Mock Exams

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rexthedog

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Starting tomorrow I will be getting on mocks. Though I have covered the material comprehensively and done many questions along the way, I have not honed my studies in yet with all the small details of formulas and accounting rules etc.
When you all started your mocks were you doing them totally closed book or still with reference to notes in some tricky areas? Obviously the closer it gets to exam day and with more practice there will be less and less need to use these notes but I am not sure I am in a position to do a closed book mock yet.
How have you all been tackling these?
 
I’d recommend doing them closed book. At this point we have to rip the training wheels off the bike and go along for the ride, skinned knees and all. If you can’t remember how to work a particular problem or a formula, guess and move on. That’s what you’d have to do on the exam. Then thoroughly review all of the answers (both correct and incorrect) and work the problems yourself for calculations you couldn’t remember or didn’t understand. Rule of thumb is to spend at least 1 to 1.5 times the 6 hour exam time reviewing answers and working through the math yourself if you got something wrong. So 6 to 9 hours or more of review per mock.
That’s my personal opinion anyways. Everyone learns differently though so attack it in a way you think works best for you.
 
Rex definitely take the training wheels off and rip through them.
let me ask you this: have you done any topic tests from the CFA website? They (to me at least) are way harder than the schweser mocks….
also: what are you hearing about the MPS? I’ve heard everything from “you’re screwed if you’re getting below 66, to “MPS is 58 because everyone sucks” haha
 
I did the EOC PP with reference to an equations sheet. but always tried to learn them a little better each time, and would usually write an equation twice when solving every problem.
I do mocks and topic tests without any notes (though might hit flash cards 5 min before).
if you are missing 50% of mock questions because of memorizing equations, i’d say keep referencing a sheet, but build in a step where you drill the equation. like, write it 5 times or whatever. But at somepoint – last 8-10 days, you’ve got to start testing that gap so you can focus on pure memorization.
 
Last year I got 50% in mock but failed in Band 10, ( ethics, econ and PM failed), so even you get 50, I think you have a chance
Cheers
 
Please clarify. When you said you got a 50 on a mock do you mean that was your highest score or the avg of a bunch of mocks?
like did you take 6 mocks and got as high as a 65 but then failed the actual exam?
 
got 50 only in one official mock and not on several mocks
Later my score started improving. I did all the EOC questions again.
So, what I meant was : If you get 50 in the official Mock today, you still have 2 weeks to improve and there are high chances of passing
I missed by a whisker last year
Hope to crack this time
 
saurabhm - how did you find mock relative to actually sitting the actual exam?
 
Thanks for the advice guys. Ripped the wheels off and did the AM Schweser this morning and scored a pretty feeble 58%. Although to be fair I still have more work to do on derivatives and other strong areas like ethics werent in the paper.
My personal feeling of the morning paper was that it was much more tricky then I thought it would be. There were a lot of sensible guesses and quite a few complete guesses. The wording was a bit all over the place and i struggled to find out what they were actually asking.
I am sure the CFA styling on the day will be more simplistic. I’ve managed to somehow get 2 weeks off work starting next week through to exam day so i’m going to hammer these out non stop until its all fully in!
 
I did some of the topic tests. Some were not too bad others were ridiculous. I remember the first one I looked at was Ericsson I think and I literally did not have a f*ckin clue what was going on so I just shut my laptop and went back to CFA EOC’s. I was like, no way I’m getting a panic attack in a library first thing on a Saturday morning haha
 
Hahaha Ericsson is the worst. Took me 3 go throughs before I was able to understand what was going on and do the calc. The key is to keep making go throughs and get used to reading more and more questions. Review what you get wrong very had and you are good to go
 
Mock exam 67%.Only Ethics was 40%.If somebody can learn for me the ethics I will appriciate it.I think CFA exam should focus much more on the “what to do with the raw input data” instead of figuring out ” what CFA institue actually asking” that is not real practical/live situation I belive ( but I am not working in the industry just try to imagine,if I do not understand what my client asking I am going to ask back even more times just to make sure technically we are in the same page).Question should be in plan language.Many times they are asking quite simple question but I think on one way which make sence but they are thinking on the different way and the point is 0,but not because of the lack of knowledge (just example like currency is going to the unfavorable direction and force me the close the open transection with significant loss.This is definiately stop loss,but the answer was due to leverage which also make sense but none of the answer was incorrect).
 
Kasseral & Ericsson. Whipped cream and chocolate. Due to moment of the special inspiration once I was able to solve both with 83 %. But it was unique experience…
 
Would you guys suggest doing previous CFAI mock exams would help? I am nearly complete with CFAi Topic Test. I plan to also take the 2016 Mock exams.
Or should I take Mocks from Schweser.
 
saurabhm wrote:
@Batman1: The main exam was much easier than the mocks
Click to expand...
Thanks. In what way was it easier?
Were questions worded simpler with less layers or were the concepts just simpler?
 
I would say both,if the preparation is decent, you will have a feel good factor after the exam :)
I had the same except in Ethics ( as I ddnt practise last year) and PM
I see that Blue boxes are key and EOC questions
next week am going to do all EOC questions again
Good luck!
 
blackscholesvol wrote:
Would you guys suggest doing previous CFAI mock exams would help? I am nearly complete with CFAi Topic Test. I plan to also take the 2016 Mock exams.
Or should I take Mocks from Schweser.
Click to expand...
Where can we find previous CFAI Mock exams? I only see CFAI 2016 mock exam and topic tests on the website. Can’t find any previous CFAI mocks.
 
saurabhm wrote:
I would say both,if the preparation is decent, you will have a feel good factor after the exam :)
I had the same except in Ethics ( as I ddnt practise last year) and PM
I see that Blue boxes are key and EOC questions
next week am going to do all EOC questions again
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Aren’t EOC questions too easy?
So you are saying the exam is not harder than EOC questions for L2? I remember for L1 EOCs were WAY easier than the real exam.
 
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