In short, below is my personal feeling and estimation Difficulty of AM < Difficulty of PM Dont have much feeling on Ethics, seems quite easy or maybe I had been trapped already Thought screw up in AI and Derivatives. I have just roughly predicted (after checking the answer from notes). 14 questions from AM and 23 Questions from PM are uncertain and wrong. Hope not to be failed T.T
I was both pleased and annoyed at a couple of things:
annoyed that the exam didn’t cover some study session chapters.
pleased that the exam is somewhat easier compared to mocks as many retakers advertised.
I find PM to be harder and there were a lot of booby traps in the exam that I only discovered after rechecking once or twice.
I agree with the comment that AM was easier than PM, although PM took less time for me with approx. 30 minutes to spare as someone else here mentioned as well.
I found derivatives to be the hardest part, followed by QM. I feel quite confident overall but having read the comments here, I am now afraid that I missed some of the booby traps.
Good luck everyone!
Hey,
Band Level 9 retaker scoring around 50 in mocks last year
This year mocks were low to mid 60’s. I felt way more prepared this year and am pretty confident in the AM section, but not as confident in the PM section (I think i guessed way too much and Ethics was brutal in PM). I know i did better than last year (unless I fell for a bunch of traps, but i feel i was able to avoid those). Overall, unsure as usual on whether I passed or not. Now the wait…
Hello Folks -
I bombed the FI and Quant sessions in the AM. Felt PM was much manageable. Overall the exam was fair and the only person to blame is me, as I didn’t have time to do any mocks or practice questions as I would have liked. Good luck everyone
Ditto on AM being easier than PM. I felt great about AM and I guess middle of the road for PM. Between the two tests I think I only had like 7 legitimate educated guesses and maybe 29 questions that I figured were a challenge that I maybe wasn’t quite 100% confident on. So my expected value worst case scenario is (84*.75)+(29*.5)+(7*.33) =~80/120 =~67%… I think I have a fair shot at passing but if I don’t it’ll be just barely.
I have started worrying when people keep saying Ethics was brutal, coz i thought it was easier than all the TT, EOCs, Schwesers… maybe i have been trapped… :((
FI was my worst area… 
LOL welcome to level 2 bro. Where there’s about 200 pages of portfolio management for most likely 6 questions, or 12 if you’re lucky.
Man… I can’t get over how stumped I felt during ethics. Scoring 70% to 80% on mocks, then the actual exam. I always count on ethics to give me the boost I need when I screw up other portions. Least I feel good about FRA, Equity, Alts, and Corp. Fin…
I am a score band 10 retaker from last year. I found the AM exam easy peezy and and the PM exam a little harder but not that hard. I honneslty have no clue what to excpect from Ethics as I was scoring high on mock but wasnt 100% sure in every question just by the way the questions were asked…
Girl sitting behind me was sobbing through the PM session. Poor thing.
A bunch of people were detained near the restrooms for not coming back in time for the pre-exam instructions and filling out the form. The exam was easier than the topic tests and the CFAI mock.
I finished the AM on time, and 20 mins early for PM. That’s because I found PM to be harder and guessed a few questions.
If I have to retake, I’ll do a few things differently (or if I pass, I’ll definitely do these for L3):
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Study the topics with less exam weights (Q, AI, PM) more diligently. I didn’t study certain areas as well I as I covered Equity and FRA and it definitely hurt me in the actual exam. Those 5% weights really add up!
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Make my own notes. My revisions in the last month weren’t very efficient as I had to scramble back and forth between the texts, self-made flashcards, and Schweser quicksheet. It’d be easier to have everything in one place.
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Do all the Schweser mocks. I only did the CFAI topic tests and mocks (and PARTS of the Schweser mocks on chosen topics), and in hindsight I should have done more. The CFAI topic tests were very helpful though (17 FRA vignettes amount to almost a full exam).
I failed. I did fine on the AM session, but judging how I did on the PM, I’m almost certain I failed… I pretty much guessed on every single quant question, and struggled with ethics (PM). FRA, equity, and corporate finance weren’t bad.
I thought the exam was fair and AM was definitely easier than the PM. However, I was very shocked at the number of Quantitative questions on the AM that someone who hardly even understood the material but memorized the formulas could get right. In my opinion that really bothers me and doesn’t test what you truly know. Anyone can memorize a formula. I really tried to understand the material more conceptually.
Did anyone answer the same letter five times in a row on PM?
There was loads of Cs on mine. lol
Yes. I think we both are aware of the section. I had quite a few strings of letters
Anyone else a little down that it’s over? It was fun prepping… maybe I’m just insane.
I was pretty frustrated with the exam, on the whole. Going in, I felt that I had a good grasp of the material(band 10 retaker) and was well prepared. However, a lot of the questions were extreme vague, and some major topics were barely covered, while there were certainly a good number of random “gotcha” questions, covering topics that have very little relevance in the grand scheme of things. AM was definitely easier than PM IMO. Without going into detail, the PM derivatives questions were infuriatng. 3/6 covering covering something that was hardly touched upon in the TTs and mocks, and literally have no real-life application. Oh well - thinking 50/50 I passed.
It would just be nice if CFAI concerned itself with asking things that are actually relevant in a real-world scenario versus something that’s largely academic in nature. If I wanted to be a Ph. D in finance, then that’s what I’d do.
Hm, I actually feel there were some good “tricks” that would’ve fooled a plug n’ play formula memorizer. But my feeling might be skewed because I can only remember those “tricky” questions.
Got loads of Cs too!