Hi All, Are there specific study sessions that are emphasized in the morning written portion of the exam? Is the morning portion just SS 16,17,18 since those appear to comprise 40-55% of the exam? Or are all study session fair game during the written morning portion? Many thanks, Ohdark
The morning session always has individual portfolio management and institutional portfolio management.
It frequently has risk management applications of derivatives.
Beyond that, it could be almost anything, except Ethics and GIPS (those haven’t appeared in the morning session in . . . well . . . forever.
Thanks Magician! So, the morning will have everything other than Ethics and GIPS, but portfolio management (SS 16,17,18) is usually the focus?
Portfolio management is at least 80% of level 3 curriculum.
OhDark30,
I completely concur with Magician except on one point. Since 2009 Risk Mgt Applications has only been in the essay portion 4 times, that is only a little over half the time.
Here is what the “record” shows since the exams have been made publicly available:
Behavioral Finance 100% since 2000
IPS questions - 100% since 2000
Institutional IPS - 100% since 2000
Economics - 100% since 2004
Asset Allocation - 100% since 2005 except in 2012 and 2013 they moved the topic to the afternoon item sets
Fixed Income - 100% since 2000 except 2007
Now we get to the murky areas:
Equity PMgt - 50% of the time since 2000
Alternatives had no morning essay questions from 2010 to 2014 and then in 2015 bam! a hard set. Prior to 2010 about every other year.
Risk Mgt SS 14 - 50% of the time in the morning essay
Trading?monitoring/Rebal - 66% of the time in the morning
Perf Eval - 80% in the morning essay
Now wit all that said the only sure bets BUT that can always change is that ethics and GIPS in the afternoon as either 2 or 3 item sets depending on the year. The CFA Institute states that certain topics are core BOK (body of knowledge) and will cover those topics frequently. The IPS material falls into that category.
I hope that provides some murky clarity (oxy moron) to the question.
Marc A. LeFebvre, CFA
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How do you guys know these statistics if past exams are never published and candidates are not supposed to discuss contents?
Past morning sessions are published.
Yup as I said in my initial post…
“Here is what the “record” shows since the exams have been made publicly available”
Plus I never discussed the nature of the question above only the topic although you can certainly download the most recent three years from the CFA Institutes web site with your candidate credentials and look at, study, practice with, ect and I highly encourage you to doing so. It is the afternoon item sets that require confidentiality as well as the AM portion until the exam is posted on the CFA Institute website.
The primary concern on looking at older CR questions is that over time readings change in the curriculum and an unknowing candidate may become frustrated working an older question and having no idea where that question source. Going back too far (pre-2006) can lead some candidates astray and into panic for this reason. Fundamentally, the Level III curriculum changes about every 10 years and did so dramatically in 2005 to 2006. Said another way going back beyond those dates can lead to lots of confusion.
-Marc