So demotivating!!

I have been studying steadily for 6 or so months and felt comfortable with the topics and the questions and have completed a fair few amount of questions on each topic and covered the material twice. I attempted a mock yesterday and could not recall nearly anything from all my time reading/Doing practice questions.

Felt like giving up yesterday. Most advice I see on here is keep doing questions, but without knowing/remembering the actual areas how can I do the questions. The balancing act of being able to remember by re reading notes and doing enough questions is tough, which should I prioritise?

any one else hit the mocks and discovered they are miles off?

Ah…this is what i realized since last November 2014. That’s why my signature quotes address about this issue. sad

Did you remember feeling the same in Level 1? I know I did. Hell I felt that way LEAVING the exam and the two months while it was being graded. And then I got a passing result.

I mean you said it yourself, when you go through the topics you feel comfortable, so it’s not a matter of the material being over your head… you just need to keep constantly triggering what you’ve learned. Day in and day out. Only way to do that at this point is practicing, across all the topics as much as you can.

One thing I’m adding this time is making and carrying flash cards with me for my commutes to and from work… that way I’m always “in” the material. Someone on here wrote that it’s not just a matter of studying in big chunks of hours, but making use of all the downtime you can and I’m really taking that to heart now. Even if you have 10 or 15 minutes to just test yourself or review some equations, use it!

It sounds like you have a solid foundation. The only thing to do now is to become more “current” on all of the topics by hammering away at them. + pray that just a few more weeks dedication will pay off.

I agree with the other posters that the first mock you take at any level is quite a punch in the face just becasue the questions are more tricky/difficult than, for example, EOCs. First mock is always a rough go. In any event you’ll certainly get better. If you scored in the 50s or something, you may have a bit of an issue on your hands. But as long as your in the 60s, you’ve still got plenty of time to get that score up before D Day.

All,

appreciate the feedback. I’m Trying not to beat myself up by not remembering certain formulas off by hand. I have made flash cards as I’ve gone through so need to keep on top of them around Doing mocks and hope they’ll sink in. Good idea about doing in on the commute. I’m a stresser when it comes to study and feel guilty if I don’t do marathon sessions but need to concentrate on the quality so If I can remember something from my commute then that’s worth it. Only plus side to failing the mocks miserably is you remember your mistake.

Plan now is to keep on top of the flash cards in my spare time around the practise mocks. And if I need to refer to readings while doing mocks then so what. Will try not to get too disheartened. 4 weeks to keep chipping away at it. :slight_smile:

good luck!

I feel the same way. I’ve been studying since October hoping that an early start would give me an edge. I scored 41% on mock 1, 52% on mock 2, and it looks like mock 3 will be in the high 40s. My plan is to study all three mocks this week before I take CFA mock this weekend. Then I’ll take three other Schweser mocks.

I’m probably not on track to pass, and that’s OK. I’m giving it my all and refuse to lie about my mock exam scores. What makes this a difficult exam is remembering all the details. The math is not hard at all…

CFALOBO,

i’m definitely in the same boat as you. Constant balancing act of keeping everything fresh and keep on top of practise questions. I get the feeling like when you re visit one topic another two drop out of memory again. Even if I take a handful of things out of the mocks then there not a complete waste of time. My plan is similar, take each Schswer mock at a time even with the answers then build up to full on closed book mocks week or two before.

Just got got to stick with it, easier said than done!

Yeah, I started studying last fall too. In March I would have bet my last dollar that I hadn’t covered FRA yet. I was stunned (and demoralized) to open my books and see the pages all marked up w/ notes. That’s bad. Before that day I was “for sure” that I was going to pass and now I’m pretty much “for sure” that I’m going to fail. I figure though that I might as well keep going.

I am in exact same boat as you guys, have been studying since the Fall, everytime I master one topic I feel like 2 drop out of memory…its basically a losing battle. Best to keep our heads up high and keep plugging away.

Haha I feel exactly the same! It’s like my brain has reached its full capacity, can’t get anything in without throwing something out.

Are you guys reading schweser primarily? I alternated between Equity related topics (Eq/FRA/CF), FI related (FI/Alt/Deriv), and the Macro topics (Quant/Econ/Portf) and feel like the CFAI has done a pretty good job on reviewing materials book to book. It feels as though many topics were taught once in depth, then again from a different perspective with less/alternative details.

I havent done the mock yet so we’ll see how that goes.

First read though I did CFAI primiarily with some Schweser mixed in and both books EOCs. Second read through Schweser only.

I have yet to do a mock as well. I was planning on doing one this past weekend but it had been too long since I last looked at a few topics that I figured it wasn’t worth it yet. Reviewing them over the course of this week and then gonna hit a Schweser mock this weekend.

Where is the CFA mock located? I remeber receiving an email last year, but I havent heard anything yet.

Got crushed by Schweser exam 3 PM. Got easy questions wrong, and got hard questions right by guessing. Will study three Schweer mocks this week before I hit CFAI mock this weekend. If I don’t score over 55% on the CFAI mock, I know I’m doomed for sure. What keeps me going is my desire to acheive the charter and work in asset management again someday.

CFALOBO how do i access the CFAI mock? I didnt receive the email.

Ah yes… nothing smells as good as panic from CFA candidates to stir up the appetite.

The CFAI website. Login to your account. Candidate resources. Under tools - Your mock exam PDFs.

Isn’t this a Level II board? Lol.

Not so much panic as it is disappointment. It really sucks to get 40s and 50s on your mocks after putting over 400 hours into reading and practice questions. Perhaps its funny in hindsight…

Yep I’m in your camp CFALOBO. I way underutilized the quizbank for CFA Level 1. I think I did 400 out of 3500 questions. I promised myself I would start way earlier and even stopped doeing anything outside of working out and studying on the weekends since February and I feel less prepared at this stage than I did for level one. At least level oone I got above 50% on the mocks and now I am getting 48s. At this tiem for level one I had a sense of what the main points that were repeatedly asked and wer most likely going to be onthe exam. Right now it feels anything and everything will be on the exam.