I also thought the exam was relatively easy. I know of a few questions I messed up on (gotta love those bait answers) but overall I think it went very well. This is also based on the fact that I come from a heavy accounting background (masters and CPA) so Level 1 FRA is a breeze for me. But I also thought the other stuff was fairly straight forward too. I noticed that a lot of the people in Boston where I sat were mixed. There were kids with sweatshirts from their MBA programs that were boasting about how easy it was, but there were also a lot of people that I overheard being unsure, even to the point of wondering if they should sit for the afternoon. So - don’t be discouraged by the people on here saying how easy it was. The reason it felt easy is because you put the time in, end of story.
I am going to agree with people on am being easier than pm. I am iffy on my feelings, I don’t feel like i guessed on many questions. As far as people, I know a lot were missing, I was in St. Paul and there was a bunch of snow the night before, plus a lack of plowing in the area. I sat next to a guy in his 50’s and next to a doctor, as in medical. I felt young in my test center but being 20 I might have been the youngest.
took the test in chicago. thought the entire thing was easy, though i screwed up ethics in the AM. there were about 300 or so people in Chicago. the hilarious part about the test was that our proctors were a bunch of Amish people. I almost burst out laughing when some Amish guy said he wanted to check my calculator. as if the Amish people are leading authorities on calculator tampering…
Hey Prophets I was in Chicago too and I thought they were like 1,000 people… You sure there were only 300???
JCM: haha I thought Dubai had around 500 to 600 when I saw people in the room but when I left I was told by all my friends who were taking the exam that there were at least 1300 or so … I was shocked; I guess some people, including me, have problems with observational skills lol
JCM Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hey Prophets I was in Chicago too and I thought > they were like 1,000 people… You sure there > were only 300??? didn’t seem like 1000, maybe 500 max… idk tho i was in the front row. maybe i didnt realize how far it went back.
I asked one of the proctors and he told me he didn’t know for sure, but he thought that they were a little over 1000 people, but I dont know…
How can you say an exam was not difficult then say you don’t think you passed? mriz21 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The exam was not difficult, i finished each > session in 2 hours, but unfortunately I am not > sure if I passed. The most relatively difficult > parts for me were ethics and quantitative methods. > In most of the schweser practice tests I got 75% > and above, in CFAI mocks a little lower. This > period till january is gonna be stressful for > sure.
This exam might look easy, but the result might say otherwise. I am still expecting only around 40% of test takers actually pass the exam. I don’t think the passing score will be above 70%. The more realistic passing score is around 60 to 65%.
If the passing score is above 70%, I will definitely quit this worthless program.
WTF Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If the passing score is above 70%, I will > definitely quit this worthless program. If it’s above 70%, I may sue CFA Institute.
LOL! You’ll never know the MPS prophets Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > WTF Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > If the passing score is above 70%, I will > > definitely quit this worthless program. > > If it’s above 70%, I may sue CFA Institute.
yea, CFAI will never release any information. You’ll have no evidence and get your case thrown out of court before it starts.
I wrote in Toronto and overheard a few conversations. Some guys were saying that they barely studied and still decided to write it since they already signed up and paid for it. Another guy said to his friend that the exam is “just one big math test” which made me laugh. I share a lot of the sentiments in this thread and felt that the exam was much easier than any of the mock exams I wrote. It was definitely much easier than the CFAI mock. I finished quite early in the AM session and struggled more in the PM because I was getting exhausted. I second-guessed myself a lot in the PM session and found myself erasing my answers and changing them. I think I was just rushing to answer without thinking. The one thing that really messed me up was the numbering of the questions. I was so used to the questions being numbered 1 to 120 for both sessions, that in the afternoon session I was thrown off by the questions being numbered 121 to 240. I know it’s a small detail but I was really used to basing my time on which question I was on (e.g. Question 60, halfway done). At this point I’m not really worried about passing. If I had to write it again, I’m not going to be as stressed as I was the first time around. But at the same time, I really hope all my hard work paid off.
agesixracer Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > The one thing that really messed me up was the > numbering of the questions. I was so used to the > questions being numbered 1 to 120 for both > sessions, that in the afternoon session I was > thrown off by the questions being numbered 121 to > 240. I know it’s a small detail but I was really > used to basing my time on which question I was on > (e.g. Question 60, halfway done). > Excellent point! I totally forgot to bring this up … Yes, a small detail but I felt a bit bothered because I was used to 1 - 120 in both sessions
I will be your man your protector your best friend
rossreb Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Although the exam was easier than I anticipated, I > still feel that I stumbled on several questions. > I averaged 75-80 on all of my practice exams. I > took 3 Schweser mocks and the CFAI mock with the > CFAI mock being by lowest score. It worries me > that everyone thinks that this exam was so > incredibly easy. Like I said it wasn’t nearly as > difficult as I had anticipated, but I still feel > there’s a very good possibility that I did not > pass. I ranged between a 75% to 84% on my Schweser mocks. I found the actual exam to be closer to the Schweser mocks than the CFAI mock so I’m definitely hoping for a pass. I thought the morning was fairly easy but the PM had some oddball definition questions. I liked the morning one better precisely because the morning had more quant/calc questions. I do sincerely hope that the Schweser mocks are indicative of exam level performance (given that you gave yourself exam day time constraints of 3 hrs when writing the Schweser). As long as I get less than 36 wrong in each exam I’m in the clear. I sincerely hope that the Angloff method and the “70% of top 1% of papers” yields a similar MPS (assuming that the average of top 1% of papers is 95% for an MPS of 67%). I’m just hoping that others who used Schweser found it valuable for the Dec. L1 exam, if only for my own personal self assurance.