Your lowest possible score

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CFALOBO

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After thinking about it and running a countless amount of calculations on paper and in my head, I believe my lowest possible score is 56%. This is my absolute lowest score, so there’s a very good chance I scored over 60%. If minimum passing scored is 63%-64%, which is the consensus among educators, I think I have a good chance. Worst case, I’m sure I’ll be able to knock it out next year as this past June was my second attempt. The material gets less hard when you look at it over and over and do practice problems. Repetition is truly the mother of all skill.
 
what did you base your estimate on? previous mock scores, how you felt on exam day or everything? for me, i kept an 84/120 as a minimum and allocated the wrong answers to different topics on the exam based on how i feel i did, and i kept that minimum just to feel good until results day.
Also, what were your scores like leading up to the exam? and did you repeat any mocks?
 
Anbu_ wrote:
what did you base your estimate on? previous mock scores, how you felt on exam day or everything? for me, i kept an 84/120 as a minimum and allocated the wrong answers to different topics on the exam based on how i feel i did, and i kept that minimum just to feel good until results day.
Also, what were your scores like leading up to the exam? and did you repeat any mocks?
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It’s based on my recollection of what I’m certain I got right on the actual exam. I took 7 mock exams and scored between 55 and 61% – I scored 61% on the CFAI mock. I did not repeat any mocks. I’m probably borderline passing because I know I screwed up on a few questions I knew how to do but forgot because of the time constraint and pressure.
 
i took only two mocks got a 55 and 64. I am pretty sure i failed on band 10. Maybe band 9 wih bad guess luck.
I think my lowest possible score is 70/120 which is (by most estimations 5 or 6 questions off the MPS) based on the tireless re-guessing i have done in my head. I think i knew 30 questions cold, then had to completely guess on 25 more (1/3 chance) then the remaining 65 i got it down to 2 answers (1/2 chance). If you add all that up, you get 70/120.
Realistically I think i did a little better than that. Gun to my head I think i got anywhere from 72-75/120 correct, which is indeed a band 10 fail. the ONLY REASON i am holding out some faint hope of passing is that….in my heart of hearts, and in terms of my gut feel, I thougt the real exam was easier than either practice exam that I took.
Either way, if/when I fail I am super confident heading into 2017. I just feel that a second pass through the material and i will KNOW it cold. and I do NOT think that i will need to study CFAI. contrarty to many others who fail, i think that schweser prepared me just fine for the exam. my failing had more to do with my study habits than schweser and these “gaps” people talk about.
 
My lowest possible score? Technically 0 I guess.
 
@Tommyjohn, I feel the same exact way. 56% (68/120) is my worst case – I mean total disaster, and 63% is my best case. I tend to do better on real exams, but this exam is the exception. I’m thinking band 9-10 as I probably fell short 2 to 3 questions.
 
CFALOBO wrote:
@Tommyjohn, I feel the same exact way. 56% (69/120) is my worst case – I mean total disaster, and 63% is my best case. I tend to do better on real exams, but this exam is the exception. I’m thinking band 9-10 as I probably fell short 2 to 3 questions.
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Don’t lose hope, in borderline case Ethics may come to rescue, and we don’t really know what could be the MPS.
 
Deal_Clincher wrote:
CFALOBO wrote:
@Tommyjohn, I feel the same exact way. 56% (69/120) is my worst case – I mean total disaster, and 63% is my best case. I tend to do better on real exams, but this exam is the exception. I’m thinking band 9-10 as I probably fell short 2 to 3 questions.
Click to expand...
Don’t lose hope, in borderline case Ethics may come to rescue, and we don’t really know what could be the MPS.
Click to expand...
Yes, I’m counting on Ethics to help. I’m certain I got 75% min. in Ethics.
 
