1 week left - thoughts leading up to the big day

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planninganalyst

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I am curious how everyone is feeling coming up to the big day. I found the morning exam this year really difficult due to the layout, vagueness, time constraints, etc. The afternoon was straightforward. I am hoping that my afternoon score makes up for my morning. This seems to be consensus this year.
Overall, I have mixed feelings about the fairness & applicability of the L3 exam. I am a finance professional who has worked on the buy-side and sell-side for 8 years. I believe that the L3 exam has deviated from the CFA curriculum and is more difficult than it needs to be. A successful L3 candidate should be one that thoroughly understands the IPS as well as his/her duty to the Code and Standards. GIPS are irrelevant to most finance professionals. I believe that a candidate should have an opportunity to earn the Charter if he/she has a firm grasp of the CFA curriculum with specific focus on the aforementioned instead of his/her test taking abilities (i.e. managing time constraints, abstract problem solving, memorizing minutiae, etc). Additionally, if a candidate can manage to pass (over 70%) with practice/mock/previous morning exams provided by the CFA institute he/she should have a good chance of passing the actual exam.
I guess we will all know soon enough where we stand with this exam. I expect the pass rate will be in the high 40s this year due to how difficult most people found the morning portion.
Good luck to everyone!
 
The anxiety is killing me. Scary because our fates (Pass/Fail) have already been decided. I want to know now so I can plan on the next steps.
 
planninganalyst wrote:
I am curious how everyone is feeling coming up to the big day. I found the morning exam this year really difficult due to the layout, vagueness, time constraints, etc. The afternoon was straightforward. I am hoping that my afternoon score makes up for my morning. This seems to be consensus this year.
Overall, I have mixed feelings about the fairness & applicability of the L3 exam. I am a finance professional who has worked on the buy-side and sell-side for 8 years. I believe that the L3 exam has deviated from the CFA curriculum and is more difficult than it needs to be. A successful L3 candidate should be one that thoroughly understands the IPS as well as his/her duty to the Code and Standards. GIPS are irrelevant to most finance professionals. I believe that a candidate should have an opportunity to earn the Charter if he/she has a firm grasp of the CFA curriculum with specific focus on the aforementioned instead of his/her test taking abilities (i.e. managing time constraints, abstract problem solving, memorizing minutiae, etc). Additionally, if a candidate can manage to pass (over 70%) with practice/mock/previous morning exams provided by the CFA institute he/she should have a good chance of passing the actual exam.
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+1. You said it!
 
I’m counting minutes. Talking to myself. Wife thinks I’m crazy.
 
I just don’t think I could muster the energy to do this again if I failed. I got a few easy questions wrong, so the next year these would be in my head to the point where I just might walk around mumbling “laces out, Dan” if I end up in Band 10.
 
I am thinking about creating a countdown chain (google it) in the office… Would be nice decoration.
 
It gives me chill down the spine just thinking about it. I have no idea what kind of mood I am going to be in next tuesday around this time. it was tough test over all. Time constraint in the morning and full of tricks in the afternoon. I was going through some tough times while I was preparing for this exam. But I am not going to list all my sobbing and shitty story here.
Hoping to write my version of “how to study and pass level 3” next week. Hoping for the best.
 
The suspense is unbearable. I have been distracting myself by watching the London Olympics. I have suddenly become an expert on the esoteric details about sports like fencing, canoe slalom and equestrian events. Helps keep my sanity. 6 days to go
 
To be honest, I just want to know the result so that I would at leat know what to do next. On exam day, I was really happy to get done with the exam. It’s not that I did great on the exam, I was just glad to be over with it for at least 2 months.
I think the exam was as hard as the practice exams that I had done, so, I would call it a fair exam. That being said, it was tough, I gotta admit it. It’s really difficult to predict the result or even the pass rate. Historically, it has been above 50%, but history cannot be a good predictor of the future (one of the drawbacks of historical Monte Carlo simulation :)
I just wish good luck to everybody. I know the feelings we’ve all been through, all the difficulty we’ve been through. Only CFA Level 3 candidates would understand it. A week from now some of us will be thrilled, some of us will be very sad. Whatever the result, we should just go ahead with our lives. If the result is fail, just go ahead and enroll for 2013 Level 3. .
 
I agree completely - I’m so relying on the afternoon to make up for the morning exam.
The thing is, I feel completely in limbo at the moment. Two days after the CFA exam, I started revising for my accountancy final exams and sat them in July…. It’s been months and months of hell… and whatever the outcome of the CFA, I’ve got the other results coming out three weeks later. I don’t think I could bare to do this all again next year.
 
Agree with all the sentiments here…how can I not? Whether you are a finance professional, trying to transition, are unemployed, or still in college, I think it is safe to say that passing this last hurdle means something to all of us. I am also haunted by changing MC answers from the correct to the wrong ones and passing some easy points…never stopped kicking myself for these mistakes…but 6 more days to go and it is final. I don’t think i did very well..and on some level I feel don’t deserve a pass…but I really need some positive news. I will welcome the pass no matter how ugly it looks.
Best wishes to all of us here.
 
Ah….
The anxiety is killing me too.
An ugly pass is still a pass…..
But a close fail is still a fail.
As for deserving a pass
I am not too sure I deserve one either because
I knew I had holes in my Derivatives game…..
Oh jolly.
 
As I’ve said previously, I REALLY do not want to have to spend another 6 months studying for this test… Hopefully I did enough to sneak through. I honestly wouldnt wager on either outcome at this point.
 
Am I the only one who left the exam certain that they failed (not finishing the morning, etc. and, using practice test scores as a guide, statistically it is very improbable that I passed) and is now allowing hope and optimism to creep in and allow themselves to stupidly think “maybe I did pass” i.e. setting themselves up for a gigantic let down, massive depression, addiction to household solvents, homemade acupuncture solutions, etc.
 
trimonious2 wrote:
Am I the only one who left the exam certain that they failed (not finishing the morning, etc. and, using practice test scores as a guide, statistically it is very improbable that I passed) and is now allowing hope and optimism to creep in and allow themselves to stupidly think “maybe I did pass” i.e. setting themselves up for a gigantic let down, massive depression, addiction to household solvents, homemade acupuncture solutions, etc.
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Actually it works both ways - I was very confident leaving the exam, now I’m thinking about just dropping out of the program, changing my name to CPAretake, moving to a new city and starting a new life
 
My opinion has been “who the hell knows how I did?” since leaving the exam room. Nothing has changed.
 
I go from, “I think I passed” to “I couldn’t possibly have passed becasue I missed so many easy points” on an almost hourly basis. Any time someone asks all that pops into my head are the points I left on the table. At this point, I hope I am just forgetting the easy stuff I cruised through. Had to be some because I finished both the AM and the PM early…. Or maybe I just flubbed the whole thing….
 
Honestly I’ve done a good job keeping it cool and just forgetting about it trying to enjoy the summer until Level 2 results came out last week (got some coworkers who sat for it), kind of brought the whole thing back. Now reading this thread is just making me hyperventilate.
I felt the same way I felt leaving Level II, pretty bad, but thinking there may be a chance. I actually did very well on II but felt horrific, which was weird. On Level I i walked out thinking “i killed it” and did. I generally tend to think the way you feel right after is most accurate, but I was off on L II so who knows. At this point I am really concerned that if I do fail, I may not have the energy to gear up again. Ugh…. so want this shit to be over.
Morning kicked my ass, afternoon i finished 45 min early however I realized after the fact it looked deceptively easy, I think i fell for a lot of “gotchas”.
 
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