I definately thought this exam this year was harder than last years. However, I did feel a lot better coming out of this one than last years. The PM section a lot of it was you either knew it or you didn’t. I also felt if you did not use the CFAI material to study with this year you definately would be at a huge disadvantage.
AM portion of the exam wasn’t too bad. Only had to guess about 2 of them. PM section the wording got a little more confusing or I probably was a little more tired. This year I feel CFAI really punished you in the PM section for using other than the CFAI books.
From what I heard from everyone the PM section again was much harder. It was much more qualitative.
Anyways best of luck to everyone. Time to relax!
Oh yah funny story. So 6 candidates that sat in my section during the morning exam apparently just gave up and just left and did not take the afternoon section.
I’m a retaker from last year (Band 10). I was definitely more comfortable this time than I was last year… There were some give away questions where you just needed to know a concept or a definition.
AM - I was crusing along until I reached Corporate Finance and panicked on back to back questions. I had all these negative thoughts creep in my mind about retaking it again next year and how I’m going to fail but then I got a hold of myself and skipped to the end and worked backwards. I built confidence knocking those questions and eventually reached back to the section I struggled with and with a clear mind, I was able to hammer those out.
PM - I felt PM was easier than AM though now I’m wondering if I fell for the trick questions. There were some questions where I just had to eliminate and make a reasonable guess.
Last year I studied with Wiley. It wasn’t enough to pass last year. This year I studied with the CFAI books. I felt last years was definately much easier than this years. Studied 600 hours this year.
However, like I said I have a feeling for those people who didn’t use the CFAI books would have probably found the PM exam more difficult since it was more about understanding than crunching numbers. A lot of them was you either knew it or you didn’t. I feel if you successfuly studied those those topics you probably could have finished the PM exam in less than an hour.
PM was incredibly tough for me. AM I felt like I knew about 60% of it, but guessed on quite a lot. I have very little confidence about passing, despite being more prepared this time compared to last year.
If I do fail, I don’t know if I have it in me to try for a 3rd time…
Interesting, I found last year to be tougher but not sure if that’s partially due to additional experience and better prep this time around. Band 9 last year and felt like it could go either way after, this year I felt much more comfortable and conservatively still feel like it could go either way.
AM was easier than I expected and agree w/ the consensus on PM, either you knew it or you didn’t. You’re right JW, much more comprehensive this time which I think should ultimately benefit the folks who put in work, as it should.
I’m always impressed with how the CFAI tests, you have to admit they are really efficient at identifying how well you know the curriculum. Congrats to all candidates who completed the exam, I can say with confidence that you are better for the experience regardless of the outcome.
I am also found last year far more difficult than this year…especially 1 item from fixed income (retakers are you still remember?) I am also found so many concepts they don’t tested this year…especially on equity.
Schweser should be enough as they did not ask questions out of schweser However, they must have tried to confuse candidates in the latter half I will stick my neck out and will say the MPS will come down from whatever points it was last year (assumption: pass rate remains same)
Ok, I failed L2 test twice, last year and the year before.
On my first year took the test, i was heavily underprepared that i didn’t even realize the tests were done in vignette-format (lol), so naturally, i got a measly band 2.
The second time i took the test, I was only focusing on mastering heavy hitters like FRA, Equity and CorpFin using Elan Videos. I didn’t even got the time to read Portfolio Mgmt, Econ and Alternatives Inv AT ALL. Hence, I failed again and i got band 8.
But this year, i watched all Elan Video (love love love Peter Olinto), read all Schweser Notes twice, and do all EOCs and several Irfanullah Mocks (i like IFT mocks a lot, props to Arif). Came the test day, i recognize all the questions and i think the ones that i can’t do, i still knew the concept vaguely enough so that i can make an “50/50 intelligent guess” out of it. I honestly think it was easier than last year’s test.
BUT when i saw all the comment in this thread stating this year’s test was much harder than last year’s, now i’m not so sure anymore. I believe (with 5% significance level) that they’ve succesfully tricked me with seemingly simple questions but in truth it needed a deeper critical thinking. Goddamn it
Pardon my english and I’m sorry for the wall of texts, best luck to y’all !
I studied with Schweser last year and bombed with a band 3. I felt their teaching style just wasn’t a good match for my learning style.
This year I used Wiley and really enjoyed their explanation of things. I felt they prepared me for 90%ish of what was there and the onus was on me to remember. I think I did ok, with the AM portion being much easier than the PM, but I guess we’ll see.
AM was a lot harder than the PM. I definitely did better than last year and can see myself pulling off 76 questions correct for a 63% pass if MPS is that low. It felt good calculating and seeing answers among the choices. Had my sharing of guessing, too. Will take it again if I fail.
Band 7 last year. I agree with the consensus that AM was easier than PM with the latter being more qualitative. Does anyone else feel like the CFAI mock didnt really reflect the real exam? I scored a 69% on the mock and so felt good going in, but now I’m not so sure.
I completely agree with those that exam punished you if didn’t read the CFAI curriculum. Also If you only focused on the major obvious sections you most likely struggled as well (this is my case). Did anyone feel like there was some information missing in Derivatives? Or did I just not study well enough?