@CFALOBO
I also found the real exam to be legit easier than either Schweser mock that I took. not MUCH easier, but noticably easier.
The thing with me is: the real exam played to my strenghts (qualitative concepts) and covered up my weaknesses (number crunchy-formulas). The PM seciton of the exam was so darn qualitative, we barely had to use our calculators. that played right into my hands as someone who knew many of the “know it or you dont” questions well, but struggled to memorize enough formulas.
Maybe my brain is playing tricks on me and grasping at straws for a pass but I remember leaving the AM section bloody and bruised, and leaving the PM section thinking I definitely got 40-43/60 of them right.
 
No one really knows. You could have mistakenly bubbled in the second answer on the third scantron bubble and every question is thrown off by 1, relegating your score in the 33% range. Right after I got home, I racked my brain for a list of every question I could remember and wrote it down. There were 17 I believe I got right, 5 I believe I got wrong, and 12 that I felt unsure about to some varying degree. Which, of course, puts me exactly on course to toe the MPS within a few questions pass or fail, assuming the rest of the exam played out similarly to that 34 question subset. I know it will be razor close.
 
Here is my logic when I would evaluate (I never estimated a number score) how well I did. I found the real exam to be pretty close in difficulty to what the Schweser mocks were (although a bit more straightforward). I did these problems in the exact same way that I did the problems on the exam. In fact I can remember a bunch of concepts from the real exam that I ran into on the mocks. I was scoring pretty good on the mocks and feel like I did about the same on the real deal as I did on the mocks. Therefore, I like my chances. I have been sleeping like a baby ever since the exam. We will see on the 26th - maybe I will quit sleeping after that.
 
I dont feel the same way as you (even though I wish I did) but I do agree that the Schweser mocks are roughly in line with the real exam. If anything the real exam is slightly easier (definitely more straightforward and less wordy, which they need to do for the non native english speakers).
On level 1, I was scoing consitently in the mid-high 70s (I even got a 78 once) and on the real exam it felt pretty similar. I eneded up getting above 70 on 12/13 sections.
This is where I am to be next year in April/May 2017: getting mid 70s on mocks and constant 4-5/6 on the CFAI Topic Tests (which IMO were worlds and magnitudes harder than the actual exam).
Do you guys feel that your lowest score etimate has changed since 6/4? I feel that i keep on going back and forth with what I feel I did on certain questions and sections.
 
@Tommyjohn, I right there with you, man. I left AM saying to myself: “why do I even try?” Very strange answer pattern didn’t help either.
After the PM, all of a sudden I had a chance, though I know I missed a few I had to get right to get over 75 right total.
 
I feel like I got at least half the questions right for sure. Maybe compeltely guessed on 10 of them and the rest I had a good idea but one of the other answer choices made me a little unsure. Taking that breakdown and assuming that I actually got 60 right 100%, got 50% of the ones I was unsure about, and maybe got 3/10 guesses that would put me at 88/120 or 73%. I beleive that is the upper band for my potential score.
Changing the assumptions and saying maybe out of the ones I think I def knew i got tricked a few times and had a 80% success rate on those 60. Assume the same 50% of the other 50 and assume that I got 0/10 of the guesses would give me 73/120 or a 60%. Forming the lower band of my potential score.
I feel like the upper band estimation is closer to how I actually felt about my performance but if we assume that I got something in the middle that would give me roughly a 67% which should be a comfortable pass. The estimation of my upper and lower bands are right in line with my mock exam scores. Looking at the exam this way has def made me feel better about my chances but also given my calculated range I could very well fail 9 or 10. Either way we’ll know in 2 weeks and can stop thinking about it
 
Just last week I would’ve judged all of you for wasting your time with this but as the day of reckoning draws near I too will waste time. I guessed completeley on 18, a lot, I know. But I felt really comfortable with the PM section. I estimate my score 60%-65% which not suprisingly is right in line with my mocks. I fully expect a band 9/10. Honestly, if I pass it will be becuase of some lucky guessing. I want my damn fail email already so that I can read the Game of Thrones books in peace and start hitting it hard beginning in November. I tried to cram this into 11 weeks and that was stupid. Still did 350 hours but those weren’t quality hours.
 
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