I just took my first AM test. I found myself spending about 50% more time than the allotted time for many questions. Do others have time issue with the AM as well?
Also, is 70% score enough to pass the AM section? Is there a minimum score (beside 100) to aim for?
Time is definitely a factor for basically everyone in the AM section so you’re not alone. It’s certainly a factor for me which is why I’ve practiced the AM section more than anything in my entire time in the CFA program. I would suggest doing several of these and forcing yourself to stick to the 3 hours limit. You’ll learn to limit yourself in what you write.
Also, sticking to the 3 hours forces you to quickly decide if you can solve a problem in the time limit or not. This part can be very painful (I’ve written 4 letter words to myself in essay answers I’ve had to do this on 
) but that pain makes the solution approaches more memorable. Also, it will be good practice for having to walk away from a question you think you should know without derailing the rest of your test because you’re frustrated by it.
Anyways, the above is what I’ve been telling myself as I prep for the morning half. Hopefully some of it is helpful to you.
EDIT: Regarding score, I don’t really have a set score. The grades are too subjective to have any real meaning (for example I think my grading style is reasonable but who knows how it will actually be graded). I tend to focus more on things I got right and things I got wrong (i.e. not 100% in line with CFA guideline answers) and use that as a guide for studying. I also tend to focus on subjects I felt uncomfortable with during the test, so that I can improve those areas.
On exam day, I’ll be going for as high as possible, although usually I score much higher on the MC than I do on the essays.
Everyone is on the same boat. I ran out of time on my AM mock too. You just have to decide which questions you need to ditch, and which ones can be solved really quickly to earn you some easy points and not dwell on ones that requires a lot of time.
Forgot where I read this (300 hours?) that 93% of people score higher on PM section.
I have noticed I lose too much time when solving IPS questions. I always fear I am missing an important detail and am never 100% sure, so re-reading the text is (too) time consuming. Definitely need to improve in this area.
Other questions work fine time-wise, but still can`t make enough to compensate for the time lost on IPS questions.
Thanks for the responses. Now I need to stick to a strict schedule.
This is key. Allocate the minutes for each question. If you reach the time limit and you haven’t finished then move on. If you stay on schedule there’s a good chance that you’ll have time at the end to go back and pick up more points. The AM exam is not a completionist exercise, it’s a race against the clock and time is your enemy. On the 2017 exam I hit the end with about 30 minutes to spare and I was able to go back and grab some more points during that time.
Good luck!
I always tell my candidates to save IPS (especially individual IPS) questions for the end.
The son of my undergrad finance professor failed his first attempt at Level III because he started with question 1: a 30-minute individual wealth management question with multiple parts. He was very pleased with the answers he had written, until he looked at the clock and realized that he’d spent 90 minutes on it.
If he’d saved it till the end and started it with only 35 – 40 minutes left, he couldn’t have wasted an extra 60 minutes on it.
As for speeding up answering questions, I find that I write a lot faster if I don’t use verbs.
vs.
As for up questions, I that I a lot faster if I verbs.
There are 2 strategies for those who know to answer all questions but don’t have enough time to improve the speed (for example, I think I could solve all the questions if I had 5 hours):
Focus on certain questions that you know by heart, and try to get perfect score, give up the other questions.
Do all questions, but take the risk of having bad answers (misunderstand the questions, write too short answers, make mistake when calculate the result,…)
For PM exam, It clearly that the second strategy is more appropriate. But for the AM exam, because we don’t know how the exam is scored, I don’t know which one is better.