Horrible Practice Exam Scores

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CFALOBO

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Completed my first two Schweser practice exams – morning and afternoon portions. Scores range between 50 and 55%. I’m killing ethics, but I’m bombing quant., econ., and FRA. I just can’t remember everything. So frustrated because I’ve had academic success in the past –> BBA, JD, passed bar exam. I plan to take exams and review wrong answers until exam day. Anyone pass but go through the same frustration? Thank you in advance for you help…
 
wow you did your JD and passed the bar and you came back to do CFA? i don’t know if i should congratulate you or feel bad for you…. ^_^
I think if you are keen on completing CFA, you will have to spend all your effort mastering FRA first, and then econ, and lastly quant.
The best way to get through FRA is to make some accounting friends who wouldn’t mind answering the most stupid questions. they need not to be in CFA program, they just need to have a degree in accounting and preferably a working accountant.
Next is probably video lectures, if you understand the concepts of each financial statement, how numbers move from one place to another, you are half way through L1. So you can probably get through it faster if you get the big picture first.
And this forum is your resource! come ask specific question if you are stuck!

BEST OF LUCK!
NANA
 
Exam scores are improving - 65 to 68%. I think I’ll be in good shape as long as I continue to test, review answers, and re-re-read concepts that aren’t so clear. What surprises but scares me most is I’m getting answers right without fully understanding a concept. Not sure if it will break or make me on test day…
 
I have a good friend who is an attorney (and magician), who goes by LobowolfXXX; funny.
How you do on the practice/mock exams doesn’t matter. What matters is whether you’re learning from your mistakes: if you don’t repeat them on the real exam.
Work as many questions as you can, and do as many practice/mock exams as you can; ideally, try to replicate exam conditions (3-hour morning session, lunch break, 3-hour afternoon session) for your practice/mock exams. Study the areas where you missed a question, and press on.
 
After giving any mock, try to analyze where you went wrong and where you were performing well. Now trick is to work on each and every question again to find out whether you were right or wrong in your approach in every question in order to get answer. This is more difficult part then giving mock and will take much more time than actual mock but is more important as this lets you know what you did and more importantly you will remember the mistake made over here at least till exam. So do this and work on topics on which you did not performed well.
 
Thank you all for your recommendations, sincerely.
For every question I get wrong, I review the answer and work the problem again. I do the same for questions I get right but had to guess.
 
Also review the questions you got right and understand how you went about answering these questions correctly.
 
Happy to say that I’m consistently scoring over 65% now. Pratice exams and reviewing right and wrong answers is certainly helping. Can’t wait to leave the office and do some more tonight. Going to push until test day.
I never thought you all would be so helpful. Again, thank you…
 
Hi everyone,
my main mistakes are coming from FRA problems, what is the most efficient way you guys are trying to implement to improve this specific part?
thank you and good luck for the remaing weeks til the test
 
I had trouble with FRA at first. Now I’m scoring between 65 to 70% with 4 weeks to go. How am I doing it? Lots of PRACTICE PROBLEMS and re-visiting unclear concepts in the Schweser notes.
Study hard and good luck!
 
Spent all weekend reviewing questions I had trouble with on previous practice exams. I will take two exams this week and review their solutions. Not sure if I should spend time reviewing solutions to past exam questions and continue to take new exams or just take new exams and review their solutions.
 
Hola amigo!
Need some advice!
I’m also doing my Bachelor of Laws degree while studying for CFA level 1. It is on June 2014, so have some time at hand. I’ve already completed a degree in Finance with a second upper pass hence I assume level 1 won’t be that challenging. Plus I took a Valuation course (online) conducted by Prof. Aswath Damodaran.
I’m interesed in knowing, as you’re a lawyer, what motivated you to pursue CFA. Do you think LAW plus CFA combination can guarantee a good job? (I have a ambition of working in an U.N organization like IMF).
I’m 23 years old and haven’t decided on my carrer path yet. hope you can give some advice on this.
I’m sorry if I runied your vauble time with this post.
I wish you all the best for your exam!
 
CFALOBO wrote:
I had trouble with FRA at first. Now I’m scoring between 65 to 70% with 4 weeks to go. How am I doing it? Lots of PRACTICE PROBLEMS and re-visiting unclear concepts in the Schweser notes.
Study hard and good luck!
Click to expand...
I like your odds of passing. Just stick with the habits that got you this far and finish strong. For what it’s worth, my highest practice exam score was 61% (three weeks prior to exam day) and I still cleared Level I.
 
I chose law to diversify my education. I have the option to practice law on my own, for a firm, or as in-house. Lawyers are also running corporations these days, so I believe the opportunities are endless. I’m currently a securities litigation attorney, so imagine what the CFA (or just passing all 3 exams) can do for your reputation as an attorney or expert. My real passion is asset management, so that’s what I’m going for long-term. Before law school, I was a financial advisor at one of the big name broker-dealers, and I loved it. Portfolio manager is my next goal.
Good luck in your studies and all your endeavors!
 
Thanks a million, buddy! I’ve been thinking about your post for days now, so it’s such a coincidence that you commented on my thread. I just couldn’t digest the fact that you failed every single practice exam and still passed the actual exam. I’m stuck between 61 and 67% right now, and I don’t feel so good about passing. Is the actual exam more straight forward? Must be if you passed it after having failed all your practice exams. That’s all I can think of. Again, thanks for your encouragement.
 
And I continue to fail practice exams.. The only thing that keeps me hopeful is the amount of time I have left until test day. It’s extremely discouraging because I’ve read everything cover to cover, completed all end of LOS questions, and have completed 3 exams so far. I come home from work, eat dinner, and study from 8:30 to midnight every day. I stay in on weekends in order to put the time in to pass when I should be relaxing and socializing with friends. I’d really like to pass all three levels because it would add so much credibility to my practice. If I can’t pass level 1 on the first try, I’m not sure if I would take it again simply because it’s killing my quality of life. All I do know is if I don’t pass, it’s not because I didn’t put the time in…
 
Have you tried CFAI mock exam?
When i did my L1 last year i used combination of schweser/elan/ cfai mocks. It started with 45 with elan, 55 or 60 with schweser and ended up with 73 just two days before exam.
You have more time than i did last year. Just keep on practising, review, assess. Over and over. Read summary and eoc and example black boxes for those that you failed to answer correctly.
 
62% on Schweser exam 3. Will do CFAI mock this weekend. My problem is not understanding the concepts, it’s remembering everything. I hope the actual test is more straight forward.
Thanks for your advice and encouragement. I’ll do nothing but test and review until Dec. 7. I hope I can pass…
 
Did my first two Schweser practice tests this weekend. Scored in the mid 50s. Then just for practice did a 60 question quiz and scored in the 60s.
CFALOBO, not sure if this is accurate or not but someone who took it in June said that Schweser makes their stuff pretty complicated, as in the questions are long (Timothy Karma, CFA works for Blah Blah Securities and is a 2nd year analyst. Wrote an option a….. etc etc) .. CFAI questions are more to the point.
Anyway like yourself will try the Schweser mock this weekend. Am scheduled for an actual timed mock here at the local university next Sat on the 23rd. Will let you know how things go.
 
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