Exam tricks - felt too easy/straightforward?

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hhcave

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Hi,
I apoligise if my post comes off as being obnoxious. Just wanted to ask if anyone felt that the exam was too straightforward compared to the mock, Kaplan and Schweser mocks? Im concerned that i may have missed details or something similar as most of it felt very obvious especially compared to the CFAI online questions and exam.
Thanks and i look forward to hearing from you guys!
 
Yes I think so too. It was more straightforward and indeed I thought easier than I had expected. Now I’m super nervous that I might have fallen into the ‘easy trap’, especially after reading some comments here on AF about traps in the questions…
 
I found equity and FRA very straightforward compared to mocks.. was most worried about these 2 sections but unless i missed some traps i feel i did the best in these areas. What do you guys think?
 
I went over a few questions I felt were too easy and found something in the question that I had missed. After reclaculating the answer I found both of my results as answer choices. It didn’t happen often enough to have a material impact on my score but there could have been more that I missed…hopefully my gut was right!
 
Also, I think the questions were straightforward because you knew how to do the question.
 
Straightforward, yes. Easy? No. Nothing about that exam was easy, and I was scoring in mid 70s on my mocks.
I’m also a raging pessimist and disaster scenario thinker. It’s a lovely way to live.
 
Like there were some parts that were straightforward, but the calculation was a series of formulas and sometimes you had to carry the one, if you missed that, you are doomed.
 
Yes, I thought majority was straight forward… about 6 or 7 item sets had me stumped but all in all wasn’t anything as brutal as the mock or topic based exams
 
PM was harder than AM and the exam read quite straightforward like it was in the previous 2 years. However, I still failed in band 10 last year…why? coz it was easy to miss a wording here of there even tho I knew the concept/formulae really well. That makes the difference between a pass or fail.
 
I finished the exam with a total under 3 hours. I found that the trick questions were the really easy ones, as in the ones that ‘look’ like freebies, but aren’t. I caught about 2-3 of those.
If there were more questions that were not straightforward in the same way, I may not pass! I barely read the vignettes other than Ethics.
 
^^^ definitely agree with that – misreading a question or not catching the wording can make a difference for something you know well….especially toward the end of the afternoon section when people are tired and can more easily miss something. The last few questions on the last item set for the afternoon are like that for me. I’m also not a fan of the double negative type questions, e.g. “least likely does not…”.
 
^^^ definitely agree with that – misreading a question or not catching the wording can make a difference for something you know well….especially toward the end of the afternoon section when people are tired and can more easily miss something. The last few questions on the last item set for the afternoon are like that for me. I’m also not a fan of the double negative type questions, e.g. “least likely does not…”.
 
On numerous occasions I went for what seemed as the clear answer first, then when I was just satisfied I actually had an answer, I re-read the case carefully and identified nuances that led to a different answer. Hopefully I picked up these catches accurately and consistently enough…
 
This thread is making me more nervous, to be honest. I felt very similar in that the mock exam was saying, “here’s a bunch of info, what do you need and what are we asking?” Whereas the real exam said, “here’s some nice orderly information, here is what we want, if you know this, just do it straight forward.”
I do believe many straight forward questions were probably “free” points if you knew a calculation or a concept, i.e. a question for the basic skill level (some on the mock like this and in the assessments). Then, a small few had a little twist to see if you paid attention.
In all, I believe that the real exam was more straight forward for many questions due to the way the question was asked or the material was presented. In the mock, information was jumbled and crammed into the vignettes and the questions were direct sometimes (it felt like most questions required you to step back and test yourself), but the real exam had a concise presentation with fewer “difficult” questions. Depending on how you fared on the official mock and assessments, it could be why you found the real exam “easier”. I don’t think it was less challenging, but it think it became easier because they presented it more clearly, which means it came down to how well you knew the material, not if you could interpret what they wanted.
 
