Morning 2:30
Afternoon 2:45
Anyone had trouble sleeping Friday night? I went to bed at 10pm and couldn’t sleep until 3am… keep on thinking about Derivatives formula and Accounting rules.
About 2.40 for the am session and 2.35 for pm. I couldn’t sleep either on Friday, was too worked up. Went to bed at 2am and was up at 6am. I got a desk to myself which was nice. 
I think you get an empty desk because the other person supposed to be sitting next to you, didnt show up
Did anyone else who used the Schweser QBank to study feel underprepared? I primarily used Schweser to study for the exam and I feel like I wasted far too many hours by studying Schweser material.
Morning was fine… afternoon was bloody… There were a few questions I luckily knew the answer to but really didnt see any good reason why they would be on the exam… especially when there are wayy better things they could be asking…
I got a whole desk to myself for most of the exam. The dude next to me gave up an hour into the morning session.
Everyone here seems to share my experience. Morning was a breeze, afternoon was killer. I only slept 2hours the night before, but laid in bed awake for a solid 3-4hours. I had trouble staying awake in the afternoon session.
I have a fair chance at passing, I think. It will all come down to how lucky I was guessing on the ethics and FRA (many of the ethics questions were absolutely ridiculous, i thought). On the other hand, I did well on equity, fixed income, PM, derivs, and alternatives
Looks like the exam wasnt that difficult after all
Since the AF was off yesterday … I spent some time reviewing the past years “exam feedback” and “results” thread… just to get some sense
My observation was that … only the borderline cases were eager / active on the feedback threads … while the “sure Pass” ones directly reported their success on the “Results” thread
Given that there are only a few of us here on this thread means that a majority of the junta are feeling very confident and are back to their normal lives
PS - This is just my observation
I thought the actual exam was actually easier than both the Schweser mocks and the CFA mock/sample exams. Maybe its my exam optimism? I found myself finishing significantly before time was up and I had time to go back and address the harder problems. I felt AM was definitely easier than PM. Personally I felt good about the exam even though I definitely had to guess on a number of questions. I had to do the same for the Schwesers and CFA sample/mock exams and I ended up getting in the 70’s-80’s on them so that should be alright. A friend of mine who passed on his first try told me that if you do enough mock exams, you develop a pretty good feel for your performance before seeing your grade. He’s pretty right, because I could usually get a good handle on how I performed before I hit the scoring button on the Schwesers, at least toward the end when I’ve gone through a number of them. Anyway, hope I passed, definitely want to be doing level II in June, not I for the second time!
Well,
Its finally done with. Like a lot of people here, I too found the Morning Session significantly easier than the Afternoon Session.
As far as time goes, I felt rather comfortable in this exam. Finished the AM session in 2 hours 20 minutes. Afternoon Session in 2 hours 50 minutes but this was primarily because i spent TEN MINUTES ON ONE QUESTION in ECONOMICS cause I forgot the formula, only to find out that the solution was only 15 seconds of solving LOL.
Regarding the outcome for this exam? Well, I had promised myself, that regardless of the result I wanted to be proud of the effort that I put in, and that I wouldn’t be able to say things like “I could’ve studied some more!” or “If only I had a couple of days more”. Although there is a tendency to think that you could have done better with a couple of additional days (or weeks), I am very satisfied with my prep.
I feel like I did my part and held up my end of the bargain. Now its up to the big man upstairs
Not too optimistic, or pessimistic either. Just the right balance of hope
PS: Can I make a statement like - “I found Ethics really difficult”. Is this a violation? Because I’m not actually discussing a question. Just stating that this section was difficult in my opinion.
I finished really early. 1:25 for AM and 1:35 for PM. I think I was literally the first person out of the room (out of ~700 people) for PM, and I’m guessing the handfull of folks who left before me in the AM were just people giving up.
I was doing really well in mocks (low 80s) and the real thing felt easier, so I’m pretty optimistic. Still, I was a little weirded out having a proctor escort me out of this massive hall full of people still writing. If I somehow end up failing I know I’m going to be kicking myself for not spending more time reviewing my answers.
Also: PM didn’t seem any harder than AM, it just took a little longer.
During lunch I was near a group of people standing around chatting. Some guy goes “Man, I don’t know about the multiple choice section, but I just *nailed* the essay.” A couple people had heart attacks right there. 
Yes you can. You’re not saying anything specific about the Ethics section. If you said something like ‘I think Ethics was really difficult because of XYZ’… that’s gonna be over the line.
I’m enjoying my first beer in over 6 weeks. Gotta admit this one tastes pretty sweet.
