EOC vs. REAL EXAM

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ProvidenceCFA

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Can anyone provide insight into the difficulty between the EOC vs. the actual question on the real exam?
I feel as if EOC are much easier then mock questions
 
Eocs should be easier than mocks.
Eocs are designed to test you on a topic.
Mocks are designed to test your mastery on all the sections.
 
then why do people say that doing EOCs would prepare you for the exan?
 
Because it’s containted within the text, and ultimately it’s the text you’re tested on. It also is better preparation for the format that the test will be in (i.e. get used to how CFAI presents the material).
 
Did all the Corp Fin/Alternative Investment/Econ/Quant/and Portfolio Mgmt EOC today and It was a breeze… very easy questions and probablly not indicative of what we will see on exam day… going thru the EOC for the first time back in November I thought I would never ever be able to “breeze” throgh these EOC come May but I am confident to say that it was pretty simple…
 
Damn…when we were doing the Schweser EOC questions, everyone said CFA EOC’s would kick the butt. Now it seems actual CFA is going to be much harder. Bummer…
 
I think that about 40% of exam will be just regular question, like calculate WACC and similar but the rest of the questions will be connected questions like in the Equity section in one questin calculate share price in the second state is it underavalued or overvalued.
 
I’ve had this same question as I’ve been studying and a friend of mine that finished level 3 last year and did level 2 twice has told me that the real exam is similar to the CFAI EOC questions and thats what he focused on. It’s funny because everyone says take 6+ mocks but I have two friends that passed level 2, one on the first attempt and one took two attempts and one of them never took a single mock and only used CFAI EOC, and the other one took one mock exam and the rest EOC.
From my point of view I find the CFAI EOC’s easier to understand and more straight forward than the mocks, sometimes the mocks I wonder if the questions in them are the ones people have submitted that got rejected because some of them are hard to understand. So far I’ve done the 2013 and 2012 mock and I’m on my second time through the CFAI EOC’s, I find I’m learning more from doing the EOC’s
 
carbolic wrote:
I think that about 40% of exam will be just regular question, like calculate WACC and similar but the rest of the questions will be connected questions like in the Equity section in one questin calculate share price in the second state is it underavalued or overvalued.
Click to expand...
Don’t stress about that - at L2 there are no “nested” questions. There will, however, be questions that require several intermediate calculations before you make a final calculation to arrive at an answer. The questions will take longer to complete than at L1.
 
cgottuso8190 wrote:
carbolic wrote:
I think that about 40% of exam will be just regular question, like calculate WACC and similar but the rest of the questions will be connected questions like in the Equity section in one questin calculate share price in the second state is it underavalued or overvalued.
Click to expand...
Don’t stress about that - at L2 there are no “nested” questions. There will, however, be questions that require several intermediate calculations before you make a final calculation to arrive at an answer. The questions will take longer to complete than at L1.
Click to expand...
I see your a level 3 candidate, what do you think about the types of level 2 questions we can expect, similar to the mock exams or similar to CFAI EOC’s?
 
EOC’s are very straightforward. I am re-doing them all for the 3rd time with no notes (except the outrageous number of swap questions which by the way I think swaps are one of the easiest and I hope we get a full item set on it) but anyway, I did the 2012 mock and compared to the EOC, the 2012 mock type vignettes were much much much more challenging
 
BobbyBraveheart wrote:
cgottuso8190 wrote:
carbolic wrote:
I think that about 40% of exam will be just regular question, like calculate WACC and similar but the rest of the questions will be connected questions like in the Equity section in one questin calculate share price in the second state is it underavalued or overvalued.
Click to expand...
Don’t stress about that - at L2 there are no “nested” questions. There will, however, be questions that require several intermediate calculations before you make a final calculation to arrive at an answer. The questions will take longer to complete than at L1.
Click to expand...
I see your a level 3 candidate, what do you think about the types of level 2 questions we can expect, similar to the mock exams or similar to CFAI EOC’s?
Click to expand...
In my opinion, the real exam’s questions were much more straightforward than those on the mocks - about as straightforwad as the EOCs. What I mean is, there was no unnecessary wording like you’ll find on that goddamn swap itemset on the 2013 mock. The questions are easy to understand and (relatively) easy to answer if you know your shit. At both Levels 1 and 2 I found the mocks to be more difficult than the real exams.
I’ll also comment on the “challenge” of the itemset questions. There isn’t much of a challenge. Get used to the format using a few of the EOCs presented that way and you’ll be good to go. It’s not something you have to worry about and people blow the “difficulty” of this format way out of proportion on this forum. In general (not always), you’ll find the relevant information to question #23 after the information needed for #22 and before that for #24.
Now, all that said - don’t underestimate how well you need to know the material. It’s easy to slip up considering the amount of stuff you’re expected to know. I’m am extremely grateful I’m not sitting for Level 2 in a month.
 
cgottuso8190 wrote:
BobbyBraveheart wrote:
cgottuso8190 wrote:
carbolic wrote:
I think that about 40% of exam will be just regular question, like calculate WACC and similar but the rest of the questions will be connected questions like in the Equity section in one questin calculate share price in the second state is it underavalued or overvalued.
Click to expand...
Don’t stress about that - at L2 there are no “nested” questions. There will, however, be questions that require several intermediate calculations before you make a final calculation to arrive at an answer. The questions will take longer to complete than at L1.
Click to expand...
I see your a level 3 candidate, what do you think about the types of level 2 questions we can expect, similar to the mock exams or similar to CFAI EOC’s?
Click to expand...
In my opinion, the real exam’s questions were much more straightforward than those on the mocks - about as straightforwad as the EOCs. What I mean is, there was no unnecessary wording like you’ll find on that goddamn swap itemset on the 2013 mock. The questions are easy to understand and (relatively) easy to answer if you know your shit. At both Levels 1 and 2 I found the mocks to be more difficult than the real exams.
I’ll also comment on the “challenge” of the itemset questions. There isn’t much of a challenge. Get used to the format using a few of the EOCs presented that way and you’ll be good to go. It’s not something you have to worry about and people blow the “difficulty” of this format way out of proportion on this forum. In general (not always), you’ll find the relevant information to question #23 after the information needed for #22 and before that for #24.
Now, all that said - don’t underestimate how well you need to know the material. It’s easy to slip up considering the amount of stuff you’re expected to know. I’m am extremely grateful I’m not sitting for Level 2 in a month.
Click to expand...
+1.
Even i found the real CFAL1 exam to be far straightforward than the CFAI mocks and schweser mocks.
I think the CFA institute knows that there are many candidates who are from “nonEnglish speaking countries” that is why they try to keep the “wordings” of the questions as simple as they can.
 
I have gone through various blogs and most of the people said that doing EOC’s is good enough.
I am sticking to it since anyways I dont have much time left.
Providence - you sure know your stuff and will definitely pass! However, you scared me yesterday when you said actual exams are going to be much harder than EOCs.
 
Subpak- I hope EOC are like what’s going to be on the exam because they are pretty straightforward and not many tricks. However, I felt like the EOC were very limited in scope because there weren’t that many item sets to complete to begin with.
 
sunpak wrote:
I have gone through various blogs and most of the people said that doing EOC’s is good enough.
I am sticking to it since anyways I dont have much time left.
Providence - you sure know your stuff and will definitely pass! However, you scared me yesterday when you said actual exams are going to be much harder than EOCs.
Click to expand...
Province CFA has studied from CFAI books.He is doing Eocs for the 3rd time.He has knocked in 750++ hours so far.
It is no surprise that Province CFA is finding Eocs easy.
 
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