1 week left - thoughts leading up to the big day

I bombed the morning, there is no way I ended with a pass. The only thing that helps is now I have this experience under my belt, I know exactly what to expect for next year… :-/
 
planninganalyst wrote:
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.
Click to expand...
i’ve 7 years buyside, 3 hedge funds. the curriculum didn’t deviate 1 iota. i quibble with a lot of the curriculum cuz it’s petty and i think in some areas very wrong. but it didn’t deviate and you have to look more closely at the nuance of the material (ie. blue boxes and not EOC) and see how they are putting the test together.
i’m sorry but you are 100% wrong.
and GIPS isn’t irrelevant. there is constant gamesmanship in the presentation of the #s from hedge funds and smaller mutual fund outfits that pursue marketing over performance. GIPS is CFAI’s attempt to push their own agenda, but it’s not like its they aren’t filling an unwanted standard. if CFAI and the industry doesn’t do it, Congress will at some point and having congress regulate how returns are presented in mutual funds and hedgies is exactly what gets us idiots like this dingbat lunatic Elizabeth Warren.
if you are involved in other parts of the industry (beyond buy-side/sell side) you should see the bigger picture.
 
I thought I was the only one with anxiety feelings about the exam. After using this forum, I became a little bit relieved. Well, 5 more days to go. Actually, it’s 6 days for me because I’ll know the result after 6 or 7 pm because currently I’m in Russia. I just want to know the result and end this uncertainity.
 
This week: offered a new job (more interesting and much better money)
next week: cfa results
week after that: girlfriend (who I haven’t seen for almost a year) arrives.
Still somewhat nervous about cfa results - but there is enough else going on that I won’t be too bothered if the news is bad. Also good that I’m in Australia now and won’t receive the email during work hours (it was brutal when I failed L2 while working in Canada and had to act normal for the rest of the day…)
Goodluck everyone
 
Contrary to most of the people on this forum i thought the morning was fairly straightforward and I finished it with a little time left to review. However the afternoon I found the ethics to be difficult and the GIPS question set to be difficult. Outside of that I thought the PM was fair. I just hope the 3 sections I found hard don’t screw me - especially since they are always thought to be weighted heavily in the curve. I guess I’ll know soon enough. I can’t even begin to think if I failed though. This is my 2nd time on L3 and I had to take 2 times on L2. I’m about done with this program and just need it to be over with.
 
djbcfa wrote:
Contrary to most of the people on this forum i thought the morning was fairly straightforward and I finished it with a little time left to review. However the afternoon I found the ethics to be difficult and the GIPS question set to be difficult. Outside of that I thought the PM was fair. I just hope the 3 sections I found hard don’t screw me - especially since they are always thought to be weighted heavily in the curve. I guess I’ll know soon enough. I can’t even begin to think if I failed though. This is my 2nd time on L3 and I had to take 2 times on L2. I’m about done with this program and just need it to be over with.
Click to expand...
+1.
I finished the morning with about 15 minutes left. Went back and made sure that all the questions I answered added up to 180 and that I didn’t skip anything. At least half of the morning was stuff that I hoped they would test. The other 50% was sort of a muddle through of topics that I knew reasonably well but did not have down cold. There were only 1-2 “out of left field questions.” In the end, I thought the AM was fair, but who knows how it will be graded…
PM had 4 item sets that have been bugging me since test day. As long as I didn’t average 3/6 or worse on all four, I think I’ll be OK in the PM through.
I absolutely can’t do it again next year. Level 3 hurt my personal and professional life more than any other level. If I fail, I will be waiting until 2014 to retake.
 
prophets wrote:
planninganalyst wrote:
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.
Click to expand...
i’ve 7 years buyside, 3 hedge funds. the curriculum didn’t deviate 1 iota. i quibble with a lot of the curriculum cuz it’s petty and i think in some areas very wrong. but it didn’t deviate and you have to look more closely at the nuance of the material (ie. blue boxes and not EOC) and see how they are putting the test together.
i’m sorry but you are 100% wrong.
and GIPS isn’t irrelevant. there is constant gamesmanship in the presentation of the #s from hedge funds and smaller mutual fund outfits that pursue marketing over performance. GIPS is CFAI’s attempt to push their own agenda, but it’s not like its they aren’t filling an unwanted standard. if CFAI and the industry doesn’t do it, Congress will at some point and having congress regulate how returns are presented in mutual funds and hedgies is exactly what gets us idiots like this dingbat lunatic Elizabeth Warren.
if you are involved in other parts of the industry (beyond buy-side/sell side) you should see the bigger picture.
Click to expand...
I’ve got 14 years of buy side experience and 5 years of hedge fund experience and while I agree with most of what you said, I feel that the way GIPS is tested is a bit questionable. They cover the entire waterfront in the text and I think it would make sense to try to highlight areas of importance rather than memorizing all of that nonsense. In an office setting, if something seems questionable you would just send it to complaince or reporting for review. So I think the focus should be on recognizing things that deviate greatly from the standards rather than some of the minutae they try to squeeze in.
Agreed on Elizabeth Warren as well.
 
What is making me anxious is that it will be the first time that I get the result during work hours. The first two were during the shut down period, so we were maybe 4-5 people in the office.
I work in corporate finance so nobody will be aware that it’s results day. I might be stuck in meetings being nervous as hell and nobody will understand why.
Anyway, I don’t expect it to be positive. The morning didn’t went well… the afternoon felt ok, but I didn’t feel any pressure going in due to the bad morning, so it might just be that I didn’t do worst than the morning so it felt ok.
I don’t remember any question at this point, so I should try not to think about it… (so stay far away from this forum…)
 
The CFO just let me know that he needs me in a meeting Tuesday morning… GAAAAAHHHHH.
 
AM was really bad, ran out of time for two questions and left a couple here and there.
PM!! Plz help me sail my boat across. Dont have courage or motivation to take it again.
Good luck.
 
prophets wrote:
planninganalyst wrote:
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.
Click to expand...
i’ve 7 years buyside, 3 hedge funds. the curriculum didn’t deviate 1 iota. i quibble with a lot of the curriculum cuz it’s petty and i think in some areas very wrong. but it didn’t deviate and you have to look more closely at the nuance of the material (ie. blue boxes and not EOC) and see how they are putting the test together.
i’m sorry but you are 100% wrong.
and GIPS isn’t irrelevant. there is constant gamesmanship in the presentation of the #s from hedge funds and smaller mutual fund outfits that pursue marketing over performance. GIPS is CFAI’s attempt to push their own agenda, but it’s not like its they aren’t filling an unwanted standard. if CFAI and the industry doesn’t do it, Congress will at some point and having congress regulate how returns are presented in mutual funds and hedgies is exactly what gets us idiots like this dingbat lunatic Elizabeth Warren.
if you are involved in other parts of the industry (beyond buy-side/sell side) you should see the bigger picture.
Click to expand...
Elizabth Warren may be a lunatic but definitely not a dingbat. She was smart enough to get admission to top schools by citing her Native Indian origin, true or false who knows. Haha. Lunatic people can and do outsmart the system and other smart people.
P
 
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