followed weren’t my strongest areas and I was trying to skim through a couple of them to score full marks in the sub sections. The strategy was probably bad! Had done all actual papers from 2010 but this was different definitely.

Can’t get the terror of AM out of my head even after 2 full days.

PM was some solace though!