OMG I thought I am an absolute failure to take this test 4 times, now there is one that broke my record bu a large margin!!! WTF are we wasting our time and effort for 3 letters!! Are we psycho?
My advice is that mean reverting level of your score can’t be low always. The low levels have been achieved and strong bottom is made. And you have realised that CFA exam is easy but we make it tough. So bull run in your scores has been initiated. Go for 8th attempt. Be positive.
CFAilure, I believe it may be your mindset that is keeping you back. Not keeping you back from finishing the exam, but keeping you thinking you have to finish the exam.
I’d like you to check out this quote from Ben Franklin:
“There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means - either may do - the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.”
From your posts, it seems you keep trying to augment your means but have never considered diminishing your wants. You have decided you NEED to be in front office finance as a career. Why? Why is that the only worthy career for you? You say “I failed my career” - but it is NOT your career. I hope you are able to take some time after this exam to reflect on what your real career is, and what it should be in the future.
From your posts and history with the CFA exam, to be blunt it looks like you do not and in all likelihood will not have a career in the front office. That is okay. If a back office career is too close to the pain of missing out on what you had wished for a career, maybe you need to get out of it entirely. There are a million types of jobs out there, TONS for which you have all the skills and prerequisites and transferrable skills. Front-office investment finance is not the only option - it is one of thousands of personally and professionally satisfying options for a lifelong career.
Best of luck in your future career,
-F
you are not being very encouraging…
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dicided to delete
I think you should not give up. As others have said, change your user name to something positive and do what it takes to CRUSH the exam. you do need to work many problems and not just do the same process over and over, that is not working. You do not have the record on failures either, I remember people from a few years back who had failed 7 or more times and then passed. Don’t project that you will fail or you will. Go in with the attitude that you WILL succeed and you will. If you expect to succeed, commit to succeeding, you will see that you will have a different mindset. The material is interesting, but you really just need to pass the exam. Don’t invest so much in the importance of the exam as this puts too much pressure on you. It is an exam. It CAN be beaten. You just have to spend time on test strategy as well as concepts, and I think this part is where you are missing. Do something different this time like getting a study group and really having them grill you on questions. I can tell you that WHEN (not IF) you pass this, the feeling of accomplishment and achievement you will gain will be well worth it. Don’t quit.
The downside of course, is that if you choose to inject yourself with a ton of hope, “will succeed attitude”, and sacrifice like DoubleDip says… and then fail again, you’ll be scarred for life, and multiply your feeling of sadness and failure 3X.
L3 is harder than L2.
ok flamers, your turn.
The CFAI would be doing candidates a favour by kicking them out of the program after failing the same level a certain number of times. Like maybe 2 or 3 attempts.
Writing Level II seven or nine (or however many) times, is a giant waste of a life.
I guess the participation in the program should be limited to those who are currently emploied in the investment field and has been working there, say 5 years. are you a back office guy? farewell. are you an IT guy looking for an opportunity? look for that in another place, thanks for coming. your native languageis not English and you did not nailed (I mean the highest scores) TOEFL or another employment test of English - close the door from outside. lost your job in investment field and did not find another for six month? that means you are not good for the industry, your candidacy has been terminated.
after that the pass rate will return to 85% as it was long times ago.
Sorry my exposing you to my experience, but, as I mentioned above, one of common psyhiatric test is to give one a simple task and repeat the task in the same conditions. If your vis-a-vie is expecting different outcomesfrom the same task in the same conditions , he or she need some stay in the mental clinic.
What is my point? In order to expect to win and to plan to win (realisitically plan) I need do some things differently. What can I do? Here is my grocery list:
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Go for a class or hire a tutor. Bingo. But impossible. I can attend virtuial classes only, webinars and it has been proved itself as not efficient.
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Dedicate more time for studies. How can I do that? Does the solution include the devorse and sending the kids to boarding school? Lol.
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Study every single minute, study at lunch time at work, on my way to the office etc… It is not sufficient and ‘study naps’ of 20 minutes does not made it.
So… Can I do something different? Not sure. Can I do all the same as I have already did it 6 times? If I return to the program that is what will come out with 0.95 probability. Do the same , but wait for different outcome? Well, that is not for the forum, that’s for mental clinic… Sorry.
A psychologist today told me something like “I have patients who are on wheelchair after car accident, I am consulting people who got blind, they all can adjust themselves to their new status, I cannot understand why you will not succeed adjust yourself to the failure”. Lol.
If you know the material as well as you do, why even bother re-reading the texts? You should just be taking an endless number of practice tests and doing QBank questions. Not to mention your previous scores should give you the breakdown of your weakest subjects.
a problem: after I try a question and get the wrong answer, I go back o the book to check myself and to re-read all the marked and flagged places etc. and after I re-read I understand the solution and go back to questions till the next wrong and once again back to text… It’s almost as to review it from the beginning.
and CFAI changes some reading from time to time… by the way that swap question I bet was on 2010 exam, exactly that one. :)))
believe me or not, but the breakdown on areas changes from fail to fail. I am always >70 on etics, but let look on derivatives:
it was 2 fails less 50, once more 70, twice 50-70
so what? it depends if the questions were tricker (more or less) that specific year.
But according to you, you’re not getting the question wrong because you don’t know the material. You’re having trouble actually understanding the question itself. When I read questions, first thing I do before I even look at the answer choices is to understand why they are asking what. It helps me then frame what the trick could be. To answer a question blindly without any background is dangerous. These questions aren’t random, you have to understand why the testmaker chose this particular question. And this process shouldn’t take very long neither… few seconds at max.
No offense, but do you have a learning disability? If you do, you should get that treated.
What helped me for level 2 was reading and rereading over and over again everything, although its possible you may have tried that.
Sure from year to year the particular topic’s difficulty will vary but that’s why for every year, presumably you would’ve taken 4-5 practice tests. I can’t imagine those 4-5 practice tests gave you conflicting results on your strengths/weaknesses. And ethics is the not apples to apples because the questions are more subjective in nature. The other topics are all objective.
Seriously if you failed 6x in a row, there’s something wrong with your approach. The exam is not impossible. I would focus on CFAI EOC questions, Qbank and as many practice/mock tests you can get a hold of. Great thing about QBank is you can not only drill down by topic but you can choose difficulty level. If you’re getting most of the advanced questions correct, it probably means you have a good understanding and you can move on to the next topic.
No way. Please re-read what I told before. I understand quesion perfactly. I have a problem to solve it QUICKLY on the exam if one-two-tree of the paramers has been modified or hidden.
does that mean I have a low IQ? I am asking that by myself .
example: give me on the exam BSM formula and regular (not exponent) r. I’ll make calculation with the given r, see the number on the answer sheet (CFAI will defenetely make a trap and put such a result to the answers) and mark it.
only after I review it I can find the trap and… and the time has gone on the exam. remember the proctor’s classics “manage your time carefully”? so it’s about me, lol.
Huh, open a CFAI book in the middle and chances are I remember correctly what is on the next page. Learning disabiliry? Perhaps. I never encountered it while studying for BA, but we are never getting younger. Perhaps you are right and I need to get tested for disability of that kind.