Any other who fails Level 3 twice ?

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300hoursagain

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This year is another bad luck for me, failing the level 3 exam once again. Last year I got band 7, this year band 9.
I did put much more efforts this year yet still not enough to get through. AM session still a nightmare to me 5 of them on the left side. I thought I nailed PM session, was very confident but suprisingly get killed by ethics (left side), never before I get ugly in ethics. I was devastated by the result and have no idea how to move on and fight for the next 300 hours again. Last year, I used schweser, bluebox & practice question curriculum and previous mock exams. This year was about the same, but I allocate more time to the practice question curriculum and mock exams. I thought this is about practice.
Any other candidates who also fail second times this year ?
- Kindly share your thought on this and which topic that always flops your result
- What was your study plan & tools and what will you change for next year exam
- Kindly share your result metrics, mine is below
- How you will improve the essay
Thanks guys
Q#
Topic
Max Pts
<=50%
51%-70%
>70%
1
Portfolio Management - Institutional
14
*
-
-
2
Portfolio Management - Institutional
17
*
-
-
3
Fixed Income Investments
19
-
-
*
4
Alternative Investments
20
-
*
-
5
Portfolio Management - Performance Eval.
15
-
-
*
6
Portfolio Management - Risk Management
14
*
-
-
7
Portfolio Management - Individual
18
-
*
-
8
Portfolio Management - Individual
16
-
*
-
9
Portfolio Management - Asset Allocation
15
*
-
-
10
Economics
14
-
*
-
11
Portfolio Management - Indiv/Behavioral
18
*
-
-
Item Set
Q#
Topic
Max Pts
<=50%
51%-70%
>70%
-
Economics
18
-
-
*
-
Equity Investments
18
-
*
-
-
Ethical & Professional Standards
36
*
-
-
-
Fixed Income Investments
18
-
-
*
-
Portfolio Management
18
*
-
-
-
Portfolio Management - Individual
18
-
*
-
-
Portfolio Management - Monitor&Rebalance
18
-
-
*
-
Portfolio Management - Risk Management
36
-
*
-
 
I also got band 9 this year with first try, PM is much worse than expected, <50 in ethihcs which I got >70 in last 2 levels, seems the lucky draw is not in our favour.
 
Sorry to here.
But you are looking people who failed in the wrng place. It is not appropriate to duscuss unsuccessfull attempts on AF. Pass rate is 87% here.
 
Yes, I think ethics in PM session was kind of tricky. Have you considered to submit retabulation ? I think I won’t since it will be not useful
 
Don’t do it, you will just waste another 100 and nothing will be changed
 
I personnaly failed twice before to pass this year.
2013 band 7
2014 band 8
2015 passed
With a band 9, you are defintely very close, maybe you would have passed with another type of level 3 exam… we are talking about small differences between a pass and a fail here.
The advices I would give to a 3rd time retaker are :
- Don’t read again all the books, you know everything already (be careful of changes from last year though)
- Focus on end of chapter resume and read them all in order to refresh your knowledge on the curriculum
- Do all the end of chapter exercice, do all the blue box exercices to start practicing.
- Focus only on doing exercices and more specifically exams, do all the exams that you can find (Mocks, Past Official exams and Schweser).
- Learn by heart the different concept that are needed for replying in the AM sessions, there are many in differnent topic and unfortunately I personaly had to learn them in order to feel safe.
My conclusin is that level 3 is all about doing everyting in the AM to not crash and be ready to kill the PM session in order to have good chance to pass. I haven’t seen many people having aced the morning session, the majority are saved by the afternoon one. A crash of the AM session will definitely be a no go though.
All the best !
 
this year I was crashed by PM, I finished PM and quite confidence I should get 60-70 for most, the result is interesting which I got < 50 in 3 areas, may be two or three more correct guess in PM will push me from band 9 to band 11
 
Thanks for the good advice bro. I am glad that at least I got the inspiration from the third time taker and thanks for the study tips. Definitely I will give more efforts next year. and I guess what you said about the AM to not crash and kill the PM is CORRECT as well. I noticed candidate who have marginally passed got 8 of 11 essay on the left side. but he passed anyway because he nailed PM session with 5 topics on the right side. It is just beyond my understanding he can passed with 8 AM topics on the left side
So i guess try not to have more than 4 AM topics on the left side and at least have 6 (AM&PM) on the right side will put the candidates in band 11, i guess.
 
