If the only thing you write is the wrong answer, you get zero.
Yes so CFAI has the âtopic testsâ now called the question bank, with 1,108 questions - if you notice, a bunch are in the TT format and a bunch are just questions from the actual EOCs in the text. I did the full 1,108 on the CFAI site and all CFAI EOCs and BBs in the text books + the CFAI am mocks from 2018-2014
Did the TT help?
I feel they did - to me the topic test questions (including L 1 and 2) are a reasonably good approximation of what to expect, especially on the PM for L3. After finishing all the topic tests I felt very prepared - I was scoring well on the prior yearsâ CFAI a.m. exams (60%-70%) and scored pretty well on the Boston Society mock (60% am 68%pm) - this was my first attempt at L3, but IMO the actual exam was not what I expected. Felt lost at times on certain questions tbh
Hey guys just wrote the level 3 exam. Did anybody get weirded out from the progress report shown during the exam . When I completed the exam it showed 96% but I am almost 100% confident I completed every question in the afternoon.l session. I did leave some questions unanswered in the morning session, but I swear once I completed the morning session, the progress bar went to 50%. Some other individuals were apparently having similar issues according to the moderator with regards to the progress bar. Anybody have an thoughts on this or can share from your experience so I can ease my mind that I didnât miss any questions in the afternoon ? Thanks a lot !!!
I thought the progress bar would be for just the AM section. Like when time is down to zero, you have to have 100% progress 
At least I did have tons of time left when I finished all questions way too early. I think it would have been a better challenge with ~30 minutes less on each part or more questions.
How do the vignettes look one the real test? I just did the Kaplan computer based mock and the vignettes were very narrow, I found it incredibly tough to find the info.
Whatâs it like when doing the real deal?
Also. On the Kaplan cbt the some answer boxes state that only numbers are allowedâŚ
Do they specify things like that on the test?
Iâm not sure how literal I should take those instructions.
Should I not put âcombined probability =â because combined probability are words?
From what Iâve read, yes there are some questions where you can only put a numerical answer. All or none calculation type questions. Sounds to me that Vignettes are fairly short and concise. I didnât take the Kaplan test but on the real exam itâs a split screen, the case on the left and the questions on the right. There is a software tutorial in candidate resources for the types of question styles we may encounter.
Yeah I took another look at that. I found it somewhat comforting⌠the vignettes are a much more appropriate width than on the Kaplan cbt⌠Iâm pretty frustrated with that⌠pretty much wasted a key day.
Wrote today. Morning session good. I felt like I was home free. Afternoon session not so sure. Itâs in gods hands now!
Happy summer everybody. Talk to you in 6 weeksish.
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Took exam today. I felt it was reasonable except few tricky questions but AM was more of time management which i didnât manage well. Lets see 50/50 else be better prepared for november. But i with paper i would have performed low as i havenât written on paper in a while.
My thoughts and feelings exactly.
Took the exam yesterday. In Zurich. Exam center wise and CBT experience wise, it was good. Finally some technology being used in CFA. I am retaking the exam after 2017. In between I couldnât take.
This time I could complete AM (unlike earlier). Wish there was a way to show working (but that is the downside of tech). PM was ok. Time was not a constraint, but there were some curveballs. Not weird but some traps. Hopefully could avoid falling into them.
Completing all the Practice Questions on CFA page did helpâŚbut did help me pass? Well that is the question only results will answerâŚAll the best to everybody.
What I liked about the AM questions was how short and concise were the material in the vignettes. Not like the long essays on mocks. That made life a bit easy
This was certainly confusing. They could make the progress bar more useful by making it progress of the section and not the entire examination. The way it is now, it is not useful.
I have taken mine 2 days ago in London.
I really enjoyed the CBT experience, found it much better than the old way. Way less people, found navigating between questions and flagging them much easier on the computer than the paper. I was lucky that I was the only one in the room when I did my exam so managed to concentrate well.
Also had a 20 mins break in between. Only one thing I found confusing is that the progress bar at the top shows you how you are progressing in total (as in the two periods are counted as a 100%) so after one and a half hours in the first exam, I found that I am only progressing 30% so I freaked out and started going super fast, only to realise after I finished all the questions that the progress measures the whole exam period.
