Like many, I thought I breezed through the AM and the PM was significantly harder.
Quant was crushing. Derv was quite hard.
My whole goal has always been to try to get 4/6 on every item set, so I don’t stress if there are a couple questions in a set I don’t know. I felt reasonably good on almost every item set that I knew at least 3/6 of the questions pretty well, there were several that I was reasonably sure of 5 or even 6. Quant I was only pretty sure of one question and even then I wasn’t certain.
Pretty sure I got 6/6 on one of PM ethic sets, there was a nasty little trick there in the table presented that I initially missed and came back and caught. Pretty sure I got 6/6 on one of the AM FRA sets. Lot of easy equity and FRA questions. Absolute joke how hard the CFAI online assessments were for FRA compared to the exam, in my opinion.
I see a lot of comments on PM FI set but I honestly don’t really remember it as standing out in difficulty.
After leaving the exam, I thought I did just enough to pass. On the forum now, people keep talking about these “tricks”. For quantitative questions, it was either I knew the formula or I didn’t. For qualitative questions, it was either I knew the definitions or I had to guess. I didn’t notice any tricks and I don’t think there were as long as you read the question in its entirety.
But all of you guys talking about tricks is making me nervous.
I wouldn’t worry about it. What may be considered a ‘trick’ to some people would be blindingly obvious to others, it’s just all in how you know the material and how you process information. On the one ethics question I mentioned, I did the question very quickly and thought it was almost too easy. I went with my answer, but something in my head wondered how they even came up with the two alternative answers. I did the rest of the test, came back to the ethics question and realized I had missed something and changed my answer. Of course, if I had read the question carefully the first time through I would have never had to go back and change it.
^This. Felt that i did terribly for AM as well. Had a memorable moment when I skipped over a particular model in my last-min revision, because i recalled someone on AF saying stuff like “that’s so obscure and nobody uses it anyways - doubt CFAI would place any emphasis on it”…and BOOM, there it was, one entire vignette full of it. The worst part was that i had actually prepared for it and did all the end-of-chapter problems, but just didnt have time for revision to get it drilled into my head. So yes, I think it’s the sheer breadth of knowledge that is required to be crammed and retained in your brain that makes lvl 2 hard, not so much grasping the concepts.
Ethics in general also felt particularly tricky, moreso than the mocks. More of the “He violated the standards because of xxxx but not yyyyy” kind of questions to keep you guessing (and second-guessing).
The FRA and Equity in the PM session seemed to let me redeem myself somewhat, but time just zoomed past and i found myself running late towards the end. Which was a pity, as I ended up rushing and educated-guessing my way through derivatives, when I was pretty sure I could have confidently nailed it given more time…As for the infamous FI part, well I guess my nick says it all heh. That said, I’d be really surprised if I passed…
Maybe ‘tricks’ is the wrong word. It’s more of traps as in… if you missed a small word in the vignette or the question itself, you could get to A instead of B or information provided in the vignette is not required to solve the questions but given to you anyways to throw you off. That sort of thing.
Dude, nasty little trick in the “TABLE” in “ETHICS” set?? are u sure u r toking about ethics?
Also, i feel ppl in different continents may have got slightly different sets. I gave the exam in India and I am reasonably sure to get 100% in Quant and guessed almost everything on afternoon FI set. You say the reverse, right?
A lot of people going to be eating some big slices of humble pie come August if they don’t get the email they want after proclaiming to have breezed through! Making me slightly nervous.
For me, both session were fair. Questions I knew, I knew straight away and ones I didn’t we straight guesses. About 10/15straight guesses overall.
I wouldn’t even worry about it. Seems like a lot of people had problems with these 2 questions (myself included), so it shouldn’t hurt your chances too much.
I don’t rememeber what letter the answer was that I went with, but suffice to say if you read the table very closely and understand the procedure, you should have gotten the question right. If you didn’t read that table closely…well…
I think it was #5, but a table was involved. If I’m remembering correctly there was a sneaky one word “trick” on #6 but I thought that was pretty obvious.
By table, I hope u mean the question in which there was a 3-way activity. For example, suppose a guy named A does something, then B does something, then A does something again?
Oh i have got what u mean by the table in 5th question. It was also a one word trick.
As for 6th question, I hope you mean the same trick as was mentioned in the last line and it was a 3-way activity. And which eased down the complexity of the question?
I don’t know, I’m wary of saying too much…perhaps there are different versions of the exams?
Question 6 I initially read it and couldn’t figure it out…then I read it a bit closer and there was ONE word that made it obvious (for me anyway). That’s what I mean, maybe some people wouldn’t even think that’s a trick at all, they would have just read it correctly the first time and gotten an easy point.
@love_lord’s: There were definitely different version of the exam. I remember the ethics question quite clearly and there wasn’t any 3 way activity involved. I’m going to guess that there are different versions due to the different time zones.
@996: Where in Canada are you from? I wrote in the Toronto Congress Centre.