All below stats in Scweser and CFAI TTs. I did NOT take CFAI mock either year, nor did I open up the CFAI books in either year do do EOCs.
2016 stats: two full mocks: 55% and 58%. mostly 3s/4s on topic tests. only took equity and FRA topic tests. RESULT: Band 9
2017 stats: 4 Full mocks: 55%, 69%, 76%, 65%. then the day before the exam, a half mock which filled me with confidence: 47/60. Took every single topic test throughout May, aggregate score of 304/450 (67%).
gun to my head, i think i passed (knock on wood) but it is by no means impossible for me to have failed. I found the exam to be difficult, but not more difficult than most schwesers, and significantly EASIER than the topic tests. the strongest case you can make for me passing is exactly that: I ripped a 67% on the topic tests and took every single one, which is a large sample size of questions (450
The biggest case you can make for me failing, is that I guessed alot on the real thing. only 15 BLIND guesses (expected value of .333) but at least 30-40 questions that were up in the air between 2 choices. Then again, it felt that way on every mock i took. it felt like i was guessing so much, and yet at the end after the dust would settle, i would somehow have a 42/60 and be happy…
I think thats the moral of the story here for my fellow retakers who felt alot better this year. if youre low 70s mocks, there is a very slim probability of you failing. I really think schweser does a great job of prepping us, and their practice exams are a brilliant proxy for how you will preform. If anything i would even venture to say that some schwesers (especially in VOLUME TWO) are more difficult than the real thing.
I found the level of the exam was closer to Schweser Vol 1 or IFT mocks(barring Ethics).But the biggest difference was in the options. CFAI spent time to create options.If you make a mistake in mocks you wont probably find an option, but in real exam will have one.
If i consider my avg score across mocks and TTs i should have passed it. But wondering if fatigue played a role in the second half. Worked hard this time and am keeping my fingers crossed. I think a raw score of 78-80 must be a pass.
High 60’s is a great spot to be in going into the exam. I think most people know it is do or die so their best showing comes through. Obviously if you are much stronger in other areas and not in others with those averages, then you could get unlucky on test day but 4/6 evenly spread through a mock is a pass i’d have to think.
I don’t think I really saw anything out of the norm though for how CFAI likes to test on the real day. Couple vignettes seemed random though. One seemed like it got included from the wrong level’s curriculum I thought, but other than that, straight forward.
Band 8 last year, Schweser mocks: 55/55, 77/57, 65/55, 70/65
Schweser mocks this year: 62/70, 85/63, 63/77
Felt much more prepared this year and there wasn’t a single question on the real test that I hadn’t at least seen before. Was weak in FRA and Derivatives but not so weak that I didn’t have a clue on them. I actually thought this year’s test content wise was more difficult despite being more prepared. Last year coming from level 1 December I just didn’t have enough time. You don’t get the result until almost Feb and being a first time taker I wasn’t so confident that I was ready to order materials early. I also started a new job that March, so I just didn’t have enough time to prep thoroughly. Started early Jan this year and that was more than enough time to stick to my timeline. Also prepped from the CFAI books and I think that made a big difference compared to relying on Kaplan last year.
Finished the first half in 1.5 hours, felt very confident, reviewed every answer twice just to be sure. Estimated 45/60 that I felt I knew for sure and I also felt good about my answers on the ones I wasn’t 100% sure about although I included those in the 15. Only one was a complete guess. Second half finished in roughly 2 and 15. Found the second half much tougher, tested the more obscure topics. Still went through all my answers again and changed quite a few, two of them I changed to the wrong answer, but those were included in my unsure set. Estimated 39/60 on that half but was much less sure about the unsure group, I’d say maybe 3 of them were complete guesses.
So if I assume that I got 90% of the ones I was sure about correct that’s 75. Assume 1/3 of the unsure ones even though they were not random guesses that gives me 12 more. Subtract the two that I know I for sure got wrong (brings me to 10) and that gives me 85/120 = 70.83%. If you want to be more pessimistic and say I only got 80% of the ones I thought I was sure about that leaves me with a 77/120 = 64.17%. More optimistic would be to assume I got all of the ones I was sure about right 94/120 = 78.33%. I believe that this range is most likely where my score lies with the base estimate being a 70%. So I think I have a good shot at passing but I also could have fallen slightly short. Tough to be confident about a test that fails over 50% of the people that take it, especially at this level when the people that are taking it have already passed a test with similar odds. I wish everyone here luck, it sucked getting that email last year, hoping this year’s is a little more pleasant.
You can see by how wild those ranges are for last year that I had clear strong subjects and clear weak subjects so I was at the mercy of the weighting for the real exam and I absolutely did not get any help there on the real test last year. The high scores most likely are mocks that were weighted to my strong suits. Its really all about the weighting when your strengths and weaknesses are so far apart for level 2. This year I still had a wide gap between strengths and weaknesses but both were much better than last year. I think that point is clearest on volume one test 2 where I got an 85% (24 of the 60 questions were equity, got 23 of them) and a 63.33 (24 of the questions were FRA, 12/24). I was pretty disappointed by the weighting of the actual exam this year but it was fair and I felt more prepared to take on my weak subjects. If I were to guess I would say that there’s probably not a huge difference in scores in the first few bands and then a steep drop off somewhere in the middle.