Guys, do you find Qbank questions even advanced questions somewhat easy and may not be representing the difficulty of CFA exam? What do you think?
You will be surprised how straightforward Level I exam is. In the last month and a half of my studies, I abused the Qbank (only tackled medium-advanced Qs) and the Practice Exam Volumes (which are pretty representative of the actual questions…at least in my opinion). In the actual exam, I finished the morning and afternoon sessions an hour early. Needless to say, I felt very confident walking out. These two items: Qbank and Practice Exam Volumes are excellent tools. Enough practice with the Qbank will prepare you in answering any question on any concept in record speed. All of the concepts will be at your fingertips. As for the practice exams, leave those for the last month. Volume II is harder than I. So start off with I. If you’re scoring >70%, you’re doing very well. Be sure to plug in your answers online for explanations and to see how you compare to your peers. Good luck and feel free msg me if you have any other Level I questions!
newera: Thanks for your response. I averaged 73% on Qbank Intermediate-advance questions only. I have not started the practice exam yet. what do you think about this score?
I wouldn’t worry so much about the score than about actually understanding ALL of the material. Try to look for areas that you typically miss or you’re not quite getting. Reread/reteach yourself and then tackle those questions again. Rather than settling for >70% accuracy, I would actually strive toward trying to understand everything and trying to nail most of the questions. When I say abuse the Qbank, I mean it! Keep doing the questions until you feel like you really don’t need anymore practice. But I think you’re on the right track, so far so good. Keep chugging through!
questions are not representative but they definitely do pound the material into your head
How long before the exam did you start with the Qbank?
im interested to hear this too. ive started with qbank. im finding it a good way to check my knowledge and is a necessary break from reading!
I actually realized the value of the Qbank until maybe 2 months before the exam. I suggest after you’ve read every section (quant/equity/debt/etc…), you answer as many questions as possible from the Qbank. From time to time, try to combine sections and see how much you’re still remembering (don’t panic if 1.5 months before exam day, you feel like you don’t remember much…it WILL come back to you with practice). A month and a half before the exam, start going “hardcore.” Answer questions from every section and create tests with questions from all sections. Do this until you feel you’ve exhausted a good amount of the bank.
It is just becuase several people posted here that they were mislead by the Qbank uqestions. They say are way easy than CFA exam and majority of questions involve calculation whereas in the CFA exam there plenty of concept questions.
What they say it is true. Even the advanced questions are not that difficult. Real L1 exam questions are more conceptual, hence trickier, and the calculus ones are straight forward (most of them). The exam questions have a different feel because those are questions you have under some amount of stress that day. If you search for posts right after the June 6th exams, you’ll find pretty interesting discussions over the Q in the exam. As a matter of fact, even before that date, you’ll find discussions over the questions in the mock and sample exams that the CFAi provided. Those were more like the real exam, but way harder/more difficult than those on the June 6th exam.
Well, I think Qbank adds a lot of value in that it helps you realize how well you’ve mastered the content. If you’ve mastered everything and you have a comprehensive understanding, you shouldn’t worry about what types of questions you’ll be getting on the exam no matter how the questions are structured. Your solid knowledge is good enough for you to tackle the questions. I’ll say it again…but Practice Exam Volumes are awesome, in my opinion, and of course, do the CFAI mock exams. One other thing I did was to order the Boston Security Analysts Society’s Mock Exam. I think you can purchase two. I also ordered other mock exams from other sites, which weren’t as good (i can’t remember the others…but not really worth noting). At the end of the day, this is my opinion. Just don’t underestimate the value of practicing all types of questions.
I’m doing Qbank almost exclusively now and have found that it is really picking up on my weaknesses. For example, I know I suck at Quant (always have) and every exam I set myself in Qbank without fail I get no more than 55% for Quant. ok, and FSA too…and maybe some Eco…and some of the corporate finance stuff…and a bit of alt investments…and… whoops back to the books!
newsuper: I think you need to study a little harder. As mentioned above Qbank is too easy compare to the CFA exam, so u need push some more.
I found that the Qbank was quite useful. My advice would be to use the Qbank with every SS and also continually do cummulative tests as you you progress. Even though the actual exam had a lot less calculation problems than the Qbank, the concept is the same. I felt that the Qbank questions were more challenging than the actual exam. The only questions that I did were from the StudyNotes and the Qbank. I didn’t even take the free mock exam. Focus on shooting for the mid 80% range on the Qbank for all SS and you should be fine.
Sounds good. Thanks
I just started answering Qbank questions and want to know if I should recycle previously answered questions when creating new tests?