'If you think you've nailed it you've definitely failed' nonsense

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mattmania

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After the exam, there were a few people saying that if you think you did really well in the AM you’ve likely failed, and if you didn’t explicitaly see the tricks in the PM then you’ve done badly there.
For those still active in AF next year, can we please stop this practice. We’re supposed to be trained analytical thinkers and this is not a reasable assumption. If someone is confident it generally means they’ve understood most of the material and they didn’t have any disasters completing the exam paper. Surely these people have a higher chance of passing than those who felt they did badly.
For empirical evidence, I was hoping to get some in this thread (although many passers will have abandoned AF by now). From an anecdotal view, everyone I spoke with who said they were confident passed. I’ve seen very few of these ‘tricks’ throughout these 3 levels (only saw one in L3) yet I got over 70 in all the multiple chocie areas except L2 ethics. As others have mentioned what some people consider a ‘trick’ others may consider a valid extension to a basic problem, or something they’ve seen before.
I understand there are exceptions, but generally if someone is confident they’ve done well. We all have enough stress without worrying whether the exam felt easy because we’ve completely missed the point.
 
I was skeptical about my results, I had no idea how I did in the AM and PM felt okay.
 
I was quite confident I passed even though I knew I probably screwed up one full item set completely on the AM but did ok on the rest, PM was quite easy for me.
 
I saw a lot of people also talking about tricks for Level II this year, which was strange, since I didn’t see any. Got me worried for a little bit until I received my pass results. It is a pretty silly practice.
 
I walked out of the exam giving myself a 25%-30% chance at passing. When i took the exam, i thought i did fairly well on the AM, and very bad on the PM.
Turns out, i did much worse on the AM and much better on the PM than originally thought… end result: Pass.
 
I would let it go. People will always say what is on their mind. Throughout the testing process, the only thing in our control is how well we prepare ourselves, so remember to stay focused on that.
My own belief is that there’s no telling how you did. A feeling of confidence could be genuine and it could also be a false impression as you described in the original post.
Let this go, and if you’re going to start studying for next June, then just stay focused on that. Do the best you can and let these phrases or words that others have go.
 
my experience from this exam would have me agreeing with the op’s post.
i knew the morning session was particularly challenging for me, both in terms of material and time constraints. and i felt that the afternoon session was much more straightforward, with the exception of ethics.
after trolling through this forum, i started feeling paranoid that i had missed the “tricks” in the afternoon session since it felt so straightforward to me.
in the end, my test results were quite reflective of my thoughts as i was walking out of the exam room; cruddy performance overall in the morning session, and decent results in the afternoon session, except for ethics :D
another post that i read in this forum may help mitigate the feeling that you may have been tricked by a question: the advice was to select (what you think is) the right answer, but then spend a couple more minutes on the question determining what incorrect path would lead you to to choosing the two other (allegedly incorrect) answers.
if i’d taken that approach, i think i would have been more resistant to the paranoia elicited by this forum.
 
Agree 100% with mattmania. I passed all three exams on my first attempt and these were my post-exam thoughts –
1) Felt like I aced Level 1 – ended up getting above 70% in all but one category
2) Felt very unsure/uneasy about Level 2 (actually thought I was going to fail) – ended up passing, but cut it kind of close
3) Felt very, very good about Level 3 – ended up passing by a decent sized margin, but my AM score was a tad lower than expected (I think I would have benefited from more bullets/key-words, as I ended up writing in full sentence form)
In summary, I passed every exam that I felt good about, and actually ended up passing one that I didn’t even feel good about. In general, I think members of AF hold themselves to higher standards, and strive for perfection. If you think you did well, I’d imagine that chances are that you did in fact do fairly well.
 
For all 5 exams I took - 2 fail and 3 pass I did exactly as I thought. The only area this year that I was surprised at was Ethics which I thought I nailed and only got 51-70%. Usually your instincts after you walk out of the exam room are correct.
There are no tricks on these exams, I found them to be very straight forward. You just have to know 100% of the material because it’s a total wild card as to what will be on them. Maybe 50% of the material is on the exam and trying to guess what that 50% will be is not a good idea. You have to know it all. Also beware of certain small sections being overweighted. And old exams should be used as a guide, not a predictor of futrue exam questions. That will get you in trouble also.
 
You are right mattmania, OP
I’ve written about this common “practice” in AF. It’s a fetish.
“The day after the exam, you will see people at this forum talking about all the “hidden traps” that they saw at the exam. It is a fetish since we cannot talk about the exam. Relax, the exam is pretty much the same as mocks. By that time, you should already know the traps, mines, jokes, whatever. I left the exam feeling awesome (guessing I`ve done around 75%). Got less confident when I saw the posts here. Final results: passed with 70+ in Equity and FRA and 4 others topics….”
http://www.analystforum.com/forums/cfa-forums/cfa-level-ii-forum/91334744
 
I was not sure on any level whether I passed or not. Every time I passed, I passed with most if not all with >70% but I left the room with no idea as to what will happen.
 
There’s definitely a difference between “i thought i did well” and ” i aced the exam”. I was in the latter camp last year and I ended up bombing the AM section. After reading through the 2014 exam, when the CFAI published it, I realized that I missed almost every “trick”.
 
On L1, I thought there was a chance I failed and got >70 in every category. L2, thought I nailed it and did. L3, thought it could go either way and unfortunately got band 10. Anyhow, got fooled on L1 but my gut instinct was right on L2 and L3.
 
Chuckrox8 wrote:
There’s definitely a difference between “i thought i did well” and ” i aced the exam”. I was in the latter camp last year and I ended up bombing the AM section. After reading through the 2014 exam, when the CFAI published it, I realized that I missed almost every “trick”.
Click to expand...
How bad was your AM last year?
 
I think frame of reference is important. If a person who has been getting 50-60% on mocks say they aced it.. probably failed. If a person who’s been getting 80% says the same thing…probably aced it.
 
I knew I crushed the exam walking out of there. I also had a real good feeling at the lunch break knowing I had smashed the AM. Compared to last year I felt 50:50 and wound up failing.Band 6.
Similar story in Level 1. I felt okay after the exam and ended up in Band 10 h**l. When I resat the exam, I knew I passed.
 
Mmmm then again i’ll have nfi how I’m gonna go for L3… probably fail again given my past history.
 
bertran75 wrote:
Chuckrox8 wrote:
There’s definitely a difference between “i thought i did well” and ” i aced the exam”. I was in the latter camp last year and I ended up bombing the AM section. After reading through the 2014 exam, when the CFAI published it, I realized that I missed almost every “trick”.
Click to expand...
How bad was your AM last year?
Click to expand...
I think I passed only 3 questions and was <50 on 5 or 6 questions. I was expecting to see >70 on 7+ questions. AM could have been salvageable with a great PM score, but I didn’t do that well there either.
 
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