Practice Exam Scores

CFA Level III
#1

I tried searching for this, and maybe it’s a little early, but I was wondering how people who have taken practice exams are doing at this point. I know it is a little subjective scoring morning session tests but I try to be somewhat hard on myself - if my answer could be interpreted differently (even if I meant it the way they state the answer) I mark it wrong.

So far I’ve taken 3 practice tests, but have only scored 2:

2009 CFA Morning Session: ~65%

2010 CFA Morning Session: ~67%

I plan to take the CFA Mock this weekend to see how the multiple choice goes. I feel this is pretty good as we still have 2 months to go, but I’m wondering how everyone else is doing to get a feel for whether I’m in a good range. has anyone else been doing many practice tests, and if so how did you do?

#2

65% and not even April,

you ll pass buddy

#3

Practice exam scores are meaningless in Level 3! You have to realize that the morning exam is totally different every year with way different question.

You can score like 30% and pass on the real exam or vice versa. It just all depends on the 3-4 question you get on the morning of the exam and how well you know that topic.

#4

are you also timing your test?

#5

agree - too hard to grade yourself for AM sessions…whatever you get, I would discount by 10% to be conservative.

#6

Take my love take my land take me where i cannot stand…i dont care i’m still free you cant take the sky from me

#7

It takes me approx. 3 hours, but at this point I’m not limiting my time. I’d rather try to answer everything to get a feel for my knowledge base of the topics at this point.

WhyStudy - I take it you are not grading your tests?

#8

Morning sessions are far too hard to grade accurately. By and large I would say that people’s morning scores indicate that most candidates don’t do a great job in the morning even when they pass. Leads me to believe that people probably are not scoring themselves appropriately.

#9

I passed level 3 already.

I am telling you from experience, you are just getting a false sense of security or scare, depending if you studied that particular section they ask you in the morning section on your practice exam.

Don’t let the practice exam fool you, unlike level 1 and level 2. You practically live and die by the morning question they give you. If you are lucky and they ask you something you are very comfortable with, you will score high and also takes a very short time. On the other hand, if they ask you something you are not famiilar with, you will end up spending lots of time and writing a lot.

The people who usualy write a lot it’s because they don’t know their material and write down anything they can think of.

#10

shiver runs down spine

#11

I also did a question by question analysis to see my breakdown for different sections so I know where to focus my studiing from here. I now see why the final morning breakdowns seem so low. Even though my average was in the mid 60’s, I think I only scored over 70 in 2 sections, under 50 in 2 or 3 and the rest were 50-70. The variance between section scores is huge, like whystudy said: “If you are lucky and they ask you something you are very comfortable with, you will score high “””…"

Alot of this practice is also figuring out how the CFAI wants answers phrased, and how to answer based on the LOS key words. I think that’s key