Mechanical pencils?

C

chibwack

New member
Joined
Jun 18, 2026
Messages
0
Reaction score
0
I haven’t been able to find anything on the CFAI website about this, so can we use mechanical pencils for the exam?
 
Yes, I believe the mechanical pencil equivalent to #2 is HB. Used mechanicals for all my exams and never had a problem.
 
Yes, I used a mechanical pencil for L1 and passed so I wont be changing this strategy anytime soon.
 
I used mechanical pencils, too. Just make sure that you have the HB lead, not 2B or 2H.
 
I used the same 2 mechanical pencils for all 3 levels. They were my lucky pencils….Pentel .7mm drafting pencils. I am glad i used pencil for level 3 especially.
 
My lucky pencil was a Faber Castell 0.7mm. The lead doesn’t break as easily as 0.5mm if you drop it. I’m upset that I’ve lost that pencil…hoping it’s somewhere in the house & will show up eventually.
 
I don’t like 0.7mm lead. It’s too thick, and the lines on the paper are too thick. I use 0.5mm lead, and use 2B. 2B shows up better against the lined notebook paper. I took all the lead out and changed to HB for the exam.
 
PalacioHill wrote:
I used the same 2 mechanical pencils for all 3 levels. They were my lucky pencils….Pentel .7mm drafting pencils. I am glad i used pencil for level 3 especially.
Click to expand...
I love these pencils. My office is too cheap to buy them anymore though, so I’m stuck with Paper Mate Sharpwriters.
 
Man, my Level 3 paper was the worst. I finished a bit early, so I went back and changed a lot of answers. There would be whole paragraphs which were crossed out, and then, there was an arrow going to another page that says “read this one instead”. Maybe I should have used pencil instead of pen. In fact, people are so used to typing now, that it’s hard to write whole written answers without being able to go back and edit text.
 
I hate .5MM lead because I always break it and sometimes it will cut through really thin paper.
Handwriting is definitely a lost art as everyone types almost everything. My cursive is so illegible so I had to write in print on the exams which is much slower but at least it is somewha legible. Now I can’t write in cursive anymore because I got so used to printing while I was studying for the exams. It makes me wonder if kids 20 years from now will even know how to hold a pencil.
 
On this exam, go for 0.7mm. It fills in the ovals faster, and that’s what matters here.
For regular stuff, I do like the 0.5mm leads. Though these days I do almost everything electronic or in pen, so I’m working on memories here.
 
bchadwick wrote:
On this exam, go for 0.7mm. It fills in the ovals faster, and that’s what matters here.
For regular stuff, I do like the 0.5mm leads. Though these days I do almost everything electronic or in pen, so I’m working on memories here.
Click to expand...
Last time I used a pencil was probably grade school. All I remember is the lead getting all over the bottom of my hand and making a mess of my clothes. So, not looking forward to this.
 
Arent we making this all too complicated? Arent there more things to worry about than the pencil to be chosen? Any simple HB pencil would do, I borrowed couple from my son’s school box.
 
If choosing which pencil to bring is you’re biggest worry, I think you’re ready for the exam.
 
former trader wrote:
If choosing which pencil to bring is you’re biggest worry, I think you’re ready for the exam.
Click to expand...
Almost. Need to sort out the finer details like which eraser, how many calculators, what to put in the lunch box, how many Red Bulls to drink during the lunch break …
 
sooraj wrote:
Arent we making this all too complicated? Arent there more things to worry about than the pencil to be chosen? Any simple HB pencil would do, I borrowed couple from my son’s school box.
Click to expand...
Just wait until he discovers erasable pens!
 
PalacioHill wrote:
Now I can’t write in cursive anymore because I got so used to printing while I was studying for the exams. It makes me wonder if kids 20 years from now will even know how to hold a pencil.
Click to expand...
Glad it’s not just me. I tried to write a sentence in cursive a few years ago and couldn’t do it. All those A’s in penmanship seem so hollow now. I wonder if they even still print the paper with the dashed line in the middle so you know how high to make your lowercase letters?
 
former trader wrote:
2 calculators. Don’t let all this work go to waste due to a black swan event.
Click to expand...
A true black swan would make both calculators useless. ;-)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top