I did the CFA mock exam the day it was released (Aug 15th I believe) for the Dec 2016 exam and came out with a 61%. I hadn’t studied or reviewed any material for about two months leading up to the mock because I was taking another course. I did the mock right away because and was interest to see what I would score after being away from the material for so long and I was reasonably pleased.
From what I have been able to gather… (In order of difficulty): CFA mocks and topic tests > schweser mocks > Actual Exam > CFA EOC’s > schweser EOC’s
I’d say you want to be scoring at least 65 percent on CFA mocks and topic tests by exam day (preferably over 70%). I have never used the schweser material but I understand the level one mocks are slightly harder than the actual exam and the CFA mocks are significantly harder than the actual exam.
If you are consistently getting at least 65% in CFA mocks/topic tests and at least 70% on the schweser mocks then it sounds like those scores place the majority of candidates in a pretty strong position to pass the actual exam.
That being said, people on AF have claimed they never scored over 65% on any of the mocks and still managed to pass the actual exam. I suspect that if situations like that are actually true then they most likely are either exceptionally bright, got lucky on exam day, saved by a lower MPS, or happened to be writing among a ‘weaker than normal’ pool of candidates… or some combination of these.
I am hoping to be scoring a consistent 75-80% on CFA mocks by exam day. It not only gives me a raw percentage margin of safety but a difficulty margin too.