If the exam is just like the mock, GOD help us all !!!!!

If you are on this forum, you are probably in the upper percentile of the distribution. Mock is usually harder than the actual one, they said. Just do your best and improve bit by bit, its not like the value of you = passing exam…
 
I’m not worried so much if the difficulty of concepts tested is equivalent or even a little harder than the Mock.
I’m far more concerned if the lack of clarity is on par with what’s demonstrated on the Mock.
 
^^^agreed. I guess it makes sense that they wait almost 2 months to release results to a multiple choice test. They have to absolutely break the test down as much as possible. Problem is, ok if they figure out a question is bad and the right answer isn’t there, sure, they can adjust the MPS downwards. But that doesn’t take away the fact that I spent 10 mintues on that one question b/c the right answer wasn’t listed.
2 comments.. I would hope they would put a little more time into the actual exam versus the mock to reduce these problems. And secondly, this point speaks to managing your time. Remember every question is the same amount of points, so if you can’t figure something out, mark and answer for now and revisit it if you have time. Not worth rushing through the last item set that you may know pretty well b/c you spun your wheels on some dumb swap for a 15 minutes.
 
blackomen wrote:
I’m not worried so much if the difficulty of concepts tested is equivalent or even a little harder than the Mock.
I’m far more concerned if the lack of clarity is on par with what’s demonstrated on the Mock.
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That. I’m actually almost hoping they lean on the side of quantitative over qualitative in terms of # of questions. If I get a question wrong, I’d rather it be because of some formulaic miscue than some subjective interpretation of a concept or definition. I’m obviously not the biggest fan of the ethics section, lol.
 
I took the mock yesterday and I was appaled that I got an even 60%, plus I ran out of time and had to guess the last two problems.
That’s lower than I got on all the Schweiser mocks (I was ranging from high 60’s to 80 on those), and I finished most of those with a 30 minute surplus at the end.
I was hoping I’d break a 70 on it and finish with time to spare, but that didn’t happen. The FRA section was particularly brutal - it was one of my strong points on the Schweisers and here it was a totally differnet beast. There were other Schweiser omitted things here too, like the Molodovsy effect and Ibbotson Chen.
I feel the smarter thing would have been for me to have done this a week earlier, I shouldn’t have waited this long.
Either way it seems from all the comments here that everyone had a similar experience and I’ve heard of people doing in the 50’s on the mocks and passing the real thing so I’m not that concerned. Like I’ve said in other posts, its graded on a curve - what matters the most is how everyone else does. If everyone was scoring in the 70’s or 80’s here I’d be extremely concerned right now.
I’m going to review the mock answers a second time and use those to help fill in the gaps (esp with the FRA material). And after 12 pm tomorrow I’m just totally chilling, otherwise whatever marginal knowledge I may gain will come at serious cost to focus and performance on Saturday.
 
Giovanni wrote:
Like I’ve said in other posts, its graded on a curve - what matters the most is how everyone else does. If everyone was scoring in the 70’s or 80’s here I’d be extremely concerned right now.
I’m going to review the mock answers a second time and use those to help fill in the gaps (esp with the FRA material). And after 12 pm tomorrow I’m just totally chilling, otherwise whatever marginal knowledge I may gain will come at serious cost to focus and performance on Saturday.
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Graded on a curve? So if MPS is 64% based on the curve, the absolute score you need to bang on the exam in order to pass is around 55% range?
Rookie question i know, since most candidates know how the exam is scored, but i personally never paid attention to it, and just tried to score the best i can.
 
mpearc4 wrote:
^^^agreed. I guess it makes sense that they wait almost 2 months to release results to a multiple choice test. They have to absolutely break the test down as much as possible. Problem is, ok if they figure out a question is bad and the right answer isn’t there, sure, they can adjust the MPS downwards. But that doesn’t take away the fact that I spent 10 mintues on that one question b/c the right answer wasn’t listed.
2 comments.. I would hope they would put a little more time into the actual exam versus the mock to reduce these problems. And secondly, this point speaks to managing your time. Remember every question is the same amount of points, so if you can’t figure something out, mark and answer for now and revisit it if you have time. Not worth rushing through the last item set that you may know pretty well b/c you spun your wheels on some dumb swap for a 15 minutes.
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I always wondered how many questions they actually omit or “correct” post exam especially since we’re not allowed to discuss the exam after the fact. I highly doubt they spend that much time reviewing the test that is distributed. They could really care less who passes and who fails.
 
mpearc4 wrote:
But that doesn’t take away the fact that I spent 10 mintues on that one question b/c the right answer wasn’t listed.
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This is a fatal mistake.
You need to do better at elimination.
You must select the best answer among available choices. Not look for an answer you want. Most times you won’t find the answer you’re looking for.
The correct answer is always what CFAI says. NOT what you say.
You need to game this exam. You need to be a lot more modest and exploit it as best you can.
 
Clark_CFA_Candidate wrote:
mpearc4 wrote:
But that doesn’t take away the fact that I spent 10 mintues on that one question b/c the right answer wasn’t listed.
Click to expand...
This is a fatal mistake.
You need to do better at elimination.
You must select the best answer among available choices. Not look for an answer you want. Most times you won’t find the answer you’re looking for.
The correct answer is always what CFAI says. NOT what you say.
You need to game this exam. You need to be a lot more modest and exploit is as best you can.
Click to expand...
This is exactly correct. I remember a friend in University that would always try to argue HIS answer was technically more correct, but the profs never bought it and neither will the CFAI. Don’t be smarter than the exam.
 
dailygrind wrote:
Graded on a curve? So if MPS is 64% based on the curve, the absolute score you need to bang on the exam in order to pass is around 55% range?
Rookie question i know, since most candidates know how the exam is scored, but i personally never paid attention to it, and just tried to score the best i can.
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I can’t say whether you will pass with a 55% or whatever, because it appears there never has been an easy way to correlate the results of the CFAI or other mock exams with the actual test results.
The bottom line is they want a certain percent to pass and fail, sorta like in business school, and they appear to set the MPS to reflect that. So in the end, whether you pass or fail all has to do with how well your competition is doing.
Otherwise, you’d likely see greater variance in pass/fail rates.
 
CFA ANALYST wrote:
I can’t agree more. I hate the amount of time that swaps take.
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I’m seriously thinking of bailing on those questions, too many numbers to play with and too much opportunity for error.
If it reaches out to another question then I’ll simply guess on both and then mark them for review after I’ve safely done the other questions.
My main core competency is qualitative stuff.
 
Giovanni wrote:
CFA ANALYST wrote:
I can’t agree more. I hate the amount of time that swaps take.
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I’m seriously thinking of bailing on those questions, too many numbers to play with and too much opportunity for error.
If it reaches out to another question then I’ll simply guess on both and then mark them for review after I’ve safely done the other questions.
My main core competency is qualitative stuff.
Click to expand...
Same thing for most of the accounting questions.. i’m faring a little better on swaps than those.
 
If they give a 3 assets standard divination question like on mock, my answer is immediately B unless I have time left over
 
xuebaoht01 wrote:
If they give a 3 assets standard divination question like on mock, my answer is immediately B unless I have time left over
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Wow. I would be ecstatic. thats a total lay up, plug and chug.
 
xuebaoht01 wrote:
If they give a 3 assets standard divination question like on mock, my answer is immediately B unless I have time left over
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I thoughtt that was a give me question lol
 
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