Not a retaker. Worked 99% from the CFAI texts. Derivatives was a stronger subject for me (over-focused on the “terror” subjects). Did not feel any info was missing, but could be missing what was missing.
I also felt like I was punished for not reading the official CFAI curriculum. Anybody know if the actual reading passages or Blueboxes from the official textbooks would’ve helped make things easier on us in the actual exam?
I never used the CFAI offcial textbooks since it is so lengthy, so I have no idea how to use it in preparation…
Band 3 Fail last year. Failed five sections. This year I found the exam harder but also found a LARGE amount of people struggling (erasing, flipping pages, etc.,) with a few minutes remaining in both sections. I finished the AM portion with 30min remaining and the PM section with an Hour remaining. one section in FRA and Portfolio Management gave me troubles but also some questions were quite tricky. Hoping for the best.
I felt for this year if you just did blue boxes and EOCs from the CFAI and didn’t do any mocks you would do really well this year on this exam.
Why do people think that people wer punished for not reading CFAI material?
Maybe im not the best person to opine given my mock scores (55 and 64 on only two full mocks) but I felt schweser prepared me just fine for the exam. the questions that I guessed on (seemingly numerous) I felt that I saw before just didnt remember how to do.
Again, maybe im saying this because I was so ill-prepared that the test was completely over my head and im not even keen enough to KNOW what schweser was missing, but I am not sure thats the case.
Well main thing is I felt that if you just studied the blue boxes and EOCS. PM exam would have been easily completed under an hour. AM exam would be easy as well. Maybe less than 1 hour 30 minutes…just because there were more calcuations. More than last year I felt you just needed to do blue boxes and EOCs for this one.
Failed L2 Band 7 last year.
I felt this years was easier than last year - or maybe like many other retakers, we were just more prepared this time.
Although it was easier, I just realized I already counted at least 10 known mistakes that I made so far (combination of tricks and just oversight). So that doesn’t feel very good right now knowing that I already have 10 marks wrong. Ughh. Hopefully I didn’t make too many more… Really don’t want to take this again.
I was band 5 last year and used CFA material, this time I used Schweser (which was only weak onthe PM section I felt but a whole lot better all around). The AM exam was harder than the PM but both were a hell of a lot easier than last year’s exams. I walked out happy 
Band 5 fail last year, also thought exam was easier, but was much better prepared. I had previously only used CFAI material, but this year read the Schweser volumes and did the 3-day review, and that kind of crystallized some concepts for me. Did 4 mocks, two timed, and felt like I had a fighting chance at the end of the test. The AM session was more difficult, especially the 2nd and 3rd problem sets, which I came back to. PM seemed almost like a Jeopardy show trivia contest, either you knew or not, and felt good on this part because I had studied from both CFAI and Schweser sources.
Third time re-taker. Failed Band 2 2-years ago but just couldn’t put in the time to prepare (don’t buy your first house and plan your wedding while also studying for Level 2). I basically was starting from scratch last year as I retained nothing from the prior year. I consider last year as my first true attempt and was band 7, while feeling more prepared but also knowing in the back of my mind I wouldn’t pass. This year I felt WAY more prepared than last year. I took all 6 Schweser mocks and the CFAI mock, did 70 CFAI topic tests and read through Schweser twice. I felt great coming out of the morning session. I finished the afternoon session with about an hour and 15 minutes left, not feeling that great, but after going through each question again and affirming my thinking/changing a few answers, I felt much better. I thought the exam was quite fair and a lot easier than the book 2 Schweser mocks. Hoping third time is a charm!
Was not even close to be ready last year, so knew I would fail right away - ended up in Band 6. This time i was much better prepared. My strategy was to focus mostly on practicing problems for the last month. Eneded up doing 6 mocks (4 of the CFAI ones, 2 from 2014, 2015, and 2016). The 2016 one i scored around 77% (but some item sets looked familiar). Did two Wiley mocks, scoring araound 72% on each. Wiley were much more quant focused, drilling you on in=-depth knowledge of the concepts. Also did all the ite sets on the CFAI website, I think averaging over 70% in general (some 30%, but a buch of 100% as well). The day before the test went over 80-90 random Wiley questions (mostly qualitative), averaging 83%.
So the test seemed much easier than last year and than any of the mocks I took. Looked much more straight forward. Not sure, why people saw so many ‘traps’ and ‘tricky’ questions. There were definitely some, but mostly was prettty fair. In some cases I also felt that the info was missing, and some had a lot of distractors.
Finished PM earlier than AM, but I m nor a very fast test-solver though (English is not my first language), but it was good to have some time to go over. PM ethics felt harder to me in the sense that you needed to know for sure, rather than rationalize as from the AM part (which probably mean I did PM better actually).
Felt relatively ok coming out, with 60/40 chances of passing. But after reading the AF i started feeling 30/70, lol. So let’s just wait and see.
Your chances of passing are 99/1
Cool input bro.
I fel that a lot of questions were nearly the end of book and the topic specific mocks. Any one else felt that ?