how do you think you did on CFA Level 1?

I run out of time on the AM section so relied on random guessing on about 10 questions and left a few blanc. PM section felt lighter, only the result would confirm this, however.
I reached fixed income ( I consider myself very good in it and portfolio theory as I use portfolio theory on a far more advanced level i my daily work, scored between 85-100% on the mocks on the FI and rarely under 100% on portfolio theory ) with about 20 min remaining and then thought - there were no questions on portfolio theory. Jumped a few pages and it was there, at the end of the book, which forced me to do random guessing. Thats my problem, however, can`t blame anyone for poor time management.
What I was surprised about was the way questions were asked. I see the question, I know the stuff it covers and I can`t understand what they`re asking. Of course, I`m not a native English speaker so this I expected but I never encountered questions, presented in such way, both neither in the official mocks published, or those in other older practice exams I managed to source from the internet.
I think I have failed, the randoms on the portfolio theory and the ones I did not fill at all would probably deliver the unwanted result, after studying like hell and sleeping less than 5 hours a day ( except Sundays ).
 
I thought the PM portion was a lot harder than the AM portion as well. Breezed through the AM portion but was pretty uncertain about quite a few things in the PM portion.
Everyone else around me thinks otherwise though.
 
I heard they mix up the am & pm session for each candidate. Some get the easier questions first and others get the easier one pm. I believe I had the tough one in the morning.
 
The exam was harder than expected for me too. I was scoring between 85-90% on mock exams and I was wrongly confident that the real exam will be much easier experience. I finished for 2h and 10 min for both sections and I have enough time to revise answers I wasn’t sure about. Now I think maybe that was mistake, after the exam I check one answer I’ve corrected and found first I have choosen the right answer but afterwards I left a wrong one. I hope I haven’t done that with too many questions.
I’m wondering whether we have same questions at all, I don’t remember difficult FI section you are all speaking about. I found the way the questions were formulated confusing as well as asking for too minor things. For me the PM was definetely harder.
P.S.: Fulcrum, nice to see somebody from Bulgaria on AF :).
 
Fulcrum wrote:
What I was surprised about was the way questions were asked. I see the question, I know the stuff it covers and I can`t understand what they`re asking. Of course, I`m not a native English speaker so this I expected but I never encountered questions, presented in such way, both neither in the official mocks published, or those in other older practice exams I managed to source from the internet.
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Exactly! That was my impression too because I did use the CFAI material (text, blue boxes for several topics + all EOC and mocks obviously) and yet I was perplexed at many questions. And because of time constraint I couldn’t spend 2-3 minutes trying to figure out what the question is really driving at. You have to instantly know these questions and answers otherwise a little more than 60 secs will not suffice.
 
Exactly. Even now, I have two questions in mind where I have no idea what the real intent of the question was..evern after reading the appropriate excerpts in the books again. There was a question on one of their mock exams that I can imagine is just a nightmare for someone who is not a native English speaker (it’s already a nightmare for me). I knew the answer but the way they worded it was grammatically incorrect (it faled to use the reflexive) thereby leaving the question completely open to interpretation even though I knew the material. This happens sometime when, if they used proper grammar, the question would be much clearer and they would actually be testing KNOWLEDGE and not how well you can guess…Frustrating
 
Yeah I have had this issue throughout my life. I’m Hungarian and the structure of the two languages is chalk and cheese from each other. I always admire the use of commas for example (I mean that English practically doens’t use commas). But in real life you can ask back and then it becomes clear. In the test you obviously cannot ask back, you instantly should get what they ask for.
Strangely enough in ethics afer plenty of exercises I don’t have this problem. But in such “straightforward” topics like FRA I’m sometimes lost until I find out what the question (or the answer means).
 
The exam was harder than I expected. I read all the text, did all the EOCs and around 1500 Q bank questions. I was 75ish on both the CFA mocks. If the MPS is 67 or 68 I’d say it’s 50/50 for me.
 
Have any of you had the chance to look up the answer to questions you had made an educated guess on? How have you fared?
 
I looked up one question I guess on in Economics and got it right. nearly positive i didn’t not change my answer although I distinctly remember spending a few extra minutes at the end of my exam thinking it through. I don’t remember having a reasonable basis to change my answer
 
Mosstastic, I have remembered 63 questions so far. I think - and hope - these are the questions I was waffling on. I can’t remember any of the ones I just knew the answer to …I quickly did those and moved on. Of the 63, unfortunately, I got 39 of them wrong and 24 right….Not great but hoping those were, like I said, the most difficult. A few of them - an ethics question, in particular - I can’t answer even with the book…
 
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