this time last year, we were L1 candidates

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is it just me or are all the new L1 candidates faring a lot better than us in the practice exams? i didnt have a single score over 70% in any of the schweser exams and managed only 1 70%+ in the online exams..
 
wow, they are getting good scores. I was high 60’s/low 70’s for L1, and i don’t even want to talk about L2 because looking at my Schweser test scores I shouldn’t have even went to take the exam but by some miracle I passed.
 
80%+ on schweser for LI,
75% on schweser LII…
It’s all relative. doesn’t matter what you score beforehand, only the results on the actual exam.
I have friends who rung up 60’s in practice and passed. I have one that had 90% or so and had a bad day….
 
i agree, its just odd to see some really high scores.. like shark mentioned, i saw only 60-70s amongst the AF’ers last thanksgiving..
ive been going online to see what questions go unanswered so that maybe we can help them out..
i noticed this the other day, but some of the L1 candidates were sharing print screens of CFAI proprietary exams.. i would assume thats an infringement in so many ways…
i am surprised the forum administrator allowed this to go on for 70-odd messages or so, where candidates were discussing means to share the proprietary materials…
 
i agree with strikershank. all that matters is that one rises to the occassion. it’s the big one that we’re going for, not the tiny fishes in the pond.
 
Yes it does feel strange. Last year I ws worried about Level 1. Took six practice tests, got a 61 and a 63 and then 4 scores in the high 50s. Was averaging 57. Don’t know and don’t care how I passed. Story was no different for Level 2…averaging 58. Just glad to be a Level 3 candidate.
 
strikershank Wrote:
——————————————————-
> It’s all relative. doesn’t matter what you score
> beforehand, only the results on the actual exam.
Precisely, I still remember scoring a 50 on a practice test the night before Level 2 - didn’t help my confidence much but I don’t need to worry about it anymore.
 
i am so glad we are where we are..
the last 6 months have been memorable, esp. this thanksgiving.. you tend to forget how enjoyable bumming around thanksgiving is..
 
it felt so much better watching fresh prince reruns and eating myself into a food coma than forcing myself to take practice exams
 
I guess I wasn’t the only one getting low scores. Mine were precisely 46, 54, 56 on the three schweser exams. That’s why i didn’t feel like i should even show up for the test (obviously did). Passed with two sections 50-70 and one <50. Go figure.
If anything this has taught me a lesson: no matter how underprepared you feel, what anyone says or does, you gotta stick with it. On gameday, you can do some amazing things…
 
hey, i might have scored in the 60s but it did take me 4.5 hours or so to complete one section of the exam..
and i dont even want to talk about L2..
i cant believe 11 months ago, we were newbies in this cfa thing!
 
since we’re all in the same boat (2/2 and going for the trifecta), what did you guys study from?
I only bought the schweser notes for L1 and got myself schw. notes and the schw q-bank for L2. Even though I barely passed L2, I feel I lost points because of silly mistakes rather than having too many questions in the exam that were not covered in Schweser. Yes, treynor black was 6 questions in the exam and 1.5 pages in schweser, but who knows how I fared in that and god only knows how well I woudl have performed if I had used CFAI text.
I think what affected me the most, was the fact I felt scared that Schweser didnt cover all the materials thoroughly, so when I did come across TB, my fears turned into reality and I might have tBlacked out..
So Ive come to you guys now.. what will your strategy be for L3? Will you guys focus on the old tested and tried, or go with the conventional CFAI text and leave ABSOLUTELY nothing to chance? but really, how much of a risk is this, really? cant be more than 3-5% of your entire score!
hell, I am confused, I need help with this dilemma..
 
i don’t know what i’m doing on the level 3 forum - maybe looking for some motivation i guess! this is exactly what i need to hear …. the day before the exam and i feel really underprepared and very very nervous… i have taken 3 cfa exams and scored 65%, 66% and 62%. on all three schweser book 6 exams i got 65% and you’re right everyone in the L1 forum is doing so well! but i guess there’s still hope…
good luck for L3!
 
I don’t know how anybody else prepared, but for both LI and LII I read through the CFAI text and took pretty detailed notes. This lasted through half the curriculum, then I got impatient and a little bored, caved in and bought schweser. I’m hoping that with almost a year of time I can actually make it though the curriculum - start to finish. I’m a little less apt to use schweser for this one because I think it might not be helpful on the essay (having never seen the Schweser LIII I could be wrong). I might spend the money on a NYSSA prep course instead. Anybody else?
 
I actually 2 for 2, failed L1 the first time I took it but that was because i didn’t know what the exam was about and didn’t leave enough time or effort to study. All that aside, I used Schweser for both L1 and L2. Just like AbbeFaria, I started eith CFAI materials but just could not keep up with the readings and switched to Schweser. Now that I lucked out, I am trying to leave nothing to chance and studying from CFAI. I did purchase Schweser as well and I can tell you that it almost seems that for every 4 pages of CFAI there is 1 page of explanation in Schweser. Hence my observation and the dilemma:
CFAI - tons of reading where the LOS related information is scattered. You have to read all of it and infer the answer to the LOS. The problem is that I loose focus from reading so much info and can miss the important points.
Schweser - Solves the problem of volume by summarizing and picking out the answers to the LOS. The problem with this though is that Schweser sometimes summarizes too much leaving out potentially important information.
I have really been tempted to go with Schweser and I think I will. I will also refer to CFAI for each topic to see if there is anything else I might be missing. I don’t know if that will be efficient since I might feel that i need to read CFAI for everything. I will see how far I get by beginning of January. If I am struggling I think I will take a class.
 
hey cielito , those scores are at least 5% more than mine on average, and i scored over 70 in all L1 topics..
just go over some ethics today (i mean re-read ethics, if possible) and the schweser quicksheet and you should be good for tomorrow.
keep at it, youve come so close.
 
It seems weird that there is a CFA exam scheduled for tomorrow that I’m actually not attending to. For some strange reason I’m nervous and my stomach is in knots. I probably won’t get much sleep tonight. I guess it’s a Pavlov’s dog kind of thing.
 
I heard that starts to fade away several years after you get the charter….
 
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