Hardest Area of CFA Exam?

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spartanag07

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What subject on the CFA Exam do you think is the hardest and will give you the most trouble?
 
Completely subjective. Based on education, experience and intelligence, among countless other things.
A fatal LI candidate mistake is underestimating the Ethics section. It's got the second-highest point allocation after FSA and CFAI is definitely going to make these questions difficult to interpret.
 
I found FSA the hardest and the options chapters in the derivatives section. But the weightage of derivatives is small so we can get away with it. But FSA questions are really killers.
 
Agree that it's really subjective.. If yr undergraduate training is in Accountings, FSA could be a walk in the park.. But Ethics is prob cold to all and could be a potential trouble..
 
Ethics and FSA I'd say. The other areas are not too important anyway, but those two key areas I also found hardest. The afternoon FSA questions were rather tricky and Ethics is a bit hard to prepare for because you can't always trust your gut feeling...
 
Quant was hardest to learn but not the hardest on the exam. I think the hardest part of the exam was portfolio mgmt because it was the longest.
 
As you can see there is no single area that is easy. You need to be thorough with all the topics.
 
For the June exam, definitely the (afternoon section) of Econ and Ethics---absolutely brutal. Unfortunately, Ethics is one section that you can study and study and study and....but you can STILL do terrible on.
 
i agree with wdwatson, u cant nail ethics, even with an open book, you still cant be sure of the answers! but you can nail GIPS, i wish i gave that more weight when i studied, there were at least 5 questions on gips...
 
The hardest subject is deciding which subject is the hardest.
 
Read debt/Bonds valuation a lot...... apart from usual tough section i found this one supremely tough in June 07..... I was confident of clearing had i been anywhere near my thrshold confidence level in this area....
 
On the past test, even though we only got 12 questions, Portfolio Management was everest. However, as others have pointed out, it was ONLY 12 questions. So, from an overall bang for your buck difficulty section, you've got to go with Ethics. I got to the point where I did so many Ethics questions that it was detrimental. It's the worst because it's so easy to second guess and you read into the question so much because nothing is tangible. Hellish.
 
anu21v Wrote:
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> Read debt/Bonds valuation a lot...... apart from
> usual tough section i found this one supremely
> tough in June 07..... I was confident of clearing
> had i been anywhere near my thrshold confidence
> level in this area....


---I totally agree!!! This section was really tough in June...I didn't expect it to be that difficult at all...
 
wow...nobody here mentioned derivatives. Does that mean its the easiest?..I found reading Ethics was the easiest, however the hardest when it came to answering the question. There's quite a lot of room for subjective second guessing
 
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