EXAM AFTERMATH - POST THOUGHTS AND INSIGHTS

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mikeynyc

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Congrats all to surviving this exercise in significant purgatory. I just finished the level 2 exam as well yesterday and I didn’t realize how exhausted these past few months in general and these past two weeks in particular have made me. Today and yesterday night were full on recovery days and getting to enjoy some of the things that I’ve had to put aside for a while.
Please post your thoughts on the exam in general and how you think you did.
From talking to several others, it feels as if the consensus seems to be that the exam was certainly easier than the sample mocks. There were some tricky questions / sections, but in general it seemed like a relatively fair and thorough exam. Definitely by no means a walk in the park but feels more hopeful coming out of this exam than after finishing up the practice cfai mock!
Cheers guys.
 
I agree it was way easier than the mock exam but there were a lot of tricks and trap. I think that it will be close…still dont understand why we have to wait 2 months to wait for a multiple choice exam result. I guess since most candidates felt good about the exam the MPS will be be high. At the end if the day CFAI goal is to fail 60% of candidates.
 
abnitchas wrote:I agree it was way easier than the mock exam but there were a lot of tricks and trap. I think that it will be close…still dont understand why we have to wait 2 months to wait for a multiple choice exam result. I guess since most candidates felt good about the exam the MPS will be be high. At the end if the day CFAI goal is to fail 60% of candidates.
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I don’t know why they have to fail 60% candidates no matter how well they did. This is totally BS and unfair, when the exam is difficult chance for passing is high as simply guessing on some parts will yield similar result as working hard on the questions
 
In 2004 the CFA level II pass rate was 56%. So there’s no reason it can’t repeat this year.
 
SimplyAdvised wrote:
In 2004 the CFA level II pass rate was 56%. So there’s no reason it can’t repeat this year.
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Its going down every year since year. Last year it was 38%
 
delta123 wrote:
SimplyAdvised wrote:
In 2004 the CFA level II pass rate was 56%. So there’s no reason it can’t repeat this year.
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Its going down every year since year. Last year it was 38%
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Not quite 42%
 
SimplyAdvised wrote:
In 2004 the CFA level II pass rate was 56%. So there’s no reason it can’t repeat this year.
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That was in 2005, following a 32% pass rate in 2004. So in 2005, you had many more retakers who were ahead of the game taking it. 2005 was also the first year it didn’t have morning essay portion for Level II so it could also have been a abberation in that they were new at properly ‘scaling’ the exam to make it around that 50% mark for pass.
A co-worker of mine who studied hard took the 2004 and got destroyed, as well as virtually everyone he knew that took it. They even sent out a notice explaining why the pass rate was so low and to stop using the study guides only… as at the time, you had to buy all the different textbooks which cost something like $1000 if you wanted to do questions outside of study guides (though Schweser used to actually provide some past exam questions in their study guides).
He said 05 was a ‘make-up’ year and was much more straightforward and easier. I doubt it’ll probably be that high this ear but it can still be somewhat close I suppose (high 40’s.. I would be surprised if it hit anywhere in the 50s).
 
No chance it’s even above 45%. Most people were guessing on 50% of the questions.
 
Basically either the MPS or Pass rate has to increase this year due to arithmetic, I sincerely hope ids1588 is correct and we all end up passing.
Question is, why would the CFAI write an easier test this year? Or we’re they just now aware of how easy it was?
 
If CFAI genuinely cared about about the education of the candidates they would pass us based on whether we knew the content or not, as opposed to flat out failing ~50% of us. Very harsh. Also again if they cared about our education they would release the exam so that we can learnt what questions we got wrong and how to answer them correctly. Therefore it’s not about our education, its about keeping the program elite and ensuring growth emerging markets so they make more money in fees. Why else would they “sell” practice exams to us……
 
cleverCFA wrote:
Gordon Gecko wrote:
No chance it’s even above 45%. Most people were guessing on 50% of the questions.
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source?
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pass rates floating around low 40s. Mps estimated to be mid 60s at the higest. Average raw score cant be higer than 50
 
Garnopolis422 wrote:
Basically either the MPS or Pass rate has to increase this year due to arithmetic, I sincerely hope ids1588 is correct and we all end up passing.
Question is, why would the CFAI write an easier test this year? Or we’re they just now aware of how easy it was?
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Last year the exam was EXTREMELY difficult and I think they make this year easier so that retakers can have a chance to clear, I guess MPS is somewhere around 65% and passing rate maybe around 49-52% this year
 
I think there were lots of conceptually testing questions, were on ecan make mistakes, while this exam do look easy on the face, as one will be 60 % confident while answering/ educated guess in conceptual questions, as against getting nothing in complex problems& feel bad, & percieved difficulty levels.
I feel it is as tougher then last year, may be this forum is not the correct sample as Selective biaseness of maximum retaker & people who puts maximum efforts, out of those only those who has done well is reporting there views about test. Also they were well read all the topics, so will not be get trapped in tricks.
I formly belief it will not be more then 67 % max, as PM was definetly tough with lot of unexpected stuff & weights of paper in exam. Quant, PM, AI & derivatives were definetly tougher.
 
First session was okay (not easy, ok!). The second session was very difficult! I’m surprised that certain individuals found it easy. Where i sat for the exams, most of us found it hard. Anyways, hope the pass rates would be acceptable.
 
rizjiji wrote:
First session was okay (not easy, ok!). The second session was very difficult! I’m surprised that certain individuals found it easy. Where i sat for the exams, most of us found it hard. Anyways, hope the pass rates would be acceptable.
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I felt the opposite - was much more comfotable with the afternoon session.
 
Does anyone know if the CFAI tests people wordlwide with the same exams? I took the L2 exam in Buenos Aires, and everyone agreed that the AM session was incredibly easy, while the PM session was IMPOSSIBLE (and unlike anything i ever saw in the 7 mock exams i took on which i was consistently getting +85% and a fair amount of free time to re check stuff). Although the PM session was not theoretically hard, it involved too many exercises involving long and tedious number crunching on the calculator. I ended up randomly guessing about 15 questions out of the 60 - I think i would have needed about 1 extra hour to complete it.
I just find it weird, given that most of my foreign friends (USA and koreans), found the exam easy, particularly the PM session.
 
dudesama wrote:
Does anyone know if the CFAI tests people wordlwide with the same exams? I took the L2 exam in Buenos Aires, and everyone agreed that the AM session was incredibly easy, while the PM session was IMPOSSIBLE (and unlike anything i ever saw in the 7 mock exams i took on which i was consistently getting +85% and a fair amount of free time to re check stuff). Although the PM session was not theoretically hard, it involved too many exercises involving long and tedious number crunching on the calculator. I ended up randomly guessing about 15 questions out of the 60 - I think i would have needed about 1 extra hour to complete it.
I just find it weird, given that most of my foreign friends (USA and koreans), found the exam easy, particularly the PM session.
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I wouldn’t be surpised if the papers were tweaked ever so slightly for different regions.
Perhaps they swap the am and pm sessions
 
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