Mock Exam vs. Real Test

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Apollo2012

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Just curious if anyone can share what they think of the mock exams vs. the real test. I have taken 2 CFAI mock exams so far, the 2010 and 2013 MEs, and have scored a 60% on both. Is anyone else having trouble like this? Are the mock exams harder than the actual exam or is this what should be expected on test day?
 
Where exactly did you get the 2010 mock?
Also, I will take the 2013 mock exam this Saturday and post my result here. Have you taken any Schweser mocks? I have taken 2 Schweser Mocks and have scored a 78 and an 83 on those, but I wont know how they compare to the CFA mock until this Saturday. I too am curious how the CFA mock compares to the real exam.
 
Apollo2012 wrote:
Just curious if anyone can share what they think of the mock exams vs. the real test. I have taken 2 CFAI mock exams so far, the 2010 and 2013 MEs, and have scored a 60% on both. Is anyone else having trouble like this? Are the mock exams harder than the actual exam or is this what should be expected on test day?
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Pretty much the same. Mocks are maybe a tad more difficult, but very much what you can expect on exam day.
Keep grinding away on your mocks! And review!
 
I’m taking the 2013 mock this Saturday too. I haven’t given any mocks yet. I have been giving Study session wise tests from the Qbanks so far. Scoring between 60-80 on them.
If you can link me to prior year mocks that would be helpful.
 
From my experience, CFA I mock exams fairly represent the actual exam.
But, I have also heard from my friends who wrote (and cleared) CFA examinations that actual exams are a bit easier when compared to the mock exams of CFAI.
So, if you are scoring 60% in mocks, you are pretty much in the race I would say :)
 
LI i found the actual exam easier than the mock/schweser practice tests.
LII, I thought it varied by section/topic
LIII is hard to compare, since you have access to real morning exams - therefore that’s as close to real as you can get.
 
This is a bit off topic. I took the CFA sample exam 2 and I think I found a mistake.
There was an econ question that gave you a diagram of a supply and demand graph regarding tariffs. The boxes and triangles (consumer surplus, producer surplus, etc.) were labeled A - E but the multiple choice asks you what’s the change in government revenue but labels it L, M or M+N or something like that.
Did anyone else notice this?
 
hei.so wrote:
This is a bit off topic. I took the CFA sample exam 2 and I think I found a mistake.
There was an econ question that gave you a diagram of a supply and demand graph regarding tariffs. The boxes and triangles (consumer surplus, producer surplus, etc.) were labeled A - E but the multiple choice asks you what’s the change in government revenue but labels it L, M or M+N or something like that.
Did anyone else notice this?
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Yes, this was a mistake. I used some reasoning and just shifted the alphabet to the letters they used and put them in alphabetical order in their boxes and got the right answer. They mismatched letters.
 
Just finished with the morning session. Much harder than I expected. Got pounded on topics I thought I knew well. Scored 63% and this involved fair amount of guesswork too.
I’m taking a break and lets see how the afternoon session turns out.
 
Finished with a marathon session of the CFAI mock exam. Did pretty bad. Was short of time too! Just managed to touch a 61%. Any others who dont mind sharing their scores?
Hoping the real one doesnt get the better of me. One more week and hopefully we all will have Level 1 behind us. All the best guys!
 
I just did the morning sesh of the CFAI mock and found it much more wordy than the elan and kaplan exams. Also, I feel like the plug-n-chug questions were much more involved on the CFAI mock…I ran way short on time. I scored a 63 on the morning session, I dont have time to do the afternoon today so I will have to finish tomorrow. Anyone else feeling rushed in these exams? I tend to have to read the question multiple times, trying to work on it tho! 1 more week guys!!!
 