Other than that, a very good experience, glad that CFA has moved to computer based. I think the exam went generally well, I went feeling under prepared as I have barely finished the material and did zero mock exams and or questions (just probably half of the book questions after each reading) and was thinking my chances of succeeding are below 20-30% but left the exam feeling that there is 80-90% I will pass. It was either straightforward or I had no idea what I was doing, I will know in 6 weeks! good luck all and hopefully this will be our last CFA exam!
Definitely liked the Computer version than the paper version. Seemed less cluttered and easy to use.
Definitely the progress bar threw me off for a second.
The AM portion was much easier than PM. I answered all questions but was not 100% on PM questions, while was confident in the AM section.
Rest all depends on percentile and how well the others did.
Adding my two cents in here as well. Wrote the exam last Sunday and now coming back up for airâŚ
In general I came away thinking CBT has the potential to be a much better and more efficient process, with a few thoughts:
- I agree with the comments regarding noise distraction. Keyboards are noisy at the best of times, but when you have 20+ people in a small room all hammering away because they are nervous and stretched for time, it really ratchets up how annoying the noise is. They will need to solve that I think (e.g. ear plugs)
- I donât understand why there were not clear marks for the sub-sections. That canât be a technology issue and for me it made it much harder to plan time and know how deep to go with answers. I think they could/should change that in future. It also wasnât very clear in the pre-exam guidance that I saw and wasnât reflected in the CFAI Boston Mock, so came as an unwelcome surprise
- The forced entry text boxes seem odd to me, and unnecessary, particularly with no room to display workings. You could be 90% right on a calculation that takes a few minutes to work through, and get zero for it just for one slip of the finger under time pressure. I also thought the way they asked for the format was confusing âround to the nearest Xâ when the units were unclear in some instances.
- Copy and pasting case facts was a dream and big time saver vs handwriting, so I hope that everybodyâs software permitted that.
- Loved the ability to start and leave relatively flexibly albeit with caveats around the noise implications and I would suspect it risks making it much easier to cheat, which is a shame. I actually really like how over the top the CFAI are on the whole cheating front in terms of preventing it, as it undermines everything if the thing youâve invested 1,000+ hours of your life into doing âthe hard wayâ can be effectively counterfeited by dishonest people.
On the exam itself:
- I found it much harder than I thought it would be, particularly the AM section. I did eight CFAI past papers (via Schweser) and all four Schweser mocks and found none of them as time-pressured as the real exam (though to be fair the CFA Society Boston mock was very tight on time, too). That said I agree the vignettes themselves were much more clear than the mocks, which was a welcome relief.
- The afternoon was better for me personally as sometimes I use the question answers to infer what the question is actually getting at, as itâs not always clear. In prep I did all of the CFAI QBank and half of the Schweser QBank but still felt like I had underprepared when faced with the real deal. That said I finished with plenty of time, because if you donât know then you donât know. I think CFAI could consider amending the relative time allocations - it seems a bit artificial to make the morning so time intense and the afternoon easy by comparison (from a timing perspective). Surely itâs better to test and prepare candidates and future charterholders on their considered knowledge and understanding, rather than how quickly they can put together an answer with a gun to their heads.
- I echo the sentiment around Schweser notes for Level III. I used them for both Level I and Level II and thought they were good, but the Level III notes were much less comprehensive. To be fair the online resources (Masterclasses in particular) are worth a look if you are retaking in November - I thought they were really helpful distillations of the key concepts.
All in, net-net, I genuinely think Iâm borderline on passing, which is frustrating because I feel like I did a hell of a lot of prep work and just didnât get that bit of luck I needed on the day. If I have to retake in November I will definitely sign up for MM (havenât used him but have read nothing but praise online for his stuff). Either way big thanks, too, to @S2000magician for all the help over the years. In the nicest way possible I hope to never need to post another question again, but there may be road still left on this particular journey.
Good luck, all.
Took it last Saturday here in NYC. AM overall is not that hard compared to the Boston mock, but I was distracted earlier on because of the inefficient check-in process and noisy AC behind. Skipped one question and guessed a couple.
PM was much better and I finished an hour earlier. Definitely had some trick and weird questions and I had to guess.