CFAI mock exam vs Schweser

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cfa_mixer

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Just took the full length CFAI exam.
After weeks of successful scores taking all 6 Schweser exams, the CFAI tore me a new one.
The questions are much harder. They really make the questions difficult through lots of trickery and confusion. Don’t get me wrong, the questions are fair. But you really need to be on top of your game to get all of the details.
Anyone else have the same thoughts?
 
You say like that’s a bad thing. Complacency is the last thing you need, going into the last week before the paper.
Would you rather be shocked on the day itself, or would you rather be shocked now?
 
Absolutely, I imagine that the majority of the candidates feel the same.
Even the schweser live mock, which was a lot harder than the mocks in volumes 1 & 2, doesn’t really compare to the cfai item sets. My scores on both were exactly the same but taking the cfai mock was very different.
 
yup, same here. My score on 2013 CFAI was 10% less than my 3 schweser mock average.
What I found the hardest was adjusting to being time constrained in CFAI mock. WIth Schweser mocks I was always done in under 2.5 hours even going at a slow pace. So you have lots of time to ponder things. With CFAI, you really need to learn to keep cool under the pressure, it’s a delicate balance you need to find between speed and accuracy.
 
I agree that they were fair, but you needed to know the concepts well enough to catch the nuances. Schweser was straightforward, really required no critical thinking, just simple memorization. CFAI makes you work for it. I really respect the way CFAI draws up its exams, both mock and real. They’re questions often require the synthesis of numerous LOS’ in order to arrive at a correct answer.
 
Everytime I took the exam I was shocked! No matter how I prepared!
 
I agree cfai mock are realy difficult in terms of schewesr practice
 
escoleru wrote:
Everytime I took the exam I was shocked! No matter how I prepared!
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Yeah right ….. but everytime around 40% of the test takers werent shocked and passed the exam ….. i am just wondering where the problem lies ….. can you guess ??
Somehow i feel that over the pass few days many retakers are on some sort of a propaganda mission about how difficult the actual exam would be and how all we first time test takers should be really scared …. this is really not helping anyone
Why dont we understand that we are not writing a test which has an Absolute passing score ….. the Ease or Difficulty of any exam matters only when we have to achieve an Absolute score …. We are going to write an exam which will have a relative passing rate …. with roughly 40% of us passing it
An easy exam which has a relative grading doesnt really mean anything …. it will adjust for it by increasing the MPS …. similarly for a difficult exam the MPS would move lower to adjust for the pass rate
A case in point would be the 2010 Level 2 June exam …. if someone has time they should just skim through the 2010 result thread ….. u will see some beautiful matrices with hardly any <50% ending up failing ….. i myself saw a 40/60/80 score of 64% failing with a band 8 …. We can conclude that it would have been a relatively easier exam ….. but did it help …. it had the lowest pass rate (39%) in the pass 7 years …. and hence the MPS would have been significantly higher …. also corroborated by the strong matrices ending up failing
I think most of us first time takers are eager to hear from the retakers about what to expect on the D-Day compared to what we are tesing ourselves on today (how does it look compared to Schweser/Elan/CFA Mock) ….. and I personally just want an answer in terms of “Whether it is a good representative” or “Not” ….. Leave the judgement of difficulty to me
I was trying to avoid this vent for the past 2 days …. but couldnt …. given multiple posts on the same thing
I am not very confident of my own preparation …. and might Fail myself ….. But I will refrain from getting into such a propaganda mongering exercise on the forum next year even if I end up failing
As always …. Wish you the very best for the test
 
I haven’t taken any of the Schweser tests and have just started with mocks a couple of days back. I have done most of the multiple choice CFAI EOCs.
Not only does the mock make you think harder but they also integrate various readings into one vignette. For example, I was doing the 2012 mock today in which they had integrated 4 or 5 FSA readings into one vignette. Now you need to be very clear on how the different things add up together, otherwise it could get very difficult to do them.
While Elan’s were individual questions, CFAI EOCs were focussed on a particular reading. It is now that I’m being exposed to integrated questions. But it’s good to hear that people are finding CFAI mocks difficult because I was totally losing confidence today thinking it’s just me.
 
cfa_mixer wrote:
The questions are much harder. They really make the questions difficult through lots of trickery and confusion. Don’t get me wrong, the questions are fair. But you really need to be on top of your game to get all of the details.
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CFAI is much harder.
CFAI makes you read and reread the case to get the neccessary information for EVERY question. Half the Schweser questions you don’t even need to read the case.
So what’s more effective, taking older CFAI mocks or newer Schweser mocks?
 
definitely older CFAI mocks! I do mocks 2009 and newer.
 
I’ve planned to do 2011 and newer. Was planning on doing schweser after that, but maybe doing the older CFAI ones is better.
 
Whilst the CFAI mocks are a great benchmark to aim for I don’t expect the real exam to be as difficult. I remember the CFAI mocks for level 1 2012 were more difficult than the real exam, and by some distance. I half suspect CFAI try to scare people with a shit-hard mock. If they set an easy mock then it would just give people false hope of passing the real exams.
Having said that, none of us will really know until the morning of 1 June!
 
thanks for the input everyone, glad that for the most part people are experiencing the same thing.
Btw, does anyone know where one (such as myself) can locate the old CFAI mock exams? I’d like to give last years a go this weekend.
 
cfa_mixer wrote:
thanks for the input everyone, glad that for the most part people are experiencing the same thing.
Btw, does anyone know where one (such as myself) can locate the old CFAI mock exams? I’d like to give last years a go this weekend.
Click to expand...
I’m not going to point you to a pirate site, but if I were you I would start by trying to google it.
edit: not being a smart ass btw, just paranoid about ethics vioations.
 
This was also my thought and same experience I had last year. The CFA mock on level 1 was substantially more difficult than the real exam last year. I hope it´s the same case for level 2 this year otherwise I will have a problem
 
is it not logical
scswer mock only has questions from scswer notes
CFA mocks are from cfa mocks which has portions not covered in depth by scswer
always scswer mocks score will higher
 
I scored 63 - 68 on schweser but 60 on CFAI….not swag at all ;( ;( ;(
Seriously i’m very nervous about this exam
 
Did anyone else find at L1 in December tho that the actual exam was waaaaay easier than the CFAI mock?
I definitely found this to be the case, the mock questions always had a “twist” where I found the actual exam much more straightforward.
My little theory is that the CFAI doesn’t want to overpromise and let people get comfy, and then have these people get all pissed off at CFAI when they don’t pass. Imagine you score an 80 on a CFAI mock and then don’t pass - outrage at CFAI for not warning you enough!
But if you score a 55 on the CFAI mock, and manage to pass the real thing…hallelujah!!!
 
E.g. I scored right right near 70% or below on the CFAI L1 mocks last year, and on the exam, scored 70+ in all but two sections.
This seems very unlikely unless the real exam was easier than the mocks.
 
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