I ended up with a 77% on the CFA mock. Just finished.
I got an 80% on the morning and a 74% in the afternoon. The afternoon was noticeably more difficult. The CFAI Mock in general was much trickier than anything I have yet to take. I plan on spending the rest of the day reviewing what I got wrong. Ethics were tricky. Econ was much more in-depth than I thought it would be.
Hardest two sections were easily economics and ethics.
 
kpollar1 wrote:
I just did the morning sesh of the CFAI mock and found it much more wordy than the elan and kaplan exams. Also, I feel like the plug-n-chug questions were much more involved on the CFAI mock…I ran way short on time. I scored a 63 on the morning session, I dont have time to do the afternoon today so I will have to finish tomorrow. Anyone else feeling rushed in these exams? I tend to have to read the question multiple times, trying to work on it tho! 1 more week guys!!!
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I was like 15 minutes over time for the morning session and realized that getting stuck on one or two questions trying to get those extra points in those sections gave me no time for alternate investments and portfolio management. So for the afternoon session stratergized to use 1 minute lesser than the actual allocated time in each which really worked to give me 10 extra minutes in the end to go back to questions incase I missed them.
 
rayankh wrote:
I ended up with a 77% on the CFA mock. Just finished.
I got an 80% on the morning and a 74% in the afternoon. The afternoon was noticeably more difficult. The CFAI Mock in general was much trickier than anything I have yet to take. I plan on spending the rest of the day reviewing what I got wrong. Ethics were tricky. Econ was much more in-depth than I thought it would be.
Hardest two sections were easily economics and ethics.
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That is a really good score. Did you feel pushed for time?
 
I took December exam last year about 6 months ago. Mock is definately harder.
My score band was 10 last time. (meaning I was in top 10% within people who failed the exam)
My average score on mock exam and qbanks were about 65 with 2.5-ish standard deviation lol.
 
Jaishank wrote:
rayankh wrote:
I ended up with a 77% on the CFA mock. Just finished.
I got an 80% on the morning and a 74% in the afternoon. The afternoon was noticeably more difficult. The CFAI Mock in general was much trickier than anything I have yet to take. I plan on spending the rest of the day reviewing what I got wrong. Ethics were tricky. Econ was much more in-depth than I thought it would be.
Hardest two sections were easily economics and ethics.
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That is a really good score. Did you feel pushed for time?
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Thanks man. I’m willing to bet the stress and pressure on exam day will make me miss a couple of questions stupidly, so I’m still not extremely comfortable even with that margin.
Actually, I was pressed for time. It normally takes me 4 and a half hours out of the 6 total hours available for every single Schweser Mock that I have taken. With this one, I finished only a minute early on the morning session and 10 minutes early on the afternoon session. I know it was mainly because I was reading ethics very carefully, but to be honest the exam just asked more time consuming questions in my opinion.
 
Considering the time we have left and I really need to fill in my gaps, would you suggest that I do couple of mock papers, really keen on the online schweser mock to check my scores compared to others, or just do the qbank questions.
 
How much time do you have? Do you have all day for the next week? If so, I would recommend Schweser Mocks for the next 3 days for morning until you get done. Then when you are done, use the remainder of the day to review your answers - what you got wrong and how to do it right. Then the next day, hit another practice test, and review again. You should find yourself getting stronger in doing this. If you don’t have time and are considering Qbank, don’t - still do Mocks, even if that means not in a timed situation. It’s better to know the different ways questions will be asked of you on the test. I found Qbank is good for practicing a topic you are not comfortable with and strengthening your knowledge in that area (which is what I used it for), but when it comes to preparing for the actual exam, the questions asked on the mocks are hands down better.
 
75% for the morning and 72% for the afternoon for CFAI mock. I thought the morning ethics section was tricky and that showed in my 9 wrong answers in that section. The afternoon FRA destroyed me.
I had been consistently getting between 75 and 80% for schweser mocks so this is about what I expected. Time isn’t an issue for me as I finished both sections with 45 minutes to spare so hopefully on test day I can keep up the pace but make a few less stupid mistakes.
 
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