OK, the differing opinions on each exam are really throwing me here. I put alot of hours into this 3rd attempt at L1 (disqualified for bad ID last december, girlfriend due to give birth last June), the AM exam was far more difficult than the PM. I spent last 20 mins of the AM correcting some very silly mistakes and felt that mightve saved it. PM exam, i was halfway done after 45 minutes, very very simple. There were some very fiendish math questions dotted around, but if youve done mock equations for 18 months, you wouldve got them. And yes, the fatigue does set in during the PM. I took a pack of choc drops in, instant sugar rush. Magic. Most important point: Its only an exam, take it again in June if failed, enjoy the holidays now and well done for all of your hard work.
I found it a bit easier than what I’m used to/prepared for, and i spent only 2 hours in both sessions. Now reading through all of the feedbacks here, i know it must be either because i’ve messed up big time and fallen for so many easy traps disguised in the form of easy questions or the questions were really easier than what i’m used to/prepared for.
I didn’t really like the exam, too much breadth and too little depth for me. There was so many things in the readings that I brushed over thinking ‘this is obvious and there’s no need to test it’ and then they have a question on it worded to catch you out. I felt the same coming out of AM and PM in terms of how I did, but then I really like the numerical questions. Did 4 mocks and got 70’s or 80’s in all of them, but this exam was very different and i’m not sure if I managed to get over that 70% hurdle.
I was also disappointed the timing was not a problem. I’m quick and had hoped it would be an advantage, but they made the exam really ‘short’ especially the ethics questions.
Hope you guys all did well. I know that the MPS is adjusted each year so we are kindof competing against each other, but I tend to think of it as Analyst Forum vs the rest.
I am surprised to hear myself say this but I actually really enjoyed the exam it was nice to see all I had learned over the past few months coming together as I progressed through it. A great experience!
I was very unfortunate to come down with the flu the whole week before the exam, so revising certain areas and mastering certain formulas, as well as mock exams wasn’t possible for me.
I managed to cover the areas I still needed to brush up on but not in anywhere near as much depth as I had wanted to.
If I pass then great. I will feel very lucky. If I don’t pass then it’s no big deal, I’ll resit in June and i’m 100% confident i’ll make the exam my little bitch if that happens!
I personally found the PM session to be much easier than the morning and I finished both the morning and afternoon exams with 10 and 15 minutes to spare respectively.
This was great because I didn’t know how I would manage with the time constraint of the exam. I only had time to do half the CFA mock exam under timed conditions the day before the exam (and I didn’t exactly do great in that - 64%).
I had time to go over questions I was unsure of earlier in the exam and sort them out to a certain extent (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t end up having to guess some of them though).
Overall it was a fantastic experience and I am thoroughly looking forward to the next sitting in June, whether that is resitting level 1 or taking on the beast that is level 2!
I liked the exam, the morning was fairly straight forward and I finished in 2:20 which gave me a good amount of time to review my answers. I think the FRA questions were good and i’m comfortable that I should have gotten over 70% in the AM.
The afternoon was a lot tougher, I still finished with 2:20 but ended up changing a fair few of my answers. There were some questions that I really should have known the answers too, but it didn’t matter how many times I put the numbers in my calculator, I still didn’t get the answer I was looking for.
Goodluck for the results everyone.
easy peasy japanesy
I won’t be bold enough to say “oh first half was easy blah blah”. It was my 2nd time around on L1 and I felt like I understood the syllabus and the many, many LOS’s better this time which was great. If it takes the second time to learn the topics better I don’t mind. There’s no point passing and guessing because you will soon get stuck on L2!
I seemed to only need 2 ½ hours for each part which gave me a nice long lunch to relax.
I took the approach that I didn’t change any answers, partly because I didn’t have a rubber/eraser and partly because I didn’t want to deliberate. I find that going over a question 100 times doesn’t help much more than reading it once very carefully. Anybody else take that approach?
I think they should hand a good stiff drink to all who finish the exam. Perhaps a party/networking event after would be a good way to cap all that hard work?
Bristol, man, how can you show up to an exam without an eraser, especially since you shouldve known?
And: I read a stat that said you would get more questions right the second time you read a question. But this was a general statistic and we are all different therefore:
Good luck!!!
The exam went well for me too, i think i hope (seconde time). Morning was harder than afternoon for me especially quant econ and equity. I nailed the afternoon session, but i found ethic questions a bit tricky. So i guess fingers crossed and wait for the results.
When are they coming out by the way? 26th i heard, can anybody confirm?