Felt I was pretty prepared overall for the test. Had put in the requisite hours and then some. Walked out of the AM section feeling pretty good. Actually finished about 45 minutes early and thought I scored between 70-75%. Confidence was high going into the PM section. “I may actually pass this thing”, I muttered to myself as I walked into the testing center again. Then the PM section preceded to bend me over and do bad things to me. It was brutal. I would be lucky to get a 60% on that part. Have a bad feeling I’ll be writing Level II again next year. I’ve heard from other LIIers and even LIers that the afternoon section was considerably more difficult than morning section. Agree? Disagree? Let’s discuss…
I felt great after the morning section, but then I remembered level 1 in June 07. It was the same way. Morning session was great and the afternoon session was a killer.
What did people get for that backwardation question with interest rate and storage costs? I said the benefits to hold it had to increase by .75
I left the AM section thinking I got at least 80%, probably more like 85%. I thought it was easier than the Mock exams and any schweser exam. There were three questions I knew I got wrong, but most other answers I knew pretty quickly without having to narrow it down to 2. In the PM, I had a much harder time. There were a bunch of questions I know I got wrong (including the 50/50 take-over, which I thought was Consolidation method and got 3 questions wrong because of that). I still think I passed because my morning scored should carry me, but the PM was brutal.
Smarshy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What did people get for that backwardation > question with interest rate and storage costs? I > said the benefits to hold it had to increase by > .75 agreed
same here.
I had to get up and go to the bathroom and think about that question before I went back an filled in the oval
increase to 0.75.
.75 for sure
Slash Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > .75 for sure Hellz Yeah.
I felt decent after the AM, too. PM left me feeling pretty raw. At one point I remember thinking, “This. Is. Not. Happening.” There were a few questions where I couldn’t even narrow the answer choices down. I don’t like that.
same here .75 but not sure now… shouldn’t it Forward be less than expected (S).
@ pvt thats NORMAL BACKWARDARDATION, when F>E(S)
I don’t know what happened in the pm. Just like everyone else I felt ok after the am, but got absolutely killed by the pm. It really bothered me when you needed the answer from one question to answer the next 3 and I wasn’t sure about the first answer. I couldn’t believe the topics and type of questions asked. I was planning on getting up to use the restroom but decided to stay and make sure I finished cause I didn’t know what was going on. When I finished I got up for a minute and when I came back and as a little calmer I went back and was able to get 3 right I had no clude before, and was almost finished with the real estate calculation when time was called. I just needed another 30 seconds and I would have had that one. I dont’ know what the deal was with those questions though. There were so many important concepts that weren’t tested and what was on the test was no representative of what the curriculum was about. It seemed to be more about trying to trick you than seeing if you had an understanding of the concepts.
z3159712 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > @ pvt > > thats NORMAL BACKWARDARDATION, when F>E(S) Normal backwardation is when FE(S)
I’m feeling like everyone else does about the afternoon session. I studied for the past 5 months and really felt like I knew this stuff. I was doing pretty good on all the practice tests but the afternoon session made me feel like I had not opened a book! The only hope I have is that I felt the same way last year after Level I and ended up passing. The good thing is that we all feel the same way about the afternoon.
Wow what a relief. Wholeheartedly agree. AM felt great, felt like I was crushing it. Afternoon was a bloodbath. What worries me is that even on my best topics, I was catching really tricky little things, which makes me worry about the topics I was not as solid on. Plus I think it made me overthink things a little and make mistakes even when there was an easier question. The best way I could describe it is that the AM felt like 95% of the questions could be answered if you knew everything on the Schweser Quicksheet whereas in the afternoon, I felt that half the questions referenced one line of text.
If the afternoon was like the morning session, I would be a cfa level 3 candidate 
I knew temporal, current rate was coming. Also, an econ and portfolio section, because it wasn’t tested in the morning. I didn’t expect another derivatives section. Eventhough I couldn’t calculate swaps, I think I got 3 out of 6 right in the afternoon session.
Umm… does any of this really matter anymore? I mean, can any one of us go back and change the past? I know it’s hard not to think about it, but it’s over and I know one thing is for sure: Pass or fail, I am not writing LII again! I wrote the exam the first time in '06 and came back one more time to master this thing. Paranoia aside, I felt prepared enough for the exam and I, for one, have nothing to prove to anyone by passing the exam. I know that after the time and effort I, and most of the ppl on this board, put in that I could answer any SERIOUS question about any of the material covered; not some dumb@ss question about what the SUE is on a stock and how to interpret it. I must have read all of the material 2-3 times and I have absolutely NO IDEA where that come from. Anyways, the point is that we need to maintain perspective on this, which is so hard to do considering the countless hundreds of hours that we each spent preparing for this exam, which in retrospect could have been much more beneficial to each of our lives had we spent it with close family and friends and enjoying life rather than shunning our lives to read the phrase “Result: Pass” in mid-August. I personally believe that any one of us here put in a solid effort and should have been able to pass this exam, IF it were to be administered in a fair manner. At this point, I’m personally getting very sour on the Institute and it’s policies and I really don’t care if they wish to strip me of my candidacy or not for speaking ill about them. I think that many of their policies are in direct contradiction with the spirit of their own ethics and especially against those pedagogies of modern educational institutions. I hate to say this now but I think we’re all a bunch of lemmings and just doing what we’re told will lead us to higher paying jobs without stopping to think about what or who is leading us there. Anyways, I could go on about this for way too long so I’ll stop now and regain that perspective I was talking about earlier. Cheers all.
i know one road block that hit me in the PM was the how difficult some of the questions were. this along with a combination of lack of sleep, caffeine OD, and adrenline really psyched me out. after the exam one guy asked me about the port manage question, and after i had calmed down, it began to click a bit. don’t get me wrong, i’m not saying it was easy. i think our schweser and stalla programs prepare us to crush the AM exam. but i didn’t feel prepared when it came to the PM side. doing practicing questions that would mimic at least some PM level of difficulty would at least (for me anyways) prepare me mentally so that I don’t get psyched out when the PM side comes out. I felt the mocks gave me a false sense of security.