Yes won’t ever do it. I wrote an appeal email to CFAI and all I get is the template version of their reply and they suggest to reregister while awaiting retabulation result (???) 2 conflicting solutions
 
I failed twice with band 10 and band 10. I WILL kill it next year.
Last Tuesday, I and my GF (she paid the exam fee for me which cost her 2 month salary…) waiting for my result together. I thought I would pass so i asked her to wait with me and we could cheer then. Sadly I failed bro…, it was a quite moment, I couldn’t look at her eyes and my tear droped… After rode her home I continue to rode around the city for nearly 2 hours… for nothing.
Next year I will kill the exam, not for getting a better job or moving to another company, I will do it for my GF.
My result this year:
AM: 10/11 below 50%, 1/11 50%-70%
PM: 6/8 above 70% (include ethics), 2/8 50%-70%
Next year I will aim for: Bullet point answer, Key words, Hand writing…
 
Hi there, I failed the 2nd time - again Band 10 - even with Ethics above 70%. Cant find words for my dissapointment. I used Finquiz and Curriculuum. As usual AM session was horrible - 6x below 50%. But nailed PM session 5x above 70%. For me its all about time issues. I would love to have 4h in the morning and only 2h in the afternoon. Not sure if I will give it a 3rd try.
 
You got 10/11 below 50% in AM session but still manage to get band 10 ?? Having PM session result unchanged, if you got only 8/11 below 50%, I guess you could have passed it !
I think this case support general argument that we need to KILL PM session without any mercy next year despite we still need to try the best of AM session
 
2013 - Band 8
2014 - Band 10
2015 - Pass
If you have taken it twice already, you should be quite familiar with all the concepts already, so it’s not starting from scratch. This third time I jumped straight to chapter summaries and problems, and did all possible mock exams and tests I could get my hands on. I ended up crushing the PM with all but one >70%, to rescue a lousy AM with 6/11 <50%.
You really need to practice those AM problems by doing them. Just reading them isn’t enough. So many times you will be familiar with the question and know the answer, yet will have trouble articulating the answer the way CFAI wants.
 
I have failed twice
2013 - Band 2
2015 - Band 8
AM killed me, whereas PM was below expectation.
 
300hoursagain wrote:
This year is another bad luck for me, failing the level 3 exam once again. Last year I got band 7, this year band 9.
I did put much more efforts this year yet still not enough to get through. AM session still a nightmare to me 5 of them on the left side. I thought I nailed PM session, was very confident but suprisingly get killed by ethics (left side), never before I get ugly in ethics. I was devastated by the result and have no idea how to move on and fight for the next 300 hours again. Last year, I used schweser, bluebox & practice question curriculum and previous mock exams. This year was about the same, but I allocate more time to the practice question curriculum and mock exams. I thought this is about practice.
Any other candidates who also fail second times this year ?
- Kindly share your thought on this and which topic that always flops your result
- What was your study plan & tools and what will you change for next year exam
- Kindly share your result metrics, mine is below
- How you will improve the essay
Thanks guys
Q#
Topic
Max Pts
<=50%
51%-70%
>70%
1
Portfolio Management - Institutional
14
*
-
-
2
Portfolio Management - Institutional
17
*
-
-
3
Fixed Income Investments
19
-
-
*
4
Alternative Investments
20
-
*
-
5
Portfolio Management - Performance Eval.
15
-
-
*
6
Portfolio Management - Risk Management
14
*
-
-
7
Portfolio Management - Individual
18
-
*
-
8
Portfolio Management - Individual
16
-
*
-
9
Portfolio Management - Asset Allocation
15
*
-
-
10
Economics
14
-
*
-
11
Portfolio Management - Indiv/Behavioral
18
*
-
-
Item Set
Q#
Topic
Max Pts
<=50%
51%-70%
>70%
-
Economics
18
-
-
*
-
Equity Investments
18
-
*
-
-
Ethical & Professional Standards
36
*
-
-
-
Fixed Income Investments
18
-
-
*
-
Portfolio Management
18
*
-
-
-
Portfolio Management - Individual
18
-
*
-
-
Portfolio Management - Monitor&Rebalance
18
-
-
*
-
Portfolio Management - Risk Management
36
-
*
-
Click to expand...
just a bad luck of how exam played out. I passed with 4 in left side in AM (close to yours) .. but managed Ethics in the middle. Last time i failed i had Ethics on right side. Ethic was just too weird this year - when i took it 2 years back, was much easier/less confusing. Compounding the problem is Ethics has 36 ponts.
Keep your heads up .. you’re band 9, and 4 more questions in PM perhaps pushes you over next year - or pushing up some of the grades in AM. You’re almost there. And with L3, you retain lot more info.
Don’t beat yourself up with AM .. i think even people who passed are similar to yours in AM. I guess the trick in AM is not to spend too much time on questions where you don’t have good handle on, quickly idenfitying these type of questions, and just to skp and move on and focus on questions you can answer resonably well. In AM, i had 4 on left side, but 5 on right side - basically two extreme - which worked out well (as the ones on left side, even if i spent more time, i don’t think i would’ve gotten more points)
 
Doji wrote:
I personnaly failed twice before to pass this year.
2013 band 7
2014 band 8
2015 passed
With a band 9, you are defintely very close, maybe you would have passed with another type of level 3 exam… we are talking about small differences between a pass and a fail here.
The advices I would give to a 3rd time retaker are :
- Don’t read again all the books, you know everything already (be careful of changes from last year though)
- Focus on end of chapter resume and read them all in order to refresh your knowledge on the curriculum
- Do all the end of chapter exercice, do all the blue box exercices to start practicing.
- Focus only on doing exercices and more specifically exams, do all the exams that you can find (Mocks, Past Official exams and Schweser).
- Learn by heart the different concept that are needed for replying in the AM sessions, there are many in differnent topic and unfortunately I personaly had to learn them in order to feel safe.
My conclusin is that level 3 is all about doing everyting in the AM to not crash and be ready to kill the PM session in order to have good chance to pass. I haven’t seen many people having aced the morning session, the majority are saved by the afternoon one. A crash of the AM session will definitely be a no go though.
All the best !
Click to expand...
Agree, you need to aim to crush the PM. But try your best in AM - to hedge your bet. If MPS is around 60%-65% - you need to aim to average around 55% in AM, and crushing PM means averaging 75%-80% or so - basically trying to push everything above 50% in PM.
With AM, my thought is - you wont be able to do well with all questions. So make sure you skip the hard one quickly, and at leat go through all questions, so the ones you can answer, you write them out well, and aim to get highest points. And then come back to difficult one. I pretty much gave up on 2 sets in AM - which i knew i would do poorly on, so didn’t get down, and did my best on rest of questions. Trick was to forget about AM, and go back in to crush the PM (tough to do, when you’re already in exam hall since 7-8 am in morning). I actually took a 15 min nap during the break to clear my head!!
 
Leutnant wrote:
Hi there, I failed the 2nd time - again Band 10 - even with Ethics above 70%. Cant find words for my dissapointment. I used Finquiz and Curriculuum. As usual AM session was horrible - 6x below 50%. But nailed PM session 5x above 70%. For me its all about time issues. I would love to have 4h in the morning and only 2h in the afternoon. Not sure if I will give it a 3rd try.
Click to expand...
Take a year break and then come back. That worked for me. Failed once, and was really down (since it took me two tries for L2 .. i mean how many years can you do this).
I too had timing issue both times. But this time, i came to conclusion, the once that was taking me long - i really didn’t know how to answer correctly, so even if i spent time on it, i would’ve gotten below 50%. So i focused on the ones where i was comforable with the question and spent bit of time on those. So i got 5 above 70% and 4 below 50% (2 question set i barely wrote anything - got too confused, so didn’t spend much time).
 
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