tickersu wrote:
This thread is making me more nervous, to be honest. I felt very similar in that the mock exam was saying, “here’s a bunch of info, what do you need and what are we asking?” Whereas the real exam said, “here’s some nice orderly information, here is what we want, if you know this, just do it straight forward.”
I do believe many straight forward questions were probably “free” points if you knew a calculation or a concept, i.e. a question for the basic skill level (some on the mock like this and in the assessments). Then, a small few had a little twist to see if you paid attention. I noticed some questions that were indirect, with the first steps of logic being the most difficult or outside of the box to get rolling towards the solution.
In all, I believe that the real exam was more straight forward for many questions due to the way the question was asked or the material was presented. In the mock, information was jumbled and crammed into the vignettes and the questions were direct sometimes (it felt like most questions required you to step back and test yourself), but the real exam had a concise presentation with fewer “difficult” questions (multiple steps of calculations or thought). Depending on how you fared on the official mock and assessments, it could be why you found the real exam “easier”. I don’t think it was less challenging, but it think it became easier because they presented it more clearly, which means it came down to how well you knew the material, not if you could interpret what they wanted.
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This is basically how I feel, to every point. The vignettes were just flat out shorter and there was far less to sift through. But as I said earlier, that didn’t make it any less challenging. I think it helped with the timing and ability to focus on what you’re being asked.
It’s funny, this place sometimes makes me feel better but other times it makes me feel worse. I’m not sure why my confidence would get rattled because some people are talking about “tricks” that I didn’t see, but sure enough it is anyway.
 
I am not sure about this “tricks” theme either. I mean sure they provide other answers that you might select if you do not make the approriate adjustments in the calculations or if you do not process the information in the item sets correctly but that is always the case in the mocks/ EOC questions and the practice exams. Therefore, I am dont quite understand how one can say that they were deliberately out trick in the exam
 
tickersu wrote:
This thread is making me more nervous, to be honest. I felt very similar in that the mock exam was saying, “here’s a bunch of info, what do you need and what are we asking?” Whereas the real exam said, “here’s some nice orderly information, here is what we want, if you know this, just do it straight forward.”
I do believe many straight forward questions were probably “free” points if you knew a calculation or a concept, i.e. a question for the basic skill level (some on the mock like this and in the assessments). Then, a small few had a little twist to see if you paid attention. I noticed some questions that were indirect, with the first steps of logic being the most difficult or outside of the box to get rolling towards the solution.
In all, I believe that the real exam was more straight forward for many questions due to the way the question was asked or the material was presented. In the mock, information was jumbled and crammed into the vignettes and the questions were direct sometimes (it felt like most questions required you to step back and test yourself), but the real exam had a concise presentation with fewer “difficult” questions (multiple steps of calculations or thought). Depending on how you fared on the official mock and assessments, it could be why you found the real exam “easier”. I don’t think it was less challenging, but it think it became easier because they presented it more clearly, which means it came down to how well you knew the material, not if you could interpret what they wanted.
Click to expand...
This was my impression at first. Again, the exam seemed frightingly easy.
I catched a few tricky questions that made me chuckle, some of the questions were pretty smart in the sense that it looks easy, but there was more to it than what first comes to mind.
I just hope the rest was actually ‘straight-forward’, I know for sure that a lot of them were pretty straight-forward. Particularly FRA and Equity.
 
MrSmart wrote:
This was my impression at first. Again, the exam seemed frightingly easy.
I catched a few tricky questions that made me chuckle, some of the questions were pretty smart in the sense that it looks easy, but there was more to it than what first comes to mind.
I just hope the rest was actually ‘straight-forward’, I know for sure that a lot of them were pretty straight-forward. Particularly FRA and Equity.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I came in deathly afraid of FRA and left thinking it might have been one of my stronger areas. There was one item set in the afternoon I struggeld with on it, but the remainder I thought I crushed. Was ridiculous how easy they were compared to the CFAI online assessments in that area.
 
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