So retakers...how difficult is the PM session really?

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sk8247365

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The concept of getting killed in the AM and doing well in the PM has been a resounding theme.
I took a Schweser PM session and found it to be as difficult as any of the level 2 vignettes (difficult to get 4+ out of 6 on every one).
The general advice for studying for level 3 is to take as many previous AM sessions as possible. Are these adequate prep for the vignettes? Are the questions on the actual exam really as straight forward as people lead on?
I would really appreciate any insight from re-takers.
Thanks.
 
It’s about the same as L2. It’s probably just me, but I think Ethics is a little easier on L3.
 
PM isn’t too hard. But if you thought it was “easy” after walking out of the exam room, then chances are you missed a number of the curveballs being thrown.
 
I thought that the PM session of L3 was the easiest of all sessions across three levels. But I also overstudied and tried to focus on the AM session. If you do that, it makes the PM session seem like a cakewalk.
 
Greenman72 wrote:
I thought that the PM session of L3 was the easiest of all sessions across three levels. But I also overstudied and tried to focus on the AM session. If you do that, it makes the PM session seem like a cakewalk.
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+1
 
i dont know what to say… It hurt me a lot when i think about PM session
i was very confident in PM, done with 1 hour free but i FAIL with 6 sections below 50%. SO SAD.
PENTAKILL TWICE THIS YEAR!
 
It depends on the year. I’ve heard many people that took it before me that PM was relatively “easy”. I thought it was harder than the AM last year.
 
It’s definitely the easiest section of the entire CFA curriculum – there are a lot of easy points there if you’re prepared.
 
You can go to prior years’ results threads and run 40/60/80 scores on the PM. I had a spare 20 minutes at the end of yesterday and input the data into an excel file to get some estimates. I only ran 25 reported scores so small sample size, but the average PM 40/60/80 score for those that passed 2014 Level III was 69% (median of 70%). The results aren’t much different than the scores for Level II.
Scores are worse for the AM but 40/60/80 isn’t a valid method for AM b/c so many questions probably get 0’s. The 40/60/80 for AM was 66.1% (median of 64.8%), but that is probably materially biased upward b/c you’re crediting questions with “40” when scores were likely lower, if not 0. These are all passing scores, by the way.
PM looks like a place to make up points for most, but I wouldn’t worry about needing to score 80% on it b/c plenty of people passed with far lower PM scores. In fact, none of the 25 tests reported > 70% in all sections.
 
It sounds as though the upshot of your study (brief though it was) is that if you don’t do well in the morning, the afternoon won’t help much; but if you do well in the morning, the afternoon likely won’t hurt much.
I think that that’s an accurate view.
 
^Agreed. L3 is all about the morning session.
Pass the AM session, and you pass L3.
Fail the AM session, and you fail L3.
 
The MPS of the exam is roughly between 50%-70% and its challenging for L3 especially for AM session considering many people will do worse than they thought. The afternoon session could be the “last rescue” to be done with the CFA program and it depends on you how well you did in the AM session, so its a multiple effect
The format of the exam keeps changing every year, and honestly 2014 PM wasn’t easy as i thought compared with previous years as people were saying “piece of cake”.. They can flip the dice and throw a curve ball- completely new style item sets you haven’t seen before or you won’t expect to see it during your afternoon session.
The unique part about the CFA level 3 exam is that the item set questions may cover several study session topics. Where in level 2 you had an entire item set on just ethics, in level 3 an item set may ask about ethics and portfolio construction, or a combo of any of the study sessions.
 
Pm was harder than expected Not because it was
conceptually harder, but really ambiguous shit and
stuff that you’d iverlook in curriculum because really Boring topic.
 
As magician said above, AM session is so crucial that you can’t go with an attitude of making up failed AM season with good PM session. In AM session, when you fail, you fail hard and probably end up scoring extremely low on a question. A couple of those and you will not be able to offset in PM session.
 
One thing that helps with the afternoon section on L3 is that you can reasonably predict some of the major topic areas that will be hit based on what does and doesn’t appear in the morning section. If you’re one of those that likes cramming in between sessions like I did, this can be helpful
 
If you mess up the AM, you might as well not worry about sitting for the PM. Just know your material so you feel like you did OK in the AM so you can crush the PM and guarantee victory.
 
There is enough information available on how to tackle morning part of the exam and most popular opinion is to do BB Questions, EOC questions and past exams. It helps me as a candidate to know the path that I can follow to be able to do well on the morning section.
But what I haven’t seen is advise on how to tackle Afternoon section of the exam. Common notion is that if you are conceptually sound to answer an essay question, it shouldn’t be too difficult to pick the right answer out of three choices. From my experience with level 1 and 2 there was enough bank of multiple choice and item set questions from both CFAI and third party prep providers that helped me feel confident for the exam. But for level 3 most of the material is regarding morning section and I was wondering if Schweser mock exams along with few items sets on CFAI website are a good enough tool to prepare for Afternoon Exam Section ?
 
I know someone who totally got killed in the AM with below 50% on nearly everything and must have did AMAZING on the PM bc he PASSED! It is possible to be an essay train-wreak and pass